The Latest

If the lame duck session of Congress fails to address the tax extenders, it will fall to incoming House Ways and Means Committee chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to see that they get passed early in the next session of Congress.

A former CPA and tax attorney has been sentenced to 57 months in prison and ordered to pay $2.2 million in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service for stealing the identities of deceased children.

The Center for Audit Quality and the American Institute of CPAs have jointly issued a new member alert reminding audit firms of the independence rules required by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

Palo Alto Software will now offer a certification course for accountants using its LivePlan business planning software.

Tax professionals who give advice to marijuana businesses in the states where marijuana is legal should not have to suffer adverse consequences because the businesses are illegal under federal law, recommends a new report from a key advisory council for the Internal Revenue Service.

Highlights of some of our favorite tax-related blogs from the past week.

Michael Balter has joined Marcum LLP as partner-in-charge of the firm’s Florida Region. He additionally serves as partner-in-charge of Assurance Services for the Florida Region and also has joined the firm’s executive committee.

As previously reported, Troy K. Lewis, chair of the Tax Executive Committee of the AICPA, spoke to a Senate panel on Tuesday, urging Congress to pass legislation that would give natural disaster victims access to permanent and prompt tax relief.

Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the former vice presidential nominee, has been selected by members of the House Republican Steering Committee to serve as chair of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, Congress's main tax-writing committee.

Sandy Johnson, the new president of the National Conference of CPA Practitioners, discusses her plans for NCCPAP and how her organization deals with Congress and the IRS, in an interview with Accounting Today editor-in-chief Daniel Hood.