Accounting education

I have dealt with many tax acts in the 30-plus years that I have been in professional publishing. When I worked at a tax publisher, I know tax legislation meant an awful lot of work. In one way or another, I would be involved in assembling the Code-as-amended, analyzing the effective dates, excerpting legislative committee reports, and writing or reviewing analyses. Besides the work, the legislation would almost always seemed to come down at a bad time, usually at the end of the year as Congress was about to adjourn. It was a real pain.

The Internal Revenue Service announced that it has reached an agreement with the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards to offer continuing education credits at the IRS Nationwide Tax Forums scheduled for this summer.

A growing number of Americans recognize that they're not saving as much as they should for retirement, a shift in attitudes that experts hope will lead to improved saving practices in the future.

Raymond James Financial Inc. announced an initiative that would require the restructuring of variable annuities offered through financial advisors at the firm's broker/dealer subsidiaries, Raymond James Financial Services and Raymond James & Associates.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued an updated and expanded revision of a revenue procedure governing its popular voluntary correction program for employee retirement plans -- the Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System.

Owners of closely held businesses demand a full skill set from their financial advisors. These clients have their personal and business lives uniquely intertwined. Add to that the high concentration of wealth in an illiquid asset, and the tax, legal, investment and personal issues become a challenge to unwind.The No. 1 driver of financial plans for this group of clients is succession planning. All the planning issues come into play in the decision of how and when to leave the company the client has built, and in whose hands to leave it. But the owner needs to consider both the personal side of the transition and the need to create income from the illiquid asset.

HBK SORCE and PRESQUE ISLE UNVEIL MERGER: CPA and business advisory firm Hill, Barth and King has merged Presque Isle Capital Management into its financial planning unit, HBK Sorce Advisory LLC.Terms were not disclosed.

Exchange-traded funds have been around for over a decade, but their growth in the past few years has attracted even the attention of outside rating services.The ETF channel now numbers over 200 funds with an aggregate $300 billion in assets. The growth in the marketplace gives advisors access to sectors in new ways that help maximize client service.

One wealth management strategy that has gained popularity in past years with many individual retirement account customers involves creating a limited liability company wherein the IRA accountholder is named the manager of the LLC.The accountholder retains control of all the assets held by the LLC. This includes having signature control over all accounts under the LLC on a day-to-day basis. Here's a quick run-down of some important facts.

Whatever happened to account aggregation?

Half of the chief financial officers in a recent poll said that their organizations don't reimburse staff for the continuing education credits required to maintain their professional certifications.

The National Taxpayer Advocate, Nina E. Olson, announced that the Internal Revenue Service has awarded $8 million in matching grants to Low Income Taxpayer Clinics.

Financial literacy scores of high school students continue to hover just around the 50 percent mark, according to the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy, a national non-profit organization.

My brother just retired from Cherry Hill, New Jersey, to Venice, Florida. "I used to be a doctor," he now says, and then turns to one of three books he will read in a week.

Personal bankruptcy filings dropped to their lowest level in 20 years during 2006's first quarter, according to financial research firm Lundquist Consulting Inc.

LEVEY FETED BY AICPA: The American Institute of CPAs named Steven I. Levey, CPA, PFS, the recipient of its 2005 Distinguished Service Award - the highest honor bestowed by the institute's Personal Financial Planning Division.The award is given annually to a CPA who most enhances the overall quality of personal financial planning. Levey, managing director at Denver-based GHP Horwath PC, was recognized for his contributions to the profession, including substantial volunteer efforts for the AICPA, chairing eight conferences, serving on the PFP Executive Committee and the Professional Liability Insurance Plan Committee, and his current post as a commissioner on the National Accreditation Commission.

As an asset class, real estate is growing in importance to professional advisors and their clients. Not only did the asset class provide high returns in the past few years, but managers kept improving the opportunities for investments. Enthusiasm seems to be growing for the class in general, and for new offerings in particular.The run-up in prices over the last few years grabbed headlines. But from the 30 percent average pace of recent times, advisors expect that performance will drop into a more reasonable range, perhaps in the high single digits.

Are your clients making the maximum allowable tax-deductible contribution to their defined-contribution plans (as much as $49,000 in 2006)? Would they be interested in contributing much more if possible? If the answer is "Yes," they should consider a cash balance plan.A CB plan is a qualified retirement plan established for the owner of a business and his employees. Tax-deductible contributions are made to the plan in the form of managed assets (stocks, bonds, mutual funds, variable annuities, etc.) with the option of purchasing life insurance inside the plan.

There's a new sheriff in town at the country's investment advisors and broker/dealers.The Securities and Exchange Commission's new rules on the Investment Company Act of 1940 and the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 require firms to have a chief compliance officer who is held accountable for the firm's compliance with all regulations.

After months of speculation, Google rolled out a beta version of Google Finance on March 21, its own site bringing together pertinent information from across the Web about companies and mutual funds.