Michael Cohn

A majority of accounting and finance executives in the U.S. and Canada are anticipating that their companies’ compliance burden will increase in the years ahead, though less than half expect the cost of compliance to grow.

The quantity of financial restatements from public companies has leveled off in the past four years and the severity of those restatements has remained low, according to a new report from the research firm Audit Analytics, but restatements have increased from accelerated filers for the third straight year.

Ninety percent of tax and finance executives of companies headquartered in the United States anticipate already heightened tax risks to accelerate in the next two years, compared to executives with 81 percent of companies globally who anticipate increased risk, according to a new survey by Ernst & Young.

The Internal Revenue Service allowed an estimated $13.3 billion to $15.6 billion to be paid in improper claims for the Earned Income Tax Credit last fiscal year, or about 22 to 26 percent of all EITC payments, according to a new government report, which found the IRS continuing to be noncompliant with a 2010 law that sought to limit improper payments.

The Internal Revenue Service has declined to file a petition with the Supreme Court to appeal a series of rulings invalidating its effort to require mandatory testing and continuing education of tax preparers.

The Indiana congressional delegation has sent a letter to Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen asking for an investigation into reports that hundreds of Indiana doctors and health care professionals have been victimized by identity theft.

The three founders of the enterprise resource planning and accounting software company Lawson Software have agreed to pay $5.8 million to settle charges with the Securities and Exchange Company that they engaged in insider trading ahead of the sale of the company.

The Center for Audit Quality and the American Institute of CPAs have issued a member alert discussing regulatory changes for audits and attestation engagements of brokers and dealers and futures commission merchants, including entities that are dually registered.

A tax preparer in Rochester, N.Y., faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $853,766 after creating fictitious employers for clients and filing tax returns claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit on their behalf.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued a revenue procedure and notice to provide temporary penalty relief to plan administrators who don’t file their Form 5500 or 5500 EZ forms on time.

Congressmen Mark Pocan, D-Wis., and Scott Peters, D-Calif., along with 21 other House Democrats, have introduced legislation to lower all federal student loans to 4 percent and allow borrowers to refinance their student loans at a lower rate.

A pair of Democratic senators said they intend to close loopholes in the corporate inversion tax rules that encourage multinational corporations to move their headquarters outside the U.S. by acquiring a company overseas.

The Internal Revenue Service said it is looking at a plan to realign compliance operations inside its two largest business units, Wage and Investment (W&I) and Small-Business Self Employed (SB/SE).

The Internal Revenue Service has agreed to turn over the rest of the outstanding emails from Lois Lerner, the former director of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations unit, to the House Ways and Means Committee.

The Internal Revenue Service is putting the focus on small businesses next week in connection with Small Business Week with a pair of webinars on independent contractors and major tax mistakes.

Thomson Reuters has formed a strategic relationship with Avention to give users of its ONESOURCE Transfer Pricing software access to Avention’s industry report module.

The Financial Accounting Foundation has issued its 2013 Annual Report, entitled “The Road Ahead,” outlining the future direction of the FAF and the standard-setting boards it oversees, the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the Governmental Accounting Standards Board.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has issued a proposed accounting standards update on “pushdown accounting” from FASB’s Emerging Issues Task Force.

Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen testified before the House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee on Wednesday about the 2014 tax filing season and other matters, including problems with administering the Earned Income Tax Credit and oversight of tax preparers.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has issued a supplemental request for comments on its proposal to reorganize the existing PCAOB auditing standards, while also providing an online demonstration of the proposed reorganization, presenting the existing auditing standards as they would look if reorganized according to the proposed framework.