Michael Cohn

The Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board appear to be growing tired of trying to resolve their many disagreements after 10 years of ups and downs in their relationship, and the main question now seems to be whether it will be an amicable split.

Accountants need to be wary of promoting their services as advisors who can help their clients achieve success at the same time the firms are auditing their books.

The congressional supercommittee called it quits this week only a couple of days before its November 23 deadline, unable to reach a consensus on either taxes or spending cuts.

The November 23 deadline for Congress’s deficit reduction “supercommittee” is only about a week away and effectively a few days less.

With only two weeks to go before a November 23 deadline, the congressional “supercommittee” of 12 that has been negotiating over cutting the budget deficit is now considering some far-reaching tax reform proposals.

The spectacular bankruptcy of MF Global this week has led to speculation about what led to the brokerage firm’s downfall.

The real-life inspiration for one of the card-counting blackjack players in the movie “21” told an audience at the Accounting Today Growth & Profitability Summit in Las Vegas about his system for winning at the casino tables and at life in general.

A few blocks away from the Accounting Today offices, the Occupy Wall Street movement is encamped at Zuccotti Park in New York.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board is finding more problems at the audit firms it is inspecting, not less.

As multinational corporations and lobbyists push for a reduction in the corporate tax rate and a tax holiday on repatriated foreign profits, the tax loopholes that have encouraged companies to shift their income abroad have managed to stay largely intact.

I discovered yesterday that a gift card that was supposed to expire this month, according to the front of the card, actually expired over a year ago.

H&R Block has made the decision not to offer refund anticipation loans next year, a result of the RAL business getting a lot harder for tax prep chains to operate in lately.

Taxpayers who have been affected by the wildfires blanketing parts of Texas may qualify for federal tax relief, as President Obama has declared Bastrop County and parts of the Texas hill country to be a federal disaster area.

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act is creating problems for not only wealthy taxpayers trying to stash their money in secret Swiss bank accounts, but also for Americans living abroad.

The Internal Revenue Service ramped up its use of liens, levies and seizures last year in an effort to close the tax gap, pressuring taxpayers trying to cope with the economic downturn.

President Obama has been pushing to extend the 2-percentage-point cut in the payroll tax through next year, but this is one tax cut that his opponents in Congress may not agree to allow.

Standard & Poor’s decision to downgrade the credit rating for U.S. debt could put new pressure on the members of the so-called “super committee” in Congress to agree on tax reforms.

Despite the debt limit deal that Democrats and Republicans in Congress managed to hammer out at the 11th hour this week, the U.S. Treasury is still facing the threat of a credit rating downgrade.

As the battle continues in Washington over how to avert a default on the government’s debt obligations, the possibility of imminent tax increases seems to be fading.

The so-called “cut, cap and balance plan” legislation that passed the House would require the passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would mandate a two-thirds supermajority to approve any future tax increases.