Practice management

Accounting firm Marks Paneth & Shron has unveiled a series of recommendations for coping with the tightening economy.

Amazon.com has come out fighting against New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer's proposal to tax online sales.

As thousands of CPA firms across the country embark on that annual ritual known as filing season, more and more practices are looking toward document management and workflow solutions to ease the ensuing crush of paper.

The House Committee on Small Business held a hearing on business activity taxes and their impact on small businesses.

On a day when Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and six major banks announced a 30-day moratorium on foreclosures on some types of property, the Internal Revenue Service said homeowners whose mortgage debts were partially or entirely forgiven could claim relief on a newly revised IRS form.

CPA firms are growing their revenue and billing rates, thanks to effective practice management, according to a newly released publication.

Now that clients have received their W-2 forms from their employers, we’re starting to get into the main part of tax season.

Catapult Communications Corporation recently announced that it is changing accounting firms. What was intriguing about the press release was the detailed reason given for changing from a Big Four to a regional firm. It made the change “to significantly reduce its accounting expenses.”

Benefits such as health insurance are nearly as popular as salary in convincing accounting professionals to join a company, according to a new survey.

The Internal Revenue Service has released the Corporation Source Book, which presents balance sheet, income statement, tax and other statistics across various industrial sectors.

IRS BEEFS UP TAXPAYER PRIVACY

I am often asked what differentiates firms that are successful with technology from those that struggle. My standard response is that firms struggle with technology when they view it as overhead, but they invariably profit from it when they value it as a strategic asset.

Perhaps one of the most difficult things is to get young and old accountants to think and act strategically. Most accounting and tax professionals are very good at following work plans. But it's a different story when you ask them to change the way they think and act.

The Internal Revenue Service hopes that new interim guidance for tax preparers will ease concerns over the expanded preparer penalties and heightened standards of conduct that must be met to avoid the penalties.

The Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007 has introduced a new paradigm of tax strategies for those who are falling behind on their home mortgage payments (or anticipate falling behind as the result of a pending adjustable rate mortgage reset).

President Bush said he would sign into law the economic stimulus package passed by Congress.

The Internal Revenue Service has improved its online refund-tracking tool and tax information publication.

A survey of leading corporate tax executives predicts that taxes will not be a major issue in Congress in 2008, apart from the one-year alternative minimum tax patch and the one-year extenders package.

The Senate and the House have passed an economic stimulus package that adds tax rebates for 20 million senior citizens and 250,000 disabled veterans to a package passed by the House last week.

The Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service have moved several boxes on Form W-2.