Journal of Accountancy articles from June 2009

Journal of Accountancy archives from June 2009

Wacky tax deductions.
June 1, 2009... Bankrate.com surveyed accountants nationwide for its fourth annual survey of their clients' craziest attempts to reduce their taxes. Here are some stones to share at your next party or around the office: * An Arizona client sought a home...

Slowing down the paper chase.
June 1, 2009... The typical office disposes of 350 pounds of wastepaper per employee per year, according to the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Going a little greener could benefit the environment and your business....

An efficient profit motive.
June 1, 2009... The sagging economy and the pressure to go "green" are prompting firms to become more efficient. Whenever you make staffing changes, set new goals or tighten your budget, you have an opportunity to reassess workflow, enhance technology or...

Protect your portable data - always and everywhere: data portability and data security are not mutually exclusive. Learn how to have both.
June 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] EXECUTIVE SUMMARY * Laptops, flash drives, and other convenient devices may have significant unresolved risk exposures. Unless you encrypt or otherwise protect the data they contain, you're endangering your...

Importing data into Microsoft Excel 2007 from databases and web sites: simplify the way you move data into a spreadsheet.
June 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Spreadsheets contain many tools for analyzing and manipulating data. The trouble is much of the data CPAs need to analyze resides in company databases or on the Internet. So, after finding the required data, you may...

Put your business on the map with Google Maps.
June 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Every firm's dream should be to have a free listing on a major search engine at the top of its first results page, allowing prospective clients to find the firm when they re searching for accounting, tax or financial...

The tech-savvy CPA: it's a tech-focused world. Are you in it?
June 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] When it comes to technology, are you a leader or a laggard? Do you embrace technology or shun it? This article contains questions and explanations to help you determine how technology-savvy you really are, and...

Executive compensation: what's reasonable? Safe passage through the minefield of deductibility.
June 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] EXECUTIVE SUMMARY * For public companies, IRC [section] 162(m) requires that compensation over $1 million be conditioned on performance. In rulings last year, the IRS said that an employment contract that...

Pricing on purpose: how to implement value pricing in your firm.
June 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] EXECUTIVE SUMMARY * Change the pricing culture in your firm from one that "sells time" to a value pricing firm that prices services according to the external value created for the client rather than the internal...

State taxation of telecommuters.
June 1, 2009... Walk into any office today--not just late on a Friday afternoon--and you might wonder where all the workers are. Most likely, they're telecommuting, from home or anyplace they can plug in or catch a wireless signal and log on--and for a lot of...

No second class of stock.
June 1, 2009... 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...

IRS sets procedures for tax return preparer penalties.
June 1, 2009... The IRS has issued internal memoranda setting forth procedures for consideration of tax return preparer penalties in taxpayer examinations. A memorandum by the Large and Mid-Size Business Division (LMSB) describes procedures for tax return...

A broker is what a broker does.
June 1, 2009... The Tax Court held that a woman's work as an independent contractor for a real estate agency enabled her and her husband to deduct losses because they were incurred from a real property trade or business rather than a passive activity According...

IRS proposes basis-tracing regulations.
June 1, 2009... 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...

Ponzi guidance welcomed.
June 1, 2009... 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...

Timely prosecution.(tax evasion)
June 1, 2009... A return filing date is not the only benchmark for measuring the six-year time limit within which the government must begin a prosecution for tax evasion under IRC [section] 7201. Criminal defendant Leonard Widman found that out when the U.S....

Clean energy gets a tax jolt.
June 1, 2009... From fitting a home with energy-efficient windows to harnessing the power of waves and tides, activities that conserve energy or produce it from clean and renewable sources enjoy new or expanded tax credits in the American Recovery and...

Student loans can hold tax surprises: student loan forgiveness programs.(from The Tax Adviser)
June 1, 2009... 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...

Statement no. 55 of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board - the hierarchy of generally accepted accounting principles for state and local governments.
June 1, 2009... SUMMARY The objective of this Statement is to incorporate the hierarchy of generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) for state and local governments into the Governmental Accounting Standards Board's (GASB) authoritative literature....

Statement of Position 09-1 - performing agreed-upon procedures engagements that address the completeness, accuracy, or consistency of XBRL-tagged data: issued under the authority of the Auditing Standards Board.
June 1, 2009... NOTE This Statement of Position (SOP) is an interpretive publication and represents the recommendations of the XBRL Assurance Task Force of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) Assurance Services Executive...

The last word. (accountant balances work, family, and acting)
June 1, 2009... 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...