The Treasury Department and Health and Human Services announced last week that in the coming weeks it will introduce “consumer-friendly” resources for taxpayers to use to comply with the new healthcare rules. Starting this year, taxpayers are facing additional paperwork for this year’s filing, causing concern for taxpayers and their accountants. Tax filers will now have to report whether they had healthcare ...

Despite all the talk about new changes underway now that Republicans will assume control of Congress and governorships in 31 states, much of the current tax issues will look the same in 2015 as they did in 2014, according to Forbes. Below is a snapshot of the top nine tax stories to watch in 2015: Business Taxes.  Will 2015 be the year of business tax reform? Probably not, according to Forbes, as the Afford ...

“Rome was not built in a day,” but efforts are underway to do it faster for international valuation standards. At the recent World Congress of Accountants, Sir David Tweedie, chair, International Valuation Standards Council, outlined the challenges facing the valuation profession when he stated and questioned the following: “The profession developed as secondary specialization by experts working in differen ...

Thanks to the U.S. Senate, IRA owners age 701/2 and older have until Wednesday, December 31, 2014, to make a direct transfer from their account to an eligible charity of their choice of up to $100,000 without paying taxes on the distribution. The senate approved the direct rollover in addition to more than 50 other tax provisions as part of the extender’s package on December 16, 2014—just two weeks shy of t ...

  In a recent valuation, Apple has been crowned the most valuable company on the planet, and second place wasn’t even close. After its stock hit a record high recently, Apple was valued at $700 billion. That’s $300 billion more than the runner-up, Exxon Mobile. It’s hard to wrap your head around these kinds of numbers, but imagine the enormity that is Google. Even with that kind of influence, Google is ...

  While the Comcast/Time-Warner merger is pending with the FCC, another mega deal has fizzled out. Toy giant Hasbro got cold feet in its $3 billion bid for DreamWorks Entertainment after its stock slid five percent after investors deemed the price way too high. Not to worry though, a new report from Ernst & Young showed 40 percent of media executives surveyed said they expected to make a buy someti ...

Five years ago, no one really knew what big data was and now, it seems it’s all anyone can talk about. Big data is the term used for information retailers, government agencies, and other organizations collect from the public that other entities might have a vested interest in purchasing because they produce ancillary products or services that could be marketed to the same individuals. While there has been m ...

  Merging with or acquiring another company isn’t just about consuming or becoming bigger than the competition. In an in-depth article with ABF Journal, Phil Isom and Dan Tiemann of KPMG outline the deals their organization has pursued in the last 12 months and the strategies behind them. The authors detail how M&A can and should be used as a growth strategy with an eye on bringing new talent, tool ...

  Back in 2007, the IRS and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) were hot on the heels of Switzerland-based mega financial institutions like UBS, Credit Suisse, and Wegelin for assisting wealthy Americans in hiding billions of dollars in foreign accounts. Part of the fallout included the enactment of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) in 2010, which requires all foreign banks to file reports wi ...

  The IRS has released the annual inflation adjustments for a number of provisions for tax year 2015, including tax rate schedules, tax tables, and cost of living adjustments for some items. In total, the IRS posted more than 40 updates. You can read them in full here. You can also find an excellent overview of all the changes at Forbes.com through the link below. ...

  With just six more weeks to go until 2015 is rung in, small business owners and managers can take simple steps now to minimize their tax bill next April, according to business advisory services firm Skoda Minotti. Below are five ideas small business owners and managers can consider from now until December 31: Make those needed office or plant repairs. For the most part, expenses for minor business pr ...

According to the Global State of Information Security Survey 2015 sponsored by PwC, the total number of reported cyber security breaches reported this year jumped 48 percent totaling 42.8 million new occurrences. That’s equivalent to 117,339 successful security attacks happenings per day. In addition, the compounded annual growth rate of detected security breaches has increased by 66 percent every year sinc ...

  During preparation as an expert witness for trial, it’s crucial to anticipate the potential strategy and line of questioning of the opposing counsel. Many expert witnesses role-play the scenario in advance with a colleague standing in for the attorney to uncover hidden weaknesses in their preparation and to quell nerves. While years of acting as an expert witness can leave one feeling like they’ve se ...

  At the close of August 2014, $1.1 trillion passed through American hands in M&A deals, while the global tally was $2.4 trillion. Those totals mark the highest year-to-date volume since 2007. While that’s great for the industry, not all these deals ended happily. When anticipated value doesn’t materialize after the deal is done, disputes can arise, usually involving future payouts related to perfo ...

According to Accounting Today, performance for private companies increased for the third straight quarter. Based on a report by Sageworks, sales for private companies grew an average of 8.6 percent in the past year, yielding an increase in net profit margins of nearly 7 percent. Among the industries seeing the highest increases were law firms and medical practices. The report also identified the 10 industri ...

  With all it does to prevent fraudulent tax returns, the IRS still paid out $5.2 billion in identity theft refunds in 2013. As if that wasn’t a big enough headache, imagine all the bureaucratic backtracking tens of millions of Americans who had their identity and cash stolen had to go through. Actually, that sum is just an estimate because the General Accounting Office (GAO) says that it’s impossible ...

  When it was announced in August that fast food giant Burger King had purchased Tim Horton’s, a Canadian coffee and doughnut chain, for $8.4 billion and was moving its headquarters from the U.S. to Canada, it surprised some, but shocked no one. What it did do was irritate lots of people in Congress. Some called the plan of America’s second-largest fast food chain to move out of the country unpatriotic ...

  On September 18, 2014, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued two new notices—one proposing changes for when a taxpayer can revoke healthcare coverage in a cafeteria plan and enroll in a plan on the health insurance marketplace exchanges; the second notice proposes an approach for how to measure the lookback period for determining who is a fulltime employee when an employee changes positions withi ...

  Daily trading of foreign currencies is estimated to be about $5 trillion—a staggering figure, no doubt, but the sheer volume of the foreign currency market coupled with other factors such as weakened international regulation, the misapplication of translation standards, and the introduction of virtual currencies (bitcoin) has given rise to an environment where hedging, speculation, and fraud are prev ...

  Executive managers of companies and not-for-profit organizations must make more uniform disclosures if there is significant doubt about a company’s ability survive, according to new standards released by the Financial Accounting Standards Board August 27, 2014. Under Accounting Standards Update No. 2014-15, Presentation of Financial Statements—Going Concern (Subtopic 205-40): Disclosure of Uncertaint ...