Wealth management

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has established a Center for Economic Analysis to study the role and relevance of the audit in capital formation and investor protection.

The American Institute of CPAs has written to the leaders of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee encouraging them to support the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2013, also known as the DATA Act (S. 994), which includes a provision calling for establishment of government-wide financial data standards for federal funds.

Thomson Reuters has released a new special report on year-end tax planning for 2013 for individuals and businesses.

Estate planning for foreigners living in the U.S.

Picking the right new broker-dealer requires careful thought

The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service have loosened the “use it or lose it” rule for flexible spending arrangements for health care, allowing participants in health benefit plan to carry over up to $500 from their FSA from year to year.

The Internal Revenue Service released the annual cost-of-living adjustments Thursday affecting dollar limitations for pension plans and other retirement-related items for tax year 2014, allowing taxpayers to contribute up to $17,500 to their 401(k) plans in 2014.

A pair of lawmakers have introduced legislation to simplify the Tax Code to enable families to more easily afford the cost of higher education.

PricewaterhouseCoopers US has released the latest edition of “Managing Your Wealth: Guide to Tax and Wealth Management,” the firm’s annual guide aimed at helping high-net-worth individuals, families and business owners better understand and play an active role in growing and preserving their wealth.

A measure that would put the brakes on the Department of Labor's proposal to establish a fiduciary standard for advisors to retirement plans was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives in a largely party-line vote on Tuesday.

Clients often walk in the door with a relatively predetermined idea about how they’d like to leave assets to their children. But for advisors, it is important to help clients take into account the issues they might not have considered on their own, or may not have considered important when developing their plan.

Congress should consolidate and simplify the types of tax-favored retirement plans now available to small business owners to minimize the cost and administrative burden imposed by the plans, the American Institute of CPAs told Congress.

Auditors filed fewer going concern opinions about companies last year, according to a new analysis of fiscal year-end 2012 filings, but that was largely due to company attrition rather than improved company performance.

Nearly seven out of 10 investors had confidence in the U.S. capital markets, according to a new survey by the Center for Audit Quality, and a record 79 percent had confidence in investing in U.S. publicly traded companies just prior to the government shutdown on October 1.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has scheduled an open meeting for Thursday to consider adopting attestation standards for auditors of brokers and dealers.

The CFA Institute has released the results of a survey of investor attitudes toward the varying proposals by the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board for accounting for expected credit losses.

Check out the digital edition of the October 2013 issue of Accounting Today.

The Internal Revenue Service has temporarily stopped sending out tax refunds, and the Tax Court has suspended operations during the federal government shutdown, as lawmakers in Congress continue their battle over delaying or defunding “Obamacare” for a year.

‘Obamacare’s’ opening day drew millions of consumers to the law’s core insurance exchanges, offering supporters and investors confidence that if the websites can stay up and running, customers will follow.

What financial planning and wealth management services are successful firms offering?