Practice Management

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D.-Ill., outlined his tax proposals in a speech at the Tax Policy Center in Washington, highlighted by a proposal for a tax cut of between $80 billion and $85 billion, coupled with increases in the capital gains tax.

The Securities and Exchange Commission's Enforcement Division came under fire in a report that criticized the division's oversight of its caseload.

Forensic accounting is hot for a number of reasons. The most obvious is that as a specialty it has become very lucrative. So much so, I know of firms that have stopped during traditional tax and accounting work. Also, accounting and auditing standards are increasingly delineating new obligations with regard to practitioners’ duty to protect against fraud.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, ranking member of the Committee on Finance, along with two committee members, is urging the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service to take action to ensure that families who lose their homes to foreclosure face more reasonable, accurate tax bills for their home loan debt forgiveness. "Working families who lose their homes are getting hit with huge tax bills," Grassley said. "Some of those bills are unfairly high and even inaccurate. The IRS needs to take steps to ensure the accuracy of the bill in the first place. Then the IRS should offer the taxpayer every opportunity to negotiate the size of the bill and a fair payment plan. The agency has plenty of authority to treat taxpayers reasonably in these situations. It needs to use that authority to serve taxpayers." Grassley and fellow GOP Finance Committee members Sens. Gordon Smith of Oregon and Pat Roberts of Kansas, wrote to the Treasury to urge these changes. "While the Congress considers the president's proposal for relief Americans shouldn't have to wait to get the relief that is needed right now," they wrote. "We strongly urge the Treasury Department to take immediate steps to encourage working families that face the difficulties that the President outlined in his (Aug. 31) speech to submit (and have the Internal Revenue Service accept) offers in compromise that will either eliminate or reduce the taxes that they owe due to cancelled mortgage debt on a primary residence."

Payroll and benefits outsourcing provider Paychex Inc. has purchased San Diego-based Hawthorne Benefit Technologies Inc., an online benefits and management administrator. Going forward, the company will now operate as Paychex Benefit Technologies Inc. The acquisition will give Paychex access to Hawthorne's proprietary BeneTrac system, which provides benefits enrollment and administration technology.

Female business owners are increasingly more educated and more willing to take risks, according to a newly released survey.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., has proposed a series of measures intended to provide tax relief and disaster assistance to farmers and ranchers as part of a revamped farm bill.

Congress held hearings last week on a grab-bag of tax topics, including carried interest, the effect of the Bush administration tax cuts, and the rapidly expanding reach of the alternative minimum tax, but neither of the other two issues is the ticking time bomb that the AMT presents.

The Internal Revenue Service is not doing enough to match incorrect or missing identification numbers on income and wage statements with existing tax accounts, potentially costing the U.S. Treasury billions in lost revenue, charged a Treasury Department watchdog.

Computer Sciences Corp. said it would restate its fiscal 2007 results after examining the impact of FASB Interpretation No. 48, or FIN 48, and discovering accounting errors for fiscal 1997 through 2007.