Wealth management

A new report from the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board indicates that auditing firms have apparently ignored or forgotten the lessons that came out of the Bernard Madoff scandal and similar financial frauds of recent years.

The Internal Revenue Service has released a new draft version of Form 706, the Estate (and Generation-Skipping Transfer) Tax Return.

Employers in a recent survey overwhelmingly said they favor keeping workers past retirement age.

The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards has written a letter to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau urging the recently established agency to create a ratings system for financial certifications and designations.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is paying nearly $50,000 to a whistleblower who helped prevent a multimillion-dollar securities fraud, in the first award paid under a new whistleblower program.

Small business-focused cloud accounting software provider Wave Accounting has acquired online stock research and investment tracking company Vuro.co.

New consulting program will help CPA firms see if wealth management is right for them.

As sales of exchange-traded funds boom, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy has released an investor bulletin on the investment vehicle that highlights the view that not all ETFs are created equal.

Genworth Financial Trust Company announced a new program to help independent financial advisors find the trust companies best suited to working with them.

The estimated 72 million 401(k) participants have something to look forward to at the end of this month: On August 30, the Department of Labor's Employee Benefits Security Administration participant fee disclosure rule, dubbed ERISA 404(a)(5), will go into effect.

About 35 percent of women report using a financial advisor and another 35 percent who don't use an advisor would consider doing so, according to a new survey from Prudential Financial.

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced fraud charges and an emergency asset freeze against a Denver-based company and two Colorado residents for allegedly carrying out a $15.7 million Ponzi scheme that dragged in more than 120 investors nationwide.

Information technology spending by the global wealth management industry will reach almost $35 billion by 2016, and will include heavy investment in digital channels, predicts global analyst provider Ovum.

British soccer team Manchester United, which went public on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, said in its IPO filing that it may take advantage of the relaxed reporting and auditing requirements for so-called “emerging growth companies” in the JOBS Act.

Half a dozen accounting firms have been selected to help oversee compliance by the five banks that agreed to a mammoth national mortgage settlement.

More than a third of retirement plan participants admitted that they either “guessed” or “made up” their estimates for how much income they would need in retirement, according to a new survey, while only 30 percent said they consulted with a professional for help in setting their goals.

Swiss banks must lure affluent clients from emerging markets or face a “slow death” as the pursuit of tax dodgers by U.S. and European authorities results in outflows of assets.

The trendy new term in the high-tech arena is “crowdfunding.” Both the President and Congress jumped on the crowdfunding bandwagon as a way to show they are doing something about the economy by passing the JOBS Act. What exactly is crowdfunding? Here’s one introduction through the eyes of a professional accountant and auditor.

A proposal by the Obama Administration regarding grantor trusts has estate planners on edge as they ponder its implications.

The American Institute of CPAs has written a letter to the Internal Revenue Service, recommending that the IRS delay matching the basis information the law requires brokerage firms to report about taxpayers’ capital gains and losses with what taxpayers report on their income tax return.