Finance

The economic crisis is prompting more and more small-business owners to turn to their accountants for advice, according to a new survey.

A federal court in Texas has ruled in favor of the Internal Revenue Service as it seeks $226.6 million worth of back taxes from Sir Allen Stanford, the banker who has been accused of defrauding investors of $8 billion.

In response to public outrage over the $165 million in bonuses awarded to AIG executives, the House voted 328 to 93 to levy a 90 percent tax on the money.

The question of how to pay for universal health care could lead to a troubling answer: taxing health benefits. Congress and the Obama administration will be weighing a variety of approaches in the coming months, with the goal of offering legislation before the August recess. Some legislative leaders, such as former Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., have advocated taxing health care benefits as one way to pay for an expensive health care overhaul. Up to now, these benefits have been tax-free.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has raised the aggregate 2009 fee it assesses to public companies and other issuers to $157.4 million from $151.8 million.

Lawmakers continue to apply pressure to the Securities and Exchange Commission to reinstate a Depression-era rule that prevents traders from short-selling stocks whose share prices are falling.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has issued a pair of proposed fair value staff positions written to provide additional guidance regarding measurements and impairments of securities, after coming under pressure at a congressional hearing to ease mark-to-market accounting standards.

David Friehling, the accountant who ran the tiny auditing firm that serviced Bernard Madoff’s broker/dealer firm, has been arrested and charged with securities and investment advisor fraud.

“A threat and an opportunity!” is how most firms in Practical Accountant’s upcoming survey of regional firms termed this recession. An opportunity because clients will need them more than ever, and a threat for obvious reasons.

President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner unveiled a new effort aimed at unlocking the tight credit market for small businesses.

Provisions in the recently signed $787 billion economic stimulus package - the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 - will have a ripple effect across all industries, according to experts.

Is your firm interested in entering the federal government market? In an uncertain economy, the federal government can be a reliable source of revenues, often with good margins. A terrible economy, ironically, might be about the best time to try, due to a confluence of events - an unending spate of bailout and stimulus initiatives, coupled with the new administration's strong demands for transparency and accountability.Just administering the programs will require the Treasury Department and other branches of the government to use thousands of additional auditors and other accounting professionals. The requirement for extra hands on deck will be compounded by what the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee called an "unprecedented level of accountability" that will be part of the bailout and stimulus programs going forward.

MCGLADREY SUED IN MADOFF CASENew York - McGladrey & Pullen has been sued by a hedge fund for failing to detect red flags in Bernard Madoff's investment schemes, leading the hedge fund to lose $280 million.

As the economy worsens and unemployment continues to rise, many people who have stayed invested may be asking themselves if they made a mistake by not selling out and remaining in cash.Conversely, those who have cashed out and have been sitting on the sidelines are patting themselves on the back for a job well done. However, at some point they will need to figure out how and when to get back in the market.

The nation's small businesses are squarely in Washington's crosshairs - targeted for more rigorous, more painful scrutiny by both federal tax enforcement officials and the nation's auditing standard-setters.The first whiff of the shift in increased enforcement to smaller business came last summer, with a new study by tax researchers at Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse that discovered that the number of federal tax audits targeting small businesses with between $10 million and $50 million in assets increased by 29 percent from 2005 to 2007. Among the smallest companies - those with assets under $10 million - Internal Revenue Service investigations increased a whopping 41 percent.

Sixty-eight percent of CFOs have taken steps to boost employee morale in the midst of the economic crisis, according to a new survey, but 26 percent haven’t done anything.

Interactive data-tagging technology could assist government auditors in monitoring the spending done under the $700-billion-plus financial bailout plan.

The $410 billion spending bill approved Tuesday evening by the Senate to help fund the federal government for the rest of the year includes funding for some nine federal agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service.

Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 charges in connection with a gigantic Ponzi scheme that swindled his clients out of up to $65 billion.

American Institute of CPAs’ president and chief executive Barry Melancon reiterated his organization’s stance that fair value accounting was not a primary cause of the current economic distress and that the private sector — rather than Congress — should continue to set accounting standards.