The Latest

Whether John McCain or Barack Obama becomes the country’s next chief executive, they will need to look not only at tax reform, but international tax reform early in their administration.“We may find it wise to get to [international] tax reform very early,” advised Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, during recent Capitol Hill hearings on the issue.

Mitchell & Titus, the largest minority-owned accounting firm in the U.S., has named Anthony S. Kendall as its new chief executive. He will succeed founder Bert N. Mitchell, who will retire at the end of this year after leading the firm for nearly 35 years. Mitchell will, however, continue as chair until 2010.

TAXPAYER ADVOCATE TO FOCUS ON ID THEFT

While in college, my primary means of transportation was an olive-green Ford LTD, an oversized and austere sedan more suited to transporting a family of five than a student attempting to wangle a date or two with available coeds. While the car ran reasonably well, for some reason, its left rear tire kept going flat. That tire was patched more than a cut-prone fighter before I emptied my meager savings account and bought one of the best brands offered at the time. The new wheel outlived the car.

I read with interest Cynthia Fornelli's letter in Accounting Today ("No lack of ethics at big firms," July 7-20, 2008, page 6).

The door to the proverbial "Boys Club" may have been cracked ajar, but there's still some heavy pushing to do to get it wide open -- particularly for women of color.That was the overwhelming consensus of Women of Color in Accounting, a recent study conducted by Catalyst, a New York-based think tank dedicated to expanding opportunities for women and business.

The 80 percent e-file goal, in place since it was proposed in the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998, was a major contributing factor to the growth in electronic filing, despite the fact that it fell short of the 2007 deadline, according to the Internal Revenue Service Oversight Board.

WRONG CALCULATIONS MAY AFFECT STIMULUS PAYMENTS

One of the advantages of the complexity brought on by social engineering in the Tax Code is that, when personal circumstances change and times get rough, there are usually some provisions in the code that come into play to provide a bit of tax relief. Tax practitioners can do a real service for their clients by alerting them to new or existing tax provisions that might be applicable to a particular taxpayer for the first time. Some of them may require the taxpayer to maintain records or be aware of requirements during the course of the year, so alerting them only at tax return preparation time may be too late for some of the tax benefits.

MAXXAM JETTISONS DELOITTE