Finance

http://www.accountingtoday.com/ato_issues/27_8/Time-to-abandon-fund-accounting-in-government-67588-1.html

The Securities and Exchange Commission charged a New Jersey-based audit firm and one of its founding partners Monday for their roles in the botched audits of a China-based company that failed to disclose related party transactions by its CEO and others.

With a political stalemate looming in Washington, the Treasury Department and the IRS released their contingency plan for what would happen at the service in the event of a government shutdown -- and one thing that wouldn't happen is any postponement of tax filing deadlines.

Much attention has been focused on the postponement of the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate—the requirement that businesses with 50 or more employees provide them with health insurance or face significant fines, which the Obama Administration delayed for one year.

The Securities and Exchange Commission charged JPMorgan Chase & Co. Thursday with misstating financial results and lacking effective internal controls to detect and prevent its traders from fraudulently overvaluing investments to conceal hundreds of millions of dollars in trading losses.

Accountants don’t think their small-business clients are prepared for the Affordable Care Act, according to a recent survey.

In a new ruling, the Tax Court has held that accounts receivable constituted related party debt under Code section 965(b)(3), and therefore part of the deduction claimed by the taxpayer, BMC Software, Inc., was disallowed.

The Internal Revenue Service has completed work on 91 of 132 applications for tax-exempt status from politically oriented groups and approved 70 of them, the agency’s acting commissioner said.

Republican leaders of the House Judiciary Committee released a set of principles Wednesday for taxing Internet sales, offering the first tentative move toward compromising on legislation passed by the Senate earlier this year that has not yet advanced in the House.

The Internal Revenue Service’s estimate of the so-called “Tax Gap,” the difference between taxes owed and taxes paid voluntarily and on time, needs to be more accurate, reliable, comprehensive and timely, according to a new government report released to the public Monday by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

The Internal Revenue Service is providing guidance on the application of the market reform provisions of the Affordable Care Act to health care arrangements such as health reimbursement arrangements, employer payment plans and flexible spending accounts.

As tax reform efforts resume in Washington this month, a new survey finds that over 70 percent of business tax professionals believe a detailed tax reform plan will begin to be worked on by the House Ways and Means Committee this year, and nearly 50 percent of the respondents think a tax reform plan will be put forward in the Senate.

The Congressional Budget Office is seeing a $400 billion reduction in the federal government’s budget deficit for the current fiscal year, thanks to increased tax revenues due largely to the expiration of the payroll tax cut.

Forty percent of Americans are spending more money on health care compared to a year ago, according to a new report by Bankrate.com, which found that only 8 percent are spending less.

Awareness of the implications of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, also known as FATCA, is growing.

A new program allowing Swiss banks to cooperate with U.S. tax authorities means that the days of U.S. citizens successfully keeping their numbered Swiss bank accounts hidden from the prying eyes of the IRS could be coming to an end.

The leaders of Congress’s two tax-writing committees have continued their tax reform road show tour with a stop in Memphis, Tenn.

The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service have issued proposed regulations to implement the information reporting requirements for insurers and certain employers under the Affordable Care Act.

The Supreme Court’s recent DOMA decision raised a number of questions regarding its tax implications.

The American Institute of CPAs is asking Congress to provide the Internal Revenue Service with “sufficient” funds to perform its duties.