Finance

The U.S. Supreme Court held the first day of a three-day hearing on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, starting with a consideration of whether an 1867 law blocks consideration of taxes that have not yet been imposed.

Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman denied that the agency is targeting Tea Party groups and giving them extra scrutiny before granting them tax-exempt status.

Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Doug Shulman warned Thursday of a delayed tax season next year unless Congress resolves questions over the alternative minimum tax patch and other tax extender items, and talked about the tax refund delays this tax season.

Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., has introduced a bill aimed at extending tax relief to Americans in danger of losing their homes.

The International Federation of Accountants has published a paper calling for enhanced financial management transparency and accountability in the public sector, especially in the midst of the sovereign debt crisis.

A bill advertised as creating jobs at small businesses and increasing their access to capital from the public markets would also knock down many of the auditing controls protecting investors.

House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., has introduced a Republican-backed alternative to the Obama administration’s fiscal 2013 budget, including a proposal to consolidating the current six individual income tax brackets into just two brackets of 10 and 25 percent.

James R. Doty has served for over a year as chairman of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, and in that time, the board has made progress in its efforts to inspect auditing firms in other countries, although China remains a sticking point.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has proposed new financial reporting standards for state and local governments to help them account for government combinations such as mergers, acquisitions and transfers of operations, along with disposals such as sales and transfers of government operations.

A congressional subcommittee plans to hold a hearing next Thursday on the 2012 tax return filing season, with one of the main topics to be the recent reports of tax refund delays.

The Senate failed to pass an amendment that would have extended a set of expiring tax credits for wind energy, biofuels, energy efficient homes and other tax breaks.

An amendment to a highway transportation bill that would have extended expired tax credits such as the Research and Experimentation Credit in exchange for freezing the salaries of federal employees for another year has gone down to defeat in the Senate.

Corporate audit giant Ernst & Young operates a lobbying firm in Washington, D.C., that has been hired in recent years by several corporations that were at the same time E&Y audit clients, prompting two senior lawmakers to demand closer regulatory scrutiny.

The world's largest accounting and auditing firms, known as the Big Four, have been pumping more money than ever before into U.S. lobbying and political campaigns as they confront new challenges from their regulator and Congress.

The Senate has unanimously approved a provision to a highway transportation bill that would revoke the passports of people with seriously delinquent tax debts.

The economy continued to gain jobs last month, with another 227,000 added in February, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday, although the unemployment rate remained unchanged from January, at 8.3 percent.

The Senate adopted an amendment to a larger highway transportation bill on Thursday aimed at cracking down on foreign tax havens.

The House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing to consider changing the tax treatment of closely held businesses in the context of overall tax reform efforts.

President Obama pressed for business tax reform in a speech before a group of business executives.

Swiss lawmakers have passed a tax proposal seen as key to settling a U.S. probe into Swiss banks with hidden offshore accounts.