Using Online Software Services Can Help Small Businesses Cut Costs. But Companies in Idaho are Discovering It Can Also Increase Their Tax Bills.   Steven D. Jones at the Wall Street Journal reports: ...

A Solid Checklist to Help Businesses Deal with the Immediate Hours after Discovery of Fraud The discovery of fraud within a company can be extremely unnerving and can introduce a certain amount of panic in business owners and accounting professionals. Here’s a checklist of things you should be sure to do—from contacting law enforcement and insurers to preserving evidence and communicating with employees. ...

There Are All Kinds of Different Standards to Consider In Sophisticated Valuations. Here are Some Tips. Control premiums are difficult to calculate.  Why?  Because there are so many variables. You may need to adjust earnings to reflect a control value (i.e., restating owner’s compensation and adjusting discretionary expenses). But wait: There’s more!  There are minority earnings. And a variety of people to ...

Arbitration Panels Don’t Know Everything a Financial Expert Does. But That Doesn’t Mean You Should Even Consider Talking Down to Them. Arbitration is somewhat similar to a bench trial, but experts need to present opinions somewhat differently than if they were testifying in a jury trial—and this is particularly true with experts testifying on financial issues such as economic damages.  Joe Epps explains why ...

Tax Court Judges Structured Trust Advantaged Repackaged Securities” ("STARS") as Illegitimate.  Costs to BNY/Mellon May Exceed $800M. The Internal Revenue Service won a high-profile tax shelter case involving Bank of New York Mellon Corp. on Monday, in a ruling that could cost the company more than $800 million.  John D. McKinnon at the WSJ Washington Wire reports the news: ...

Private Companies and Nonpublic Not-for-Profits are Exempted from a Particular Fair Value Disclosure as a Result of Recent FASB Amendment The Financial Accounting Standards Board responded quickly to concerns voiced in December to issue an amendment clarifying that private companies and nonpublic not-for-profits are exempted from a particular fair value disclosure.  Ken Tysiac at The Journal of Accountancy ...

It's Not Municipal Securities, Consumer Credit, or Commercial Paper:  It's the $17 Trillion Trade Receivables Market   Walter Kurtz at Business Insider writes that it turns out that the biggest financing market is not in corporate bonds or even mortgages. It's trade receivables. According to the Receivables Exchange, $11 trillion of trade receivables is originated by small and mid-size businesses and anothe ...

Watch Out, Wall Street!  The Federal Reserve, a Primary Banking Regulator, is Trying Harder to Spot Speculative Excesses Peter Eavis at The New York Times Dealbook reports: In a speech on Thursday, governor Jeremy C. Stein, who joined the Fed last year, focused on parts of the financial markets that show signs of overheating. He went into considerable detail, citing metrics that appear designed to spot bubb ...

Income/Franchise Changes in Wisconsin,  Sales & Use Exclusion in California, Nevada Supreme Court Upholds Margin Tax Initiative Deloitte State Tax Matters has a new set of updates on state tax law developments and changes. Deloitte's February 8th Issue includes additional detail on some of the cases cited and excerpted below. For more information, visit Deloitte's full State Tax Matters archive here. ...

Troopers Knocked on the Door.  Say They Were Greeted by a Stoned Man Named Clarence Stone. Everyone knows tax season can be an especially stressful time. ...

Last Month’s Fiscal Cliff Legislation Included Lots of Tax Provisions. But Not Just for Individuals — There Are Tax-Saving Breaks for Businesses Too.  Here’s What You Need to Know. Bill Bischoff at The Wall Street Journal Small Business Blog reports that last month's fiscal cliff legislation included some important tax breaks for individuals; a longer version of his article appears at MarketWatch.  Here's t ...

"It's a Huge Case for the Patent-Law Community." On One Side: Google, Facebook, Intuit.  On the Other? IBM. "Because the patents are often unclear, there's no way to know whether an infringement claim by a competitor or a troll is legitimate until you've spent $8 million in litigation fees," said Mr. Schruers Ashby Jones in the Wall Street Journal  reports this morning that a federal appeals court in Washin ...

Increased Transparency, More Automation, and More Access to Capital   Rod Ebrahimi, a columnist for the Entrepreneurs section of Forbes, writes that "Thousands of miles away from Wall Street, some David-sized companies in Silicon Valley are cultivating new trends that will change people’s relationship with money." ...

Want to Develop and Publish a Mobile App?  Demand is Real and Growing.  A Compelling Idea, Solid Plan, and Choice of App Marketplace are Key.  Jeffrey Drew at The Journal of Accountancy reports that with the digital delivery of products and services emerging as a top technology trend, CPAs are beginning to explore the development of mobile apps. What they have found so far is that the path to the Apple App ...

Royalty Rates in the Life Sciences are Under Increased Scrutiny. But Has That Caused Rates to Decline? Several medical manufacturers were accused of violating federal kickback statutes. Federal enforcement prompted many companies in the industry to review and revise the terms under which they collaborate with and pay healthcare professionals for contributions of time, know-how, and intellectual property. Ed ...

Appraisers Should Focus on Objectivity and Competence and Be Ready and Flexible to Deal with Unanticipated Challenges—From Vague Case Law to New Evidence to Erupting Personalities. Rand Curtiss expounds on his philosophy that business appraisal is about boundaries: limits on what we can do. Every work challenge is filled with a large number of people, each of whom have different boundaries. Business sellers ...

The FBI Says it Busted an 18-Person Ring that Spanned 8 Countries and 28 States.  Make Up. Pump Up. Run Up. Daniel Gross at The Daily Beast explains:  It’s not the latest exercise fad. Rather, according to the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, it’s the three-step process through which an 18-person ring allegedly committed a stunning $200 million credit-card fraud.   Here're the bas ...

Consider Three Types of Private Preferred Stock Transactions, Each with Varying Degrees of Relevance to an Indication of Fair Value: Simple, Strategic, and Tranched Preferred Financing Last year, the AICPA issued guidance on evaluating private transactions with regards to their relevance in estimating the Fair Value of other securities within an enterprise via the back-solve method. The McLean Valuation Ser ...

Six Days of Package Delivery and Five Days of Mail.  Does This Mean Stamp Prices Will Go Down by 16¢?   Michael Cohn at Accounting Today reports that the U.S. Postal Service said Wednesday that it will end Saturday delivery of letters starting in August, but will continue to deliver packages, in an effort to cut costs.  More: The Postal Service expects to generate cost savings of approximately $2 billion an ...

The IRS Has a Nationwide Organization of Approximately 2,000 Taxpayer Advocates to Help U.S. Individual and Business Taxpayers Resolve Problems.   Here's How It Can Help Advisors and Your Clients.  Nina E. Olson is the IRS’s National Taxpayer Advocate. Since 2001, she has led the Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS), a nationwide organization of approximately 2,000 taxpayer advocates who help U.S. individual and ...