Finance

Although the legislative trends decided by next month’s elections won’t be known until the lame duck session of Congress and later, based on what we know now it may be a good time to consider selling a small business.

President Barack Obama and his Republican rival, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, engaged in a lively and at times ferocious debate that covered a range of topics, including taxes, the economy, Libya and women’s health.

Solyndra LLC, the failed solar-panel maker that received a $535 million U.S. Energy Department loan guarantee before going bankrupt, received objections to its bankruptcy plan from the Internal Revenue Service and the Energy Department.

Vice President Joe Biden sparred with Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan in a lively debate over taxes, foreign policy, the economy, Medicare and Social Security.

Bipartisan support for the R&D tax credit can mean benefits for small and mid-sized businesses

While the outcome of the 2012 presidential election is still up in the air, the nation’s accountants are putting their money behind the candidate they hope will change Washington.

(Bloomberg) Any congressional effort to overhaul the U.S. Tax Code should make deficit reduction a priority, instead of cutting high-income Americans’ tax rates, Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer said.

Employers added only 114,000 jobs in September, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday, but the job gains were enough to lower the unemployment rate three-tenths of a percentage point to 7.8 percent, the lowest level in four years.

With one debate already in the books, we’re not really any closer to knowing what taxes will be in the books, or not, come January. In fact, when the ball drops on New Year’s Eve, we may still need a crystal ball to tell us in what direction we are headed.

President Barack Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney traded barbs about tax policy and how they would control the budget deficit, with Romney telling Obama at one point that he might need to get a new accountant.

The New York State Society of CPAs has asked Congress to consider new legislation that would temporarily waive tax penalties for taxpayers who are forced to make early withdrawals from retirement accounts due to financial hardship caused by the economic crisis.

The Board of Trustees of the Financial Accounting Foundation announced that Robert H. Attmore, chairman of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, will retire in June 2013.

While the outcome of the 2012 election is still up in the air, the nation's accountants are putting their money behind a candidate many of them hope will change Washington -- Republican Mitt Romney.

Several months ago, the Mitt Romney campaign made his 2010 return public, along with an estimate for 2011. I had no intention of reviewing it, but sometime in mid-August, I linked to the return from a news story about the $4.8 million capital loss carryover on his 2010 Schedule D.

In an election season where taxes spark debate among all political camps, much of the dialogue has been focused on corporate tax rates impacting U.S. businesses.

In January 1999, a trust set up by Mitt Romney for his children and grandchildren reaped a 1,000 percent return on the sale of shares in Internet advertising firm DoubleClick Inc.

A new report from a Treasury watchdog revealed that federal agencies owe approximately $14 million in unpaid taxes.

A bill requiring federal agencies to place new controls on government charge cards and enforce more stringent penalties for violations by federal employees is on its way to President Obama for his signature, following final passage by Congress over the weekend.

Mitt Romney released his 2011 tax return this afternoon, which revealed that the Republic presidential candidate paid taxes of $1,935,708 on $13.7 million in income, mostly from investments, giving him an effective tax rate of 14.1 percent.

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations held a hearing on offshore profit shifting and the U.S. tax code, examining in particular the practices of Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard, while questioning an Ernst & Young tax partner who services HP.