January 2013 - Journal of Accountancy

The tax organizer files are starting to come in, the return preparation software is updated, and the staff has cleared its calendar for the long days and nights ahead. That’s right, it’s tax preparation season, and for 2012 returns, CPAs have much to consider that’s new. They may also have

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 business taxpayers resolve problems and work with the IRS to correct systemic and procedural problems. In this capacity,

Those who have worked for a company that struggled during the recent financial crisis know the scenario all too well: To cut costs, the business lays off workers. The survivors are grateful to keep their jobs and assume extra duties to keep things humming. Experts are now taking a closer

CPA firm owners say succession planning is important, and a growing number of firms have formal plans in place. Still, many firms and sole proprietors have a great deal of succession planning work ahead of them. Among the challenging statistics that emerged from a recent AICPA survey on the topic:

Small businesses have enough to worry about without having to wade through the intricacies of hundreds of pages of the health care legislation enacted in 2010: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, P.L. 111-148, as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act P.L. 111-152, referred to here

As California and the District of Columbia reach major milestones related to individual CPA mobility laws, profession leaders pause to reflect on what this means and assess the next steps in promoting cross-border practice. California Gov. Jerry Brown on Sept. 20 signed legislation that facilitates cross-border mobility for out-of-state CPAs

Since 2008, the U.S. government has been aggressively moving against U.S. taxpayers who have undeclared foreign accounts. Through a variety of mechanisms, the government has obtained information about U.S. account holders and their assets from jurisdictions previously thought nearly impenetrable. These recent developments portend the eventual erosion of traditional concepts of

On the golf course, an older client mentions that he has pledged an endowment to his alma mater. Knowing the client does not need his IRA funds for retirement purposes, the CPA mentions that certain taxpayers can make distributions directly from their IRAs without the distribution being included in taxable