Finance

Changes to tax provisions in a bill providing health coverage for 9/11 emergency responders helped enable the legislation to pass Congress despite the opposition of some leading Republican lawmakers.

Congress has passed legislation exempting accountants from the Federal Trade Commission’s Red Flags Rule requiring businesses to implement a written identity theft protection program.

Vice President Joe Biden said the administration would be better prepared to oppose the extension of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans when they expire in 2012.

Vice President Joe Biden indicated the Obama administration intends to limit the newly extended tax cuts when they come up again for renewal in 2012.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has issued revisions to its financial reporting entity standards to better account for business-type activities at government-run institutions such as state universities.

With just weeks to go before the end of the year, Congress has cleared tax relief legislation extending the Bush-era individual and capital gains and dividend tax cuts for all taxpayers for two years, as well as a 13-month extension of unemployment benefits.

The House approved an $858 billion extension of the Bush-era tax rates and unemployment benefits late Thursday night, a day after the Senate approved the bill, sending the bill to President Obama’s desk.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., urged the Senate on Wednesday to pass legislation to eliminate the expanded 1099 reporting requirements for businesses in the health care reform bill.

The Senate has passed a package extending the Bush-era tax rates for two years along with a 13-month unemployment extension.

A federal judge’s decision striking down a key provision of the health care reform law, along with the near-certain repeal of the 1099 information reporting requirements in the law, indicate that President Obama’s signature achievement of the past year is likely to be chipped away in the years ahead before many of its provisions even take effect.

The Bush tax cut and unemployment benefit extension legislation passed a key procedural hurdle in the Senate on Monday, overcoming the 60-vote threshold needed to come up for a vote later in the week.

A new post-election analysis of political fundraising activity by PACs sponsored by the American Institute of CPAs and several of its largest member firms suggests that the profession may have missed the opportunity to ride the wave that propelled Republicans to victory in 2010, by supporting incumbents, both Democrat and Republican, who were turfed out, and largely ignoring the Tea Party candidates who were the engine of the GOP's congressional landslide.

Former President Bill Clinton stood alongside President Barack Obama at a news conference and endorsed Obama’s deal with congressional Republicans to extend the Bush-era tax cuts and unemployment benefits.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has introduced a bill to extend the Bush tax cuts and unemployment benefits.

House Democrats met Thursday and overwhelmingly voted to block the Bush tax cut extension compromise announced earlier in the week by President Obama and Republican congressional leaders.

President Obama’s announcement on Monday of a compromise agreement with the Republican leadership should bring some end-of-year certainty to the tax landscape, but questions remain.

The controversial WikiLeaks cache of hundreds of thousands of documents from the U.S. State Department has been yielding many surprises, despite protestations to the contrary.

President Obama held a news conference in which he sought to quell criticism from lawmakers from his own party of the deal he had struck with Republicans to preserve the Bush tax cuts even for upper-income earners for two more years.

President Obama announced a deal Monday evening to extend the Bush-era tax rates for two years, as well as other tax breaks and unemployment benefits, after Republican and Democratic congressional leaders forged a compromise in meetings with administration officials.

The Senate failed on Saturday to overcome Republican-led opposition to two bills extending the Bush-era tax cuts to taxpayers making less than $250,000 and $1 million a year, prompting leaders to talk Sunday of progress toward a deal extending tax cuts for people at all income levels on a temporary basis, along with unemployment benefits.