Exchange-traded funds have been around for over a decade, but their growth in the past few years has attracted even the attention of outside rating services.The ETF channel now numbers over 200 funds with an aggregate $300 billion in assets. The growth in the marketplace gives advisors access to sectors in new ways that help maximize client service.

One wealth management strategy that has gained popularity in past years with many individual retirement account customers involves creating a limited liability company wherein the IRA accountholder is named the manager of the LLC.The accountholder retains control of all the assets held by the LLC. This includes having signature control over all accounts under the LLC on a day-to-day basis. Here's a quick run-down of some important facts.

The Internal Revenue Service has shifted its enforcement priorities from tax shelters to high-impact tax cheats -- including attorneys and CPAs.

If too many cooks spoil the pot, what do a bunch of auditors from various firms do to an engagement?Don't answer that.

When criticism of the Internal Revenue Service's revision of its more-than-30-year-old preparer disclosure rules first surfaced, it came as an attack from consumer groups outraged that rules were being eased to permit the marketing of taxpayer information.However, contrary to press reports, the IRS said that the proposed rules actually tighten existing requirements regarding the customer consent that a return preparer must obtain to disclose the customer's tax return information to third parties. In fact, explained IRS Commissioner Mark Everson, "For over 30 years, under the law, return preparers have been able to disclose tax return information with the consent of taxpayers."

Code Section 7216 governs the disclosure and use of tax return information by tax return preparers. Late last year, in Notice 2005-93, the Internal Revenue Service issued a proposed revenue procedure purportedly to update the disclosure rules to account for changes in return filing, particularly to account for the growing use of electronic filing and electronic signatures and the foreign outsourcing of tax preparation work.The proposals have set off some apparently unexpected protests from several consumer protection groups, basically concerned that the proposals make it too easy for taxpayers to unknowingly grant permission for disclosure of their tax information.

Government isn't an enterprise. Though it raises and spends money, owns things, has pension funds, works with budgets, and reports to stakeholders, it is fundamentally different from a business. And so its accounting must take a different form and serve a different purpose.Oddly enough, many accounting professionals in the private sector don't even know there's a difference, or if they do, they don't know why.

The Internal Revenue Service has released updated draft instructions for the new Schedule M-3, filed by large and midsized corporations, and which should be rolled out for the 2006 tax year.

Supermarket chain Ingles Markets Inc. settled charges that it improperly accounted for vendor rebates and allowances with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced an effort to provide broader and more timely public notice of important actions.

Whatever happened to account aggregation?

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox has said that the agency is leaning towards opening another public-comment period on its stalled governance rules for mutual funds.

In an exchange of correspondence, where the irony couldn't have been not lost on any of the authors, the Government Accountability Office offered 14 recommendations to improve the internal controls of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Panel on the Nonprofit Sector, composed of leaders from charitable organizations, has offered additional recommendations to Congress and the nonprofit sector as part of its continuing effort to strengthen the accountability of the nation's 1.3 million charitable organizations.

Companies are fighting more than just the internal controls provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act -- according to published reports, the whistleblower protections outlined under the law are also coming under fire in court.

Reuben E. Price & Co. Public Accountancy Corp., a small firm based in San Francisco, has been censured by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board for failing to take action after one of the firm's clients issued an annual report that appeared to be, but was not, audited.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board announced that the Securities and Exchange Commission has approved the board's recommended ethics and independence rules for auditor independence, tax services and contingent fees.

The International Federation of Accountants has released its 2006 handbook of standards.

With an advisory panel poised to formally propose that the Securities and Exchange Commission relax the internal controls provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for some public companies, the panel's chairman is seeing audit troubles of a company on whose board he serves dragged into the spotlight.

An independent report, backed by data from Big Four clients, shows that corporate auditing costs for Sarbanes-Oxley 404 compliance dropped significantly in 2005.