Wealth management

A post-implementation review of the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s fair value measurement standard by FASB’s parent organization found the standard generally met its objectives, even though some investors have difficulty understanding fair value information provided in the financial statements, and their level of satisfaction with the information varies.

About 52 percent of Americans intend to spend their annual tax refund on necessary expenses such as loans, credit cards and other household expenses, while another 30 percent plan to put the money into savings and only 8 percent plan to invest the tax refund money, according to a new survey.

The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board has issued provisional standards for seven industries in the financial services sector.

A blue ribbon panel of public policy experts has released a set of recommendations to address the problem of underfunded public pensions.

Forty-five percent of the 1,000 investors in a recent survey expect to receive a tax refund, and among them, 61 percent plan to save or invest the money, according to a poll by TD Ameritrade

The New York State Society of CPAs is calling on the Securities and Exchange Commission to tighten its proposed regulations on crowdfunding, arguing the proposals would loosen the rules to the detriment of unwary investors.

PricewaterhouseCoopers has just joined the rest of the Big Four firms in officially sponsoring the work of the International Valuation Standards Council, which aims to create globally recognized and accepted valuation standards, particularly for financial instruments, and promote quality within the valuation profession.

Global assets under management are expected to rise to approximately $102 trillion by 2020, with nearly 50 percent of them in North America, according to a new report by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The Internal Revenue Service has filed documents in U.S. Tax Court claiming that Michael Jackson’s estate has severely undervalued his image and music catalog, telling the pop star’s executors that the estate owes an extra $505 million in taxes, plus $197 million in penalties.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued a revenue procedure to help taxpayers with so-called “mezzanine” financing in workouts and similar circumstances when they have debts that have been discharged in connection with real property.

U.S. Wealth Management CEO John Napolitano discusses how CPAs can start a financial planning practice and how the initiative can go wrong, in an interview with Accounting Today editor-in-chief Daniel Hood.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has increased its enforcement efforts against lapses in accounting and financial reporting, while cracking down ever more on financial fraud, according to a new report.

New research finds that material restatements of earnings that involve correcting accounting irregularities and not just honest errors, lead to a loss in company credibility with investors lasting substantially longer than previously documented.

Successful CPA wealth managers share their onboarding secrets.

A roundup of financial planning news from the previous month.

The building blocks of a successful FP practice

Congress voted in December 2010 to let wealthy Americans make tax-free gifts of as much as $5 million—and the money flowed.

President Obama introduced a new retirement savings vehicle that he called a “MyRA” in his State of the Union address on Tuesday evening, and the White House has followed up with more details on Wednesday about it.

While President Obama mentioned taxes a number of times in his State of the Union speech last night, the details were scant.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department have brought civil and criminal charges against a Chicago accountant who used his wife’s trading account to short-sell shares in the health care information company where he was director of internal audit ahead of the public release of the company’s financial results, earning more than a quarter-million dollars in profits.