The Latest

The other day I phoned an old acquaintance whom I hadn't spoken to in nearly eight years.I knew him only as a consultant to the hospitality industry, but in a previous life, he had been a partner at Laventhol & Horwath, which at one time was the seventh-largest accounting firm in the country with nearly 3,400 employees.

Congressman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, never reported rental income from a vacation property he has owned in the Dominican Republic since 1988.

Despite the gloomy employment statistics reported by the Labor Department, payroll processors are still seeing increases in hiring by small businesses.

The Internal Revenue Service has thousands of insecure, unauthorized Web servers connected to its network, putting taxpayer information at risk.

NetSuite has added support for Google's new Chrome browser to its accounting, customer relationship management and e-commerce software.

An Iowa man has been indicted for claiming a $240,009 refund of all the taxes he has paid, contending the Internal Revenue Service has no jurisdiction over him because the U.S. is a "fictional entity" and he is a "citizen of heaven."

U.S. and foreign tax rules increasingly influence where multinational companies are reporting their income is being earned, according to a new report that may influence tax legislation in Congress.

The Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008, recently signed without fanfare by President Bush, contains provisions that will, according to insiders, complicate tax returns for years ahead.The tax portion of the bill, the Housing Assistance Tax Act of 2008, contains over $15 billion in tax incentives that are offset by a number of revenue raisers.

Congressional tax reformers are taking aim at one of the most cherished tax breaks available to working Americans — employer-paid health insurance coverage.During the latest round of tax reform hearings before the Senate Finance Committee, experts in both taxation and health care presented their case for eliminating — or at least sharply reducing — the federal tax subsidies given for employer-provided health insurance, which now provide the average U.S. taxpayer with nearly $3,000 a year in benefits.

Ernst & Young has settled charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission for $2.9 million alleging a conflict of interest in its audits of three companies.The case involved a series of interviews that Ernst & Young distributed on audio CDs with the chief executives of various companies. The interviews were conducted by executive coach Mark C. Thompson, who was also a board member of three companies audited by the firm.