Finance

The Treasury Department said it has opened its Temporary Guarantee Program for Money Market Funds, whereupon the Treasury will guarantee the share price of any publicly offered eligible money market mutual fund – both retail and institutional – that applies, and pays a fee, to participate in the program.

Senate leaders were expected to vote Wednesday evening on their version of the $700 billion financial bailout package after compromising on a series of tax breaks and increasing the limit on insured bank deposits.

In a massive setback for the Bush administration and the Treasury Department, House lawmakers defeated the mammoth $700 billion bailout plan for Wall Street, sending stocks spiraling and leaders on both sides of the aisle vowing to resurrect the package as soon as possible.

The issuance of the so-called Final Report of the Advisory Committee on the Auditing Profession to the U.S. Department proves conclusively to me that many of the powers that be need to gain a better understanding of transparency. It isn’t what’s in the massive document that tells me this, but it is what is specifically left out of both the document and the press release announcing the report’s approval.

The House has passed a bill that includes extensions of various expiring tax credits and deductions, including the R&D tax credit and incentives for renewable energy, along with a provision equalizing the penalty standards for tax preparers and taxpayers, but its fate remains uncertain as it faces the threat of a veto.

A new Web site uses a financial modeling program to calculate a user's taxes under either of the major presidential candidates.

The House has passed a fix for the alternative minimum tax to keep it from spreading to more taxpayers next year, as well as a separate bill to provide tax relief to businesses and families affected by natural disasters.

Under pressure from Congress and the IRS, H&R Block has decided that 100 percent of its tax products and services, including its TaxCut software, will now include free federal electronic filing.

The Senate passed by unanimous consent a bill that helps more children leave foster care and join permanent families, while clarifying the definition of a child for tax purposes.

A study of both presidential candidates' tax plans finds that they will both reduce millions of taxpayers' liability to zero.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke faced mounting criticism on Capitol Hill as they tried to explain their newly hatched bailout plan to a skeptical Senate Banking Committee.

The Senate passed a bill that would extend expiring tax cuts, patch the alternative minimum tax for another year, provide clean energy incentives and equalize the disclosure standards for tax preparers and taxpayers.

Testifying before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs about the financial industry bailout package, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke defended fair value accounting, but recommended that banks should be able to sell their assets at the "hold-to-maturity" value to the federal government.

The Treasury Department has expanded its financial bailout program to $700 billion in an effort to relieve banks and other financial institutions of their troubled mortgage assets.

Washington, D.C.-With the hoopla of the Democratic and Republican National Conventions still reverberating throughout the country and the election less than two months away, Accounting Today will examine the tax plans offered by both Democratic nominee Barack Obama and GOP candidate John McCain as each vies to become the 44th occupant of the White House.THE OBAMA PLAN

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board along with regulators, audit firms and investor oversight groups are hailing a decision by an appeals court that upheld the constitutionality of the audit firm overseer.Ending a two-year legal battle, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that the manner in which the organization's board members are appointed and overseen under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is constitutional. The decision was split 2-1 among the judges.

Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., plans to hire a forensic accountant to sort through his tax liabilities as he comes under increasing pressure to step down from his chairmanship of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee.

Senate leaders in both parties have agreed on patching the alternative minimum tax for another year, passing a set of clean energy tax incentives and extending several expiring tax cuts for businesses and families.

As one investment bank after another falls prey to the expanding crisis in the credit and mortgage markets, accounting regulators are trying to get a handle on the mess.

Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., revealed a decade's worth of his tax returns Friday, putting pressure on his Republican rival, Alaska governor Sarah Palin, to release her own returns.