The Latest

The House voted to set the inheritance tax at 45 percent permanently for estates larger than $3.5 million.

The American Institute of CPAs and the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants have updated the privacy principles that accountants can recommend to clients with more measures to fight identity theft.

Leaders of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship have introduced legislation that would make permanent the $250,000 Section 179 expensing limits for small businesses created under the Recovery Act.

The BDO International network of accounting firms blamed difficult market conditions for a slight decrease in annual revenues in dollar terms, although the network actually came out ahead in terms of euros.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued its 2010 optional standard mileage rates for calculating the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business, charitable, medical or moving purposes.

The accounting profession isn’t exempt from the hard-hitting recession and it’s always encouraging to hear when state societies step up and fill a need for their members in response to struggle. Such is the case with the Piedmont Chapter of the South Carolina Association of Certified Public Accountants by providing a scholarship fund to help those CPAs who have lost their jobs.

IMGCAP(1)]As businesses seek to turn information into knowledge, CPAs will assume more advisory roles by combining traditional services with consulting services.

A new survey of nearly 1,000 small business owners across the U.S. found that over three-quarters of them have not taken advantage of new deferred-payment loans guaranteed by the U.S. Small Business Administration, and more than half are not aware of the loans’ availability.

The Justice Department has filed papers seeking a federal court order to authorize the IRS to serve a “John Doe summons” on Ralph Janvey, the court-appointed receiver of accused fraudster R. Allen Stanford’s investment companies, in an effort to identify Stanford’s clients.

While shoppers in most states were hitting the stores on Black Friday looking for deals on toys and holiday ornaments, one state encouraged gun buyers to stock up last weekend on firearms thanks to a Second Amendment Sales Tax Holiday.