Accounting Webrecent headlines Congressional leaders agree on farm bill, but veto possible House and Senate leaders agreed Wednesday to cut some payments to wealthy farmers in a nearly $300 billion farm bill, with floor votes expected to come next week.
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2008 net farm income expected to be another record breaker The U.S. Department of Agriculture is predicting that farm income in 2008 will be strong, perhaps higher than 2007 which was a record-breaking year. The USDA's Economic Research Service provides forecasts of farm income and expenses each year.
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Reporting farm income and expenses Straight from the horse's mouth, as it were, here's the low down on reporting farm financial activities, according to the folks at the IRS. The IRS's farm accounting fact sheet highlights some income sources and deductible business expenses of farmers.
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SBA offers free online training course on franchising Entrepreneurs considering franchising can now access a new online course from the U.S. Small Business Administration and FranNet to help them navigate the competitive franchise industry.
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AICPA proposes changes to CPA exam, seeks comment The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants released a draft proposal for public comment outlining proposed content updates for the CPA exam. The proposal increases emphasis on ethics and provides more in-depth descriptions of the skills necessary for entry-level CPAs. It proposes including International Financial Reporting Standards on the exam for the first time.
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Accounting degrees top 36-year high with 64,000 graduates this spring More than 64,000 students graduated with bachelor's and master's degrees in accounting in the 2006-07 school year, according to a new report by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. This is the largest number of graduates in the 36 years the Institute has been tracking this data.
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Amazon cries foul: e-tailer sues New York State over sales tax law The online giant Amazon.com Inc. has filed a complaint with the Supreme Court of the State of New York saying it is unconstitutional to require e-tailers based outside of New York to collect the state's sales and uses taxes.
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Female entrepreneurial activity dropping sharply The rate of entrepreneurial activity among women dropped sharply in 2007 while the activity rate among men and immigrants surged, according to a national assessment of entrepreneurial activity by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
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Retirement income outlook bleak for single women Women are at a much higher risk than men of facing economic uncertainty in retirement and, on average, they'll enter retirement with considerably less savings than men. Women face these unique challenges because they spend fewer years in the workforce, earn less income, and have longer life spans than men.
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Health insurance keeping potential retirees on the payroll Older workers without other health care insurance options are more likely to defer retirement to stay covered under their employer's plan, according to an analysis by Watson Wyatt Worldwide, a leading global consulting firm. Other factors, such as whether an employee has a pension, also contribute to decisions on when to retire.
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CPA mobility legislation gains national momentum Twenty-three states have approved laws to make it less burdensome for certified public accountants to represent clients across state lines.
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Most taxpayers don't want Uncle Sam preparing their tax returns American taxpayers strongly oppose having the IRS or their state tax agency take an additional role of any kind in preparing people's tax returns, according to a new poll released this week by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation.
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Canadian companies not ready for conversion to IFRS The vast majority of Canadian companies that will be required to convert from Canada's generally accepted accounting principles to international financial reporting standards in January 2011 are not prepared to make the change, according to a study sponsored by Canadian Financial Executives Institute (FEI Canada) and Ernst & Young LLP and released at a conference sponsored by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants and the International Accounting Standards Board in Toronto on April 23 – 25.
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IRS looking for new Advisory Council members The Internal Revenue Service has announced it seeks applications for its broad-based private-sector advisory panel, the Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council (IRSAC), which provides important feedback and recommendations regarding tax administration.
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Financial executives' salaries on the rise Financial executives on average reported nearly a 5 percent salary increase, according to a new study by Financial Executives Research Foundation (FERF), the research affiliate of Financial Executives International (FEI).
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IT Zone jargon watch - Top 10 management-speak crimes Our UK sister site, AccountingWEB.co.uk, has published a list we know you will find entertaining and all too close to home. Courtesy of UK online office space brokerage, the officebroker.com, the following is a list of the top ten management-speak crimes, some of which you are sure to find familiar.
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Federal regulators dismiss charges against H&R Block Federal regulators have dismissed a November 2004 complaint against H&R Block Inc.'s brokerage business. The civil fraud charges had alleged sales practices and supervisory violations tied to the sale of Enron Corp. bonds to investors prior to the company's failure in 2001.
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Legislation would eliminate fees for e-filing Software firms that handle online tax filing may lose the fees they’ve been collecting for the service under legislation developed by Democratic Sens. Charles Schumer of New York and Daniel Akaka of Hawaii.
