Michael Cohn

The tax-related talk in Washington lately has shifted from overall tax reform to specific fixes like eliminating about $4 billion in tax breaks for major oil companies.

The eleventh-hour budget deal struck by the White House with Republican and Democratic congressional leaders to avert a government shutdown over the weekend depends to a large extent upon some accounting sleight of hand to achieve the claim of $38 billion in spending cuts.

As Washington moves closer to the brink of a federal government shutdown, the battle lines are already being set for the next budget turf war.

General Electric is a company that has long been known for innovation going back to the days of founder Thomas Alva Edison, but now some of its greatest innovations may be in the way it avoids paying corporate income taxes.

One of the dilemmas facing many accountants and tax preparers this tax season is the problem of how to account for uncertain tax positions and deal with them on the IRS’s new Schedule UTP.

State budget deficits are prompting governors to slash spending, but also shift the tax burden away from corporations.

Actor Charlie Sheen has certainly managed to keep his name in the news in recent weeks, and now that his starring role on “Two and a Half Men” appears to have come to an end, we wondered what it would be like if he took a job overseeing tax legislation and accounting standards.

A tax credit that is supposed to help poverty-stricken communities is instead being used to finance at least two luxury hotels, an antique car museum, a small theater in an upscale neighborhood, and other dubious projects, while lining the pockets of wealthy banks and investors.

The unveiling of the Obama administration’s budget this week appeared to be only the opening act for what promises to be a long-running series of episodes involving spending, taxes, and cuts to favored and not-so-favored programs.

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.