Small businesses can now qualify for up to $5 million in U.S. Small Business Administration-backed surety bonds for construction and service contracts. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) increased the limit from $2 million for SBA surety bond guarantees. The SBA’s Surety Bond Guarantee Program
Advertisement
The magazines
Protect Your Portable Data—Always and Everywhere
Their widespread use sometimes makes relatively new technologies seem safer than they are. In fact, even popular and advantageous innovative devices may have significant risks. Prominent examples include data-filled laptops and flash drives. Recurrent headlines make it clear: Your laptop could become one of the thousands lost or stolen every
Rogers Joins PCFRC
Chris A. Rogers, vice president–finance and administration at Infragistics Inc. in East Windsor, N.J., was named to the Private Company Financial Reporting Committee. The PCFRC is a FASB committee and is part of a joint effort by FASB and the AICPA to ensure that the accounting standard-setting process meets the
It’s Not Enough to Just Delete Old Messages in Outlook, You’ve Got to Compact
Q: My Outlook has been running really slow, and I finally figured it’s probably because my Inbox and Deleted Items files are huge. I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve accumulated several years of e-mails. So I recently spent an hour or so of quality time deleting messages. But now, after
Tap Into the JofA’s Web Site to Locate Articles of Interest
Q: I find your Tech Q&A column very useful. Is there some way I can track down items you published earlier? It sure would be handy. A: Several readers have asked about this, and yes, the magazine has a very comprehensive and easy-to-use Web site for locating articles. Go to
Obituary: Former AICPA President LeRoy Layton
LeRoy “Lee” Layton, AICPA president and board chairman (the equivalent to the current position of AICPA chairman) from 1972 to 1973, died March 22 in Longwood, Fla. He was 94. Layton, who was the AICPA vice president from 1970 to 1971, was also a former member and chairman of the
Wacky Tax Deductions
Bankrate.com surveyed accountants nationwide for its fourth annual survey of their clients’ craziest attempts to reduce their taxes. Here are some stories to share at your next party or around the office: An Arizona client sought a home office deduction for the toilet paper he bought for his house.
Banking
The FDIC’s Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) balance fell $15.7 billion, or 45.4%, to $18.9 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to the Chief Financial Officer’s (CFO) Report to the Board. The fund’s total comprehensive loss for 2008 was $33.5 billion. Insurance losses for the year totaled $40.2
Pricing on Purpose: How to Implement Value Pricing in Your Firm
A business is defined by the value it creates for its customers. Your price speaks volumes about your value proposition, more so than any other component of your firm’s marketing. The business world pricing revolution began in the 1980s, when many of the Fortune 500 companies began to employ professional
Stephen P. Valenti, CPA
You don’t become wealthy as a teacher, but you can become rich in other ways. One of those ways is being able to devote my summers to what I love most—acting. Although I’ve been interested in acting since high school, in college I was in only one production. After graduation,
Boost Your System Memory With a USB Flash Memory Stick
Q: I understand that the more system memory I have, the better my computer will perform. However, I’ve already loaded as much system memory as my computer can hold. Is there any way to add more? A: Yes, once you run out of slots in your computer, you can configure
The Power—and Vulnerability—of the Undo (Control+Z) Tool
Q: I was working in Excel and suddenly realized that I made a mistake when I entered a formula about 10 minutes earlier and that was screwing up a lot of what I did since then. So I turned to the old faithful Undo command (Ctrl+Z), and although it took
Student Loans Can Hold Tax Surprises
Due to rising tuition costs, the number and size of student loans have increased dramatically in recent years. Once the exclusive domain of college financial aid offices and hometown banks, education loans are now the subject of cable TV commercials and e-mail solicitations from major credit card companies. Many students
“Reasonable Cause” Requires Extraordinary Circumstances
I read with interest the article on “Representing Clients With Tax Delinquencies and Deficiencies” (“Tax Practice Corner,” April 09, page 65), as this is part of my practice. Of particular interest was the paragraph on abatement of penalties because that is often a key concern of delinquent clients. The authors
Ponzi Guidance Welcomed
The Ponzi loss safe harbor recently set forth in Revenue Procedure 2009-20 and Revenue Ruling 2009-9 brought welcome clarity to permissible treatment of such losses as well as the possibility of expedited theft loss deductions, practitioners said. “It’s about as taxpayer-friendly as one could have hoped for,” said Rick Klahsen,
No Second Class of Stock
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an S corporation owner’s argument that the corporation’s payments to her father, one of the company’s founders, had created a second class of stock that had terminated the S election. The daughter had unsuccessfully sought by that reasoning to exclude from her gross
Financial Reporting
FASB revised FASB Statement no. 141 (revised 2007), Business Combinations, to address application issues raised by preparers, auditors, and people in the legal profession on initial recognition and measurement, subsequent measurement and accounting, and disclosure of assets and liabilities arising from contingencies in a business combination. The application concerns
Experience, Not Just Education, Valuable for Professors
I read your article “Closing the Gap in the Supply of Accounting Faculty” (March 09, page 36) with another grimace on my face, as I have each time the AICPA has addressed this issue in recent years. The gap could be easily closed once the accreditation agencies come to the
Highlights
Significant changes next month will affect the way CPAs perform accounting research and reference accounting literature in day-to-day work. On July 1, FASB is expected to issue the FASB Accounting Standards Codification (ASC) as authoritative. The ASC will become the single source of authoritative U.S. accounting and reporting standards
IRS Proposes Basis-Tracing Regulations
The IRS has issued proposed regulations that propose a comprehensive approach for stock basis recovery. The regulations, if adopted as final, would apply across a broad spectrum of transactions. They will create a single model for stock basis recovery if a shareholder receives a dividend under IRC § 301. These
Features
FROM THIS MONTH'S ISSUE
Create interactive dashboards with Excel PivotCharts and slicers
Leave the static spreadsheets behind. This JofA Technology Q&A article with video walkthrough provides a step-by-step guide for creating interactive dashboards in Excel that decision-makers can use.
From The Tax Adviser
January 31, 2026
Trust distributions in kind and the Sec. 643(e)(3) election
January 31, 2026
Effects of the OBBBA on higher education
December 31, 2025
