Financial Planning

Our 2012 Wealth Magnets are talking to their financial planning clients more than ever.

The focus of most taxpayers on their income taxes, small business taxes and potential estate taxes, with a gripe now and then about local sales taxes, misses a big chunk of the portion they pay every year: property taxes.

A new report from the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board indicates that auditing firms have apparently ignored or forgotten the lessons that came out of the Bernard Madoff scandal and similar financial frauds of recent years.

The Internal Revenue Service has released a new draft version of Form 706, the Estate (and Generation-Skipping Transfer) Tax Return.

Employers in a recent survey overwhelmingly said they favor keeping workers past retirement age.

The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards has written a letter to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau urging the recently established agency to create a ratings system for financial certifications and designations.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is paying nearly $50,000 to a whistleblower who helped prevent a multimillion-dollar securities fraud, in the first award paid under a new whistleblower program.

Small business-focused cloud accounting software provider Wave Accounting has acquired online stock research and investment tracking company Vuro.co.

New consulting program will help CPA firms see if wealth management is right for them.

As sales of exchange-traded funds boom, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy has released an investor bulletin on the investment vehicle that highlights the view that not all ETFs are created equal.