Practice Management

The tab for the proposed bailout of mortgage securities concerns Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could run as high as $25 billion, according to an estimate released by the Congressional Budget Office.

A Senate subcommittee plans to release another blockbuster report on the use of foreign tax havens after the first reports caused repercussions both here and abroad.

The Internal Revenue Service said it plans to send a second set of information packages to an estimated 5.2 million retirees and disabled veterans who have not yet filed their tax returns in order to give them their economic stimulus payments.

The New York State Department of Taxation and Finance has reportedly sent letters to 182,000 individual taxpayers asking them to justify the tax refunds they have requested.

Consideration of any tax reform for small business must take into account the difficulties small-business owners face when deciding how to structure their business and comply with the Tax Code’s complex requirements, said Dewey Martin, a Hampden, Maine-based CPA.Martin, who testified at the recent hearings before the Senate Finance Committee on business entities and small-business tax reform, is a small-business owner himself, as well as an advisor to 200-plus small-business owners and chair of the Accounting Department at Husson College in Bangor, Maine.

GAO SAYS IRS NEEDS TO IMPROVE INTERNAL CONTROLS

Going it alone is tough in the accounting profession. Better connections, improved ability to handle inter-regional and international business, better employee recruiting, and greater operating efficiencies are just a few of the elements needed to continue a healthy upward curve. Gaining these advantages, however, isn’t always easy. That is why many firms make the choice to join either an accounting network or an accounting association.No matter where a business is located or what niches and industries it serves, becoming part of a network or reaching out for an association affiliation can provide the tools to build a stronger business.

The event may be have been billed as The Forum for Women in Accounting, but the issues and topics discussed at the three-day confab here were decidedly not just for one gender.That was the overriding sentiment during the course of the conference, and one that resonated with the majority of the 250 attendees, which even included a handful of men.

The Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigation Division increased its enforcement activities last fiscal year after they fell behind in fiscal 2006, according to a new report.

Swiss investment bank UBS plans to stop offering offshore banking to U.S. residents after the bank was questioned about its clients' tax avoidance practices at a Senate hearing.