The Latest

It’s a rainy, somber day here in New York City and rightly so as we commemorate the tragedy that happened at the World Trade Center eight years ago.

The economy has offered a boon to the accounting industry in recentyears, but a time of reckoning has come and firms are faced with newrealities. They must discover new ways to do more with less whileincreasing profitability.

Timothy Burley has joined as tax partner at Weiser LLP.

IMGCAP(1)]Gordon Krater took the reins as managing partner of Plante & Moran in July, only the sixth managing partner since the firm was founded in 1924. He was first elected by the firm’s partners last October, and succeeded Bill Hermann, who had served as managing partner at the Southfield, Mich.-based firm since July 2001.

President Obama’s spirited defense of his health plan at his address to Congress should help prod reluctant lawmakers to start working together to get some type of reform passed.

SEC officials testifying at a Senate Banking Committee hearing pledged to do more to investigate Ponzi schemes.

The Internal Revenue Service has opened a new section of its Web site dedicated to various back-to-school tax breaks for college savings and tuition credits.

The IRS’s use of computer formulas is paying off for the agency, improving productivity and picking out returns that taxpayers agree to settle for the recommended additional amounts.

CEOs of financial institutions received an average 1 percent increase in total cash compensation in the past year, the lowest level in three years, according to a survey by accounting firm Crowe Horwath.

The American Bankers Association has written to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke asking them to raise accounting issues at the upcoming G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh in order to curb efforts by standard-setters to expand mark-to-market accounting to loans and debt instruments.