Finance

Senator Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has written to White House officials questioning why big banks are benefiting from a Small Business Lending Fund that was supposed to be used to help finance small businesses.

The Financial Accounting Foundation said Wednesday that, as part of its oversight of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, it has commissioned an independent academic study of the purposes of financial accounting and reporting of state and local governments.

A group of six Republican senators has written to IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman asking about the agency’s recent move to impose gift taxes on donors to tax-exempt political advocacy organizations.

Senate Democrats failed to muster enough votes to advance a bill that would have eliminated tax credits for the five largest oil and gas companies.

The Internal Revenue Service has begun sending letters to political donors asking why they didn’t report their 2008 donations on their gift tax forms.

Not all of the state legislation drawing attention from accountants this year involves taxes (see States Enact Flurry of Tax Changes). Indeed, some of the most closely watched bills hit even closer to home for the profession.

Accountants across the nation barely had time to recover from the 2011 tax season before being buried under a blizzard of new tax law changes approved by dozens of state legislatures from Harrisburg to Honolulu.

The United States reached its statutory debt limit of $14.3 trillion on Monday and the Treasury Department took steps to create additional headroom to avoid a government default.

Several years before the birth of the Tea Party movement, I caught one of the local town workers stuffing my mailbox full of anti-income tax materials that included scores of inaccurate legal references and precedents where the courts agreed with a plaintiff who refused to pay taxes.

The House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing on the current structure of international tax rules and how they might be hampering American employers in global markets.

A long list of organizations representing small and closely held businesses sent a letter to the leaders of the tax-writing committees in Congress urging them to include them in any upcoming tax reform legislation.

While Congress tackles long-term tax reform, it continues to consider and enact piecemeal legislation aimed at specific areas. As a result, there are several bills afloat that, if enacted, would impact the ability of business to do business.

A group of nearly 30 congressional Democrats has written to the leaders of the Labor Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission expressing concern over a recent proposed rule redefining the meaning of the term “fiduciary,” saying it would have a negative impact on people with Individual Retirement Accounts and other retirement and savings plans.

The Senate Finance Committee held a hearing Thursday on tax breaks for oil companies, bringing together top executives from the largest oil companies to defend their tax credits.

A group of lawmakers has introduced a bill that would temporarily lower tax barriers to encourage American companies with earnings overseas to bring those dollars back to the U.S. for investment.

Three Democratic senators have introduced a bill that would end tax subsidies for the five largest oil companies.

Rep. Tim Bishop, D-N.Y., has introduced an energy bill that would eliminate some of the tax breaks enjoyed by the major oil producers.

Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 244,000 in April, but the unemployment rate nevertheless edged up two-tenths of a percentage point to 9.0 percent.

The American Institute of CPAs told a congressional subcommittee that it should urge the U.S. Small Business Administration to increase its small business size standards for small business accounting firms to $25.5 million from the current $8.5 million.

Republicans in the House and Senate introduced a bill Thursday that could drastically change the way states distribute unemployment insurance benefits.