Practice Management

“An emperor of a prosperous city who cares more about clothes than military pursuits or entertainment hires two swindlers who promise him the finest suit of clothes from the most beautiful cloth. This cloth, they tell him, is invisible to anyone who was either stupid or unfit for his position. The Emperor cannot see the (non-existent) cloth, but pretends that he can for fear of appearing stupid; his ministers do the same. When the swindlers report that the suit is finished, they dress him in mime. (acting out a story through body motions, without use of speech—Ed.) The emperor then goes on a procession through the capital showing off his new ‘clothes.’ During the course of the procession, a small child cries out, ‘But he has nothing on!’ The crowd realizes the child is telling the truth. The Emperor, however, holds his head high and continues the procession.”

The Internal Revenue Service has withdrawn a tentative assessment of more than $319 million in tax penalties against FedEx.

CCH Small Firm Services, part of Wolters Kluwer Tax and Accounting, has acquired IntelliTax, a tax software company formerly known as Orrtax Software Solutions.

An attorney for New York Governor David Paterson's chief of staff has attributed his client's neglect in filing tax returns between 2001 and 2005 to "failure-to-file syndrome."

The Internal Revenue Service said that more than 279,000 economic stimulus checks, totaling about $163 million, and over 104,000 regular refund checks, totaling about $103 million, have been returned by the U.S. Postal Service due to mailing address errors.

A recent study of unpublished Internal Revenue Service data has found that wealthier people are hiding their income at greater rates than those in lower income brackets.

The dispute between the American Bankers Association and the Financial Accounting Standards Board heated up as ABA president Edward Yingling called for a new accounting oversight board that would hold sway over FASB.

The Internal Revenue Service reported that it has seen a strong response to its settlement offer for two types of tax shelters, with companies agreeing to pay back taxes totaling billions of dollars.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has given new life to calls for an economic stimulus package, but exactly what it will be is anybody's guess.

“As the financial crisis on Wall Street unfolds with intense media coverage, we are losing sight of another crisis: more than a million families across the United States will face foreclosure in the next six months as the last of the subprime mortgages contracted in 2006 and early 2007 reset. Accelerating job losses and low wages aggravate the lives of tens of millions of families. In the rush to focus on Wall Street, these are the families whose lives must not be forgotten.”