Practice Management

Anchin, Block & Anchin LLP has merged with H.J. Behrman, adding 26 accounting and tax professionals to Anchin's roster and building the firm's real estate practice.

The Internal Revenue Service has established rules for substantiating lump-sum charitable contributions made through the Combined Federal Campaign or similar programs such as a United Way campaign.

The tax prep season is just upon us, and it has some very interesting wrinkles already. To begin with, Congress once again enacted legislation just before it left for the Holiday recess that directly impacted tax return preparation. Then there is the concern over severe implications of the tax preparer penalty changes.

Want to know how to encourage younger people to stay at your firm?Re-assess their supervisory relationships.

Adding to its continuing professional education portfolio, Thomson Tax & Accounting has acquired AuditWatch, a high-profile audit training and process improvement consulting firm headquartered here.Terms were not disclosed. The deal became official Nov. 15.

CCH INTROS TAX INCENTIVES FINDERCCH has debuted a Web-based tool designed to find local incentives that can reduce income, property, and sales and use taxes, as well as identify enterprise zones and non-tax financial incentives. The Business Incentives Navigator on the CCH Tax Research Network allows users to search for statewide and location-based incentives. Users select an industry, followed by an incentive category such as investment, job creation, or research and development. Then they can select one or more jurisdictions.

Tax prep chains H&R Block and Jackson Hewitt said they are not concerned by the Internal Revenue Service's proposals to restrict the marketing of refund anticipation loans and require consent before tax preparers can share taxpayer information with third parties.

A new wealth management firm is launching as a result of a merger between Yampolsky Mandeloff Silver Ryan and Citrin Cooperman & Co. LLP.

Glass Jacobson, a wealth management and CPA firm, has acquired Finkelstein & Geser, another firm also based in Owings Mills, Md.

The alternative minimum tax isn't the only tax that will continue to surprise taxpayers if Congress fails to act on its repeal. The estate tax, currently set to expire in 2010, will return with a vengeance to a full 55 percent in 2011 if Congress does nothing.The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that in 2009 there will be 9,600 estates subject to the estate tax. While that number falls to zero in 2010, it will jump to nearly 62,000 in 2011, with increases every year thereafter.