Michael Cohn

The Internal Revenue Service needed to put the brakes on its tax refunds this tax season when newly installed filters to prevent tax fraud and identity theft held up processing for a week or more.

President Obama’s State of the Union address gave a preview of several of the administration’s tax policies over the coming year, including tax incentives to encourage more U.S.-based multinational corporations to bring jobs back home.

The Internal Revenue Service’s newest version of the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program is designed to give some reassurance to taxpayers who have been hesitating to come forward and disclose their foreign bank accounts, but the increasing complexities of U.S. tax law are leading more people to renounce their citizenship.

Groundhog Day isn’t until next month, but the Internal Revenue Service is again invoking that same sense of déjà vu with its third Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program in the past three years.

President Obama may have run afoul of the Constitution in using a recess appointment to appoint Richard Cordray as the director of the nascent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but the need for the bureau to take action has been growing.

Accountants and tax practitioners had a busy time this past year keeping up with all the changes in the profession. Here’s our annual list of the top stories in the past year that kept our readers coming to the site for the latest developments:

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.