United Rentals has agreed to pay $14 million to settle charges that it engaged in financial fraud and a broad range of improper accounting practices.

PricewaterhouseCoopers has released three new guides to help companies make the transition to International Financial Reporting Standards.

The Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department have issued new regulations that will make it easier for charities to gain tax-exempt status.

Federal taxes are the most important issue for small business owners, according to a survey by payroll processor PayCycle.

Rising gas prices, a declining housing market, the weakening of the dollar and fear of a recession — today’s economic conditions continue to point south, with no light at the end of the tunnel. Critical to these issues is the role of internal accounting and finance professionals, who in large part are responsible for making decisions that contribute to the success or downfall of an organization.For our economy to remain competitive, there needs to be a renewed emphasis on proper regulation and guidance within the profession. The demise of financial institutions over the years (the collapse of Bear Stearns, as an example) continues to validate why fundamental changes should be made to help ensure that financial reporting and internal control standards shift to a globally accepted method of risk management.

When the hot-air balloon lifted off, the dawn weather was impeccable. Shortly thereafter, a terrible storm hit and engulfed the airship in thick clouds, heavy rain and unpredictable winds. After hours of bad weather, the pilot was relieved to once again see the ground, but the landscape was unrecognizable. Soon, however, he spotted a strolling figure and cried out, “Where am I?” The person on the ground shouted: “You’re in the basket of a hot air balloon!” The pilot cried out: “You must be a CPA!” The surprised stranger answered: “How did you know?” The pilot smiled and shouted, “Because you gave me very accurate but totally useless information.”The CPA on the ground in this after-dinner-speech ice-breaker reminds us of those in our profession, probably a majority, who still cling to the status quo in spite of plentiful evidence and common sense that it no longer serves the purpose that it once might have, many decades ago.

Successful small-business owners tend to be hard-working, tenacious, smart and highly focused. They have to be. According to a study by Dun & Bradstreet, businesses with fewer than 20 employees have only a 9 percent chance of surviving a decade.Yet even those that are successful fail miserably when it comes to planning for their financial future. In fact, it’s their proclivity to hone in so intensely on their business — certainly an attribute of being successful — that often gets in the way of their personal financial planning.

CAR DONATIONS PLUMMETAutomobile donations have sharply declined since 2004, when Congress tightened the tax rules for claiming charitable deductions, according to an analysis of IRS data by Grant Thornton. Before 2005, taxpayers who donated a vehicle were allowed to deduct its fair market value. Tax legislation enacted in 2004 changed the rules to generally limit vehicle donation deductions of over $500 to either the actual proceeds from a vehicle’s sale or the vehicle’s fair market value, whichever is less.

Despite the gloomy employment statistics reported by the Labor Department, payroll processors are still seeing increases in hiring by small businesses.

The Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008, recently signed without fanfare by President Bush, contains provisions that will, according to insiders, complicate tax returns for years ahead.The tax portion of the bill, the Housing Assistance Tax Act of 2008, contains over $15 billion in tax incentives that are offset by a number of revenue raisers.

Congressional tax reformers are taking aim at one of the most cherished tax breaks available to working Americans — employer-paid health insurance coverage.During the latest round of tax reform hearings before the Senate Finance Committee, experts in both taxation and health care presented their case for eliminating — or at least sharply reducing — the federal tax subsidies given for employer-provided health insurance, which now provide the average U.S. taxpayer with nearly $3,000 a year in benefits.

Ernst & Young has settled charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission for $2.9 million alleging a conflict of interest in its audits of three companies.The case involved a series of interviews that Ernst & Young distributed on audio CDs with the chief executives of various companies. The interviews were conducted by executive coach Mark C. Thompson, who was also a board member of three companies audited by the firm.

In a pair of proposals that may eliminate much of the confusion surrounding audits of companies that outsource certain functions, such as payroll processing, the Auditing Standards Board has approved the issuance of an exposure draft that splits Statement of Auditing Standards 70 into two separate kinds of standards.Chuck Landes, American Institute of CPAs vice president of professional standards and services, said that the new standards follow the natural lines of division between types of audits — those of audit clients, and those of “service organizations” that perform outsourced functions.

RULING MAY INCREASE INSURANCE STOCK REFUNDSWashington, D.C. — A recent court ruling by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims could increase claims for tax refunds by insurance policy-holders who sold stock in insurance providers that went public.

Former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt will chair a Governance Leadership Council formed by risk management service provider RiskMetrics.

By now I am sure you might have heard about the wildly successful inaugural financial planning conference held in July in Chicago by this publication under the Accountants Media Group umbrella. Although the idea for the conference started back in March (a rather short period of time to get the word out), it was nevertheless a huge success and brought in attendees from all over the country wanting to know how to move upwards in the financial planning niche. Interestingly enough, two-thirds of the attendees were not already in financial planning but were looking for how to enter the field; only one-third were already in practice. Four major companies saw the opportunity in such a topic to sponsor the conference: Five Star Financial Solutions, Rochdale Investment Management, Honkamp Krueger Financial Services, and Oppenheimer. The speakers came from the upper tiers of financial planning from Stuart Kessler and Rebecca Pomering as keynote speakers to Sidney Blum, Gale Crosley, Garrett D’Alessandro, Mitchell Freedman, Jim Files, Gene Garrelts, Keith Heichel, James Herrig, Peter Jaworski, Bernard Kiely, Michael Parness, Larry Swedroe, Enrique Vasquez, Troy Waugh, Clare Wherley, Stephen Wild, and Stuart Zimmerman. The topics were wide-ranging from why financial planning makes sense to selecting the right business model to marketing and selling such services to success stories (including costly false starts and failures) to the importance of critical strategic partners to financial planning software to best practices. You can see where this was heading. The results from the attendees, sponsors, and speakers were highly laudatory, so much so that we are now looking at a conference for next year that will go into this area even more deeply with some nuts and bolts tactics such as exactly how to go about getting licenses and stories from those who just started up a financial planning practices with their personal pros and cons. If you wish to be on the mailing list for advanced information, by all means e-mail me.

Employment in the private sector fell by 33,000 jobs in August, according to the latest monthly report by payroll giant ADP.

The Internal Revenue Service has been asked to investigate James Manning, the pastor of Atlah World Missionary Church in Harlem, and the church's tax-exempt status after Manning repeatedly attacked Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., from the pulpit.

Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, said he planned to co-sponsor a bill that will update the deductible cost of operating a vehicle for charitable purposes.

Comparatively few universities will be educating students in international accounting standards this academic year, despite plans by the Securities and Exchange Commission to impose the new standards on U.S. companies.