Practice Management

Many accounting firms are well-managed. In fact, some are over-managed and under-led.There are numerous conferences and courses devoted to managing an accounting practice. The American Institute of CPAs, several state societies, most regional associations and several consultants sponsor such programs. Much attention is paid to management and very little to leadership.

The Internal Revenue Service is not doing enough to control system administrator accounts on its computers, putting taxpayer information at risk, according to a new report.

New proposed Internal Revenue Service regulations to determine the value of a taxable estate may create a series of traps for unwary executors and tax preparers, according to the American Institute of CPAs.Moreover, the regulations lead to the situation where an estate must be held open for a number of years to determine the amount of the deduction for a contingent obligation.

CPA firm Alpern Rosenthal said it is merging with Cass, Levy & Leone in an effort to expand from its Pittsburgh base to Florida.

The Securities and Exchange Commission voted with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System to implement the bank broker provisions of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999.

Sanders Morris Harris Group, a financial services holding company, has acquired a 25 percent ownership interest in iPro One, a company that provides CPA practices with investment systems and products.

The Internal Revenue Service is finally reaching out to former homeowners who have suffered foreclosure and now are being hit with taxes on any money they were forgiven on their mortgages.

The Treasury Department's watchdog group thinks it smells a rat when it comes to reports of Schedule C losses on tax returns, and it's urging changes in the Tax Code to establish "bright-line" rules for determining when an activity is a legitimate business.

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.