Michael Cohn

President Obama has launched a new initiative to fund small business entrepreneurs known as Startup America, which sounds like something that might better belong on Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley than on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington.

President Obama placed an unusual degree of emphasis Tuesday during his State of the Union address on tax reform, and while there appears to be more bipartisan spirit in Congress in the wake of the tragic shootings in Tucson, the prospects for getting an agreement are murky at best.

President Obama has issued an executive order directing federal agencies to consider the costs and benefits of regulations both new and old.

What full faith and credit? That’s the question many are asking as Congress is coming under increasing pressure to raise the debt ceiling yet again to avoid a possible default on the federal government’s credit obligations.

Every few years, as regularly as clockwork, Washington starts talking about “simplifying” the Tax Code.

The past year witnessed plenty of head-spinning developments in the worlds of accounting and taxes, and AccountingToday.com (along with its predecessor site WebCPA) was there to chart the latest developments.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo had one more piece of unfinished business before leaving for the governor’s mansion in Albany: file suit against Ernst & Young for allegedly helping its former client Lehman Brothers engage in accounting fraud.

A federal judge’s decision striking down a key provision of the health care reform law, along with the near-certain repeal of the 1099 information reporting requirements in the law, indicate that President Obama’s signature achievement of the past year is likely to be chipped away in the years ahead before many of its provisions even take effect.

The controversial WikiLeaks cache of hundreds of thousands of documents from the U.S. State Department has been yielding many surprises, despite protestations to the contrary.

One promising sign of President Obama’s meeting with congressional leaders Tuesday was that he didn’t emerge with his lip bleeding from a fresh elbow jab in the face.

The incoming Congress already appears intent on weakening the financial reform legislation passed by the outgoing Congress.

Please do not adjust your set. This is still WebCPA, but now it’s been rechristened Accounting Today for the WebCPA.

Republicans will gain greater leverage in Congress now that they have won control of the House and captured more seats in the Senate, giving them more influence over tax policy and financial regulation.

Tax forms and other government documents will now be subject to a kind of literacy test, under a new government law that so far has not attracted a whole lot of attention.

As the incoming chairman of the International Accounting Standards Board, Hans Hoogervorst has been named to a key position in the global accounting profession at a time of dramatic changes.

The Supreme Court kicked off its new term on Monday with a brand new justice who will be hearing about a number of tax cases, at least when she doesn’t have to recuse herself.

Wayne Carnall, chief accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Corporate Finance, has been seeing so many hits on the SEC’s website lately that he’s comparing the agency to pop sensation Lady Gaga.

Doctors have been opting out of the Medicare system at an alarming rate lately as the system goes through a tumultuous year, leaving some accountants’ clients in a bind when they suddenly cannot get their medical bills paid.

Washington is preparing to do battle over the decade-old question of whether income tax cuts should be extended to taxpayers at the upper income scales.

President Obama has not yet formally unveiled his plans for stirring up the sleeping job market through business tax breaks and infrastructure spending, but his ideas are already provoking skepticism.