The Latest

Wolters Kluwer Tax and Accounting announced that it has closed its acquisition of the TeamMate software business from PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board is looking for a new chairperson.

Tax software vendors Intuit and H&R Block were hit with a potential multi-billion-dollar class-action lawsuit alleging that they charge excessive fees for electronic filing.

Salaries of accounting and finance personnel continue to increase, according to a new survey.

CCH debuted a Web-based tool designed to find local incentives that can reduce income, property, and sales and use taxes, as well as identify enterprise zones and non-tax financial incentives.

Leaders of the Senate Finance Committee have introduced a bill to prohibit the Patent and Trademark Office from granting any further patents for tax strategies and tax-planning inventions.

I just received the results of a new survey that was conducted by market research provider Vizu Corporation on behalf of RetireeWorkforce.com (courtesy of my friend, Nazli Ekim of SS/PR) in which it is noted that more than three-quarters of people working today say they plan to continue being employed into their retirement years. In fact, almost 40 percent of all respondents report that they anticipate doing so for monetary reasons, either to meet daily needs or to boost their quality of life. These are not surprising results given what’s been happening with the economy today and especially the housing world. Actually, to break this down even more, 34.1 percent of those surveyed claim they will work to “make ends meet,” while another 14.7 percent note they seek employment to “earn extra income to boost their quality of life.” Interestingly enough, 22 percent say that their motivation for working would be “the mental stimulation and challenge” while a scant 4.7 percent explain that it would be for “personal and human interaction.” I always thought that last one was the primary reason. Apparently not…at least, not according to this survey. Joe Salice, the president and CEO of RetireeWorkforce.com, points out that attitudes about work are definitely changing. “People are perceiving work as much more of a lifelong endeavor, rather than simply a lengthy phase.”

The Securities and Exchange Commission has voted to remove the requirement for non-U.S. companies to reconcile their financial statements to U.S. generally accepted accounting principles.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board reaffirmed an earlier vote against a blanket deferral of Statement 157, "Fair Value Measurements," but granted a deferral for some assets and liabilities.

College students aren’t the best at managing the little money they have, so parents often provide them with some kind of allowance. But is there any way for them to really know how their kids are spending the dough? Yes, PayCards. PayCards aren’t a new invention, but employers and software vendors are starting to look at them in a new light and targeting a new market for their use. Traditionally, payroll services providers like CompuPay and Ceridian touted—and are still touting—these cards as beneficial to employees who don’t have bank accounts. Up to 25 percent of the working population in this country does not have a bank account, according to the American Payroll Association, and these products serve as debit cards that are loaded with a person’s paycheck amount each period, preventing them from having to head to the check-cashing store. Monthly fees for the cards potentially can be 60 percent less than those establishments charge and employees don’t need to undergo a credit check to receive these cards, which they can use for purchases, cash withdrawals or paying bills. But studies indicate that many of these so-called “unbanked” workers come from other countries and that beyond a lack of established credit or inability to pay checking account fees, they choose not to open accounts because they don’t trust such institutions to hold their money or they feel uncomfortable providing them with their financial information. So why would they trust anyone to hold their same money on a plastic card instead of in a vault? Valid point, admitted Karl Grass, senior vice president and general manager of Employer Solutions for Sage Software, during Sage’s customer conference in Chicago last week when the vendor introduced Sage Payroll PayCards. And an issue about which companies themselves will have to educate their employees, he said. Popularity of these cards increasingly is found among the banked workers trying to manage their budgets and divide funds between their mortgages, family vacations and college kids’ allowances, Grass said. Employees with bank accounts can allocate a certain percentage of their salary to their direct deposits and then have one or more cards filled with another percentage. When I attended college, I owned a student debit card, which contained a certain amount of money for me to spend on items in roughly a dozen university stores. According to the California Research Bureau, the concept was invented in the early 1970s, when students could use Stored Value Cards to purchase meals, books and other college-related items on campus. But as was the case with my alma mater, the purchases were restricted to certain university stores, not to mention the items were often overpriced. PayCards work more like Visa gift cards that are accepted most places credit cards are accepted, therefore giving students more choices of where to shop. Of course, parents don’t want to give their kids too many choices. If students use these cards instead of cash, their parents can track their purchases online and stay on top of where their money is going. Not that they shouldn’t trust them … After all, no one would think to buy beer with a PayCard. Would they?