The Latest

Practitioners tend to view tax season with mixed feelings. On the downside, there's getting clients to send you the data you need to construct their return, and determining how much of what they give you is actually germane to the return.

Recently, a former colleague whom I had worked with during an overlong apprenticeship at a local daily newspaper announced that he was taking on a second career after nearly a quarter century of toiling in some form of media or another. After whining for years how much he was paying his accountant to prepare his taxes and pointing out how his journalist's compensation package didn't exactly rival Rupert Murdoch's, he somehow envisioned a second act as a paid tax preparer moonlighting for a large franchise which shall remain anonymous. Sort of like the occupational version of a mid-life crisis, sans the Harley or the super-charged Camaro.

The Internal Revenue Service has posted the instructions for the estate tax form for people who died in 2010, the year that the estate tax was not in effect for many taxpayers.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has finalized a new standard aimed at simplifying how organizations test goodwill for impairment.

The Internal Revenue Service has released guidance aimed at clarifying the tax treatment of mobile phones provided by employers to their employees.

As tax year 2011 starts heading toward the exit, the annual expectation arises that year-end tax planning can somehow help lower tax liability before it becomes fixed for the year, as well as helping to identify and maximize certain tax opportunities that may end with the New Year.

PHOENIX

Back in late 2008, the Phillies were in the World Series. And it was right around that time that the economy was imploding. Banks were failing. The stock market was in a free fall.

Although weary from writing about the concerted push to embrace the International Accounting Standards Board and adopt IFRS in the U.S., we remain wary because lobbyists continue publishing propaganda-like announcements to advance their dubious interests.

Binder 2.0