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Geezeo: A new personal finance tool for those who don’t mind sharing People will discuss anything and everything online, so why not confessions of silly money mistakes, mountains of college debt or a credit card balance that your husband doesn't know about?
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IRS speeds up rebate schedule The Internal Revenue Service has stepped up the pace of transferring economic stimulus payments to millions of Americans, some of whom have already seen payments in their bank accounts.
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CPA Onlinerecent headlinesTools We Don't UseWebCPA.com: The temptation to take a camera to the event marking the opening of the Sports Museum of America was just too great. The event was held on Tuesday between our publications? offices and the Wall Street bull. The institution, just across Broadway, is the result of a nearly seven-year effort of CEO Philip Schwalb, who once worked with two accounting software VARs, and whose former boss, Doug Weintraub of Socius (when reselling operation was part of Centerprise Information Soluti
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SAP Ushers In New Era for Business Process ManagementSOA World Magazine: SAP announced plans for the release of SAP NetWeaver Business Process Management and SAP NetWeaver Business Rules Management. The addition of these planned capabilities will further establish SAP NetWeaver as the strategic platform of choice for customers that execute a service-oriented architecture (SOA) strategy
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Small Business Accounting Tools Will Help You Solve Your Accounting ProblemsPrimeNewsWire.com: There is no denying that owners of small business firms do not have a large accounting staff to help them track their company's numbers. On solving this problem, author Thomas Ward offers them sound solutions and effective methods to help them account effectively with the release of his new book Small Business Accounting Tools.
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Presentation to Showcase Advances in NetSuite's ERPPRNewswire.com: NetSuite Inc. (NYSE:N), a leading vendor of on-demand, integrated business management softwaresuites that provide Accounting / ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), CRM(Customer Relationship Management) and Ecommerce software for smallbusinesses, medium-sized organizations and divisions of large companiestoday announced that Jim McGeever, CFO of NetSuite, will present onTuesday, May 13, 2008, at 12:30pm (PDT) / 3:30pm (EDT) at the Baird GrowthStock Conference to be
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Microsoft & Navint Co-Sponsored Webcast: How Microsoft Dynamics GP Can Help If You Have Outgrown QuickBooksNavint Consulting: Are you concerned with the ability of your QuickBooks software to scale to your changing business needs? Do you worry about compliance and the security of your financial information? Have you experienced performance or reliability issues as your business has grown and become more complex? If you answered "Yes" to any of these questions, then you do not want to miss this webcast!
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InterDyn-ProData Honored as Accounting Technology Top VAR 100 ResellerInterDyn-ProData: Oklahoma ? May 2008 ? InterDyn-ProData is proud to receive for the fourth consecutive year, the distinction of Accounting Today Magazine?s Top 100 VAR (Valued Added Reseller). The VAR (Value Added Reseller) 100 list ranks accounting software VARs by the revenue of each organization and, according to Accounting Technology the threshold for making the VAR 100 list was $2.9 million. The list represents the top 100 Value-added Resellers (VAR) in the country.
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Nonprofit software gets better, even amid market turmoilWebCPA.com: Up until the beginning of 2008, the trends for nonprofit accounting software were simple and predictable ? accountability, efficiency and better utilization of resources. But the meltdown of the subprime mortgage market and the ensuing slip toward recession will change that landscape for the worse, in three ways:
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Pitney Bowes Releases Accounting SoftwareInc.com: Pitney Bowes Group 1 (NYSE:PBI) Software has unveiled the latest version of its e2 Account Management Suite, designed to help consumers and businesses more efficiently self-service their accounts. Version 5.4 allows developers and third-party integrators to build personalized self-service portals more quickly and cost effectively.
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SAP and RIM Usher in a New Era for Enterprise MobilityCNNMoney.com: SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) and Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM) (TSX: RIM) today announced a co-innovation partnership to usher in a new era in enterprise mobility. SAP, the leader in enterprise software, and RIM, the leader in mobile connectivity for the enterprise, have joined forces to change the way people work, by enabling anytime, anywhere mobile access to SAP enterprise applications through the widely adopted BlackBerry® platform.
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Lifting the Lid: Accounting rulemakers to speed up convergenceReuters: Get ready for a flurry of new accounting rules.U.S. and foreign accounting rulemakers will soon debut a new plan to speed up the convergence of international and U.S. accounting rules, with the aim that all major capital markets would be able to operate from one set of standards by 2013.
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Stop Begging Ben for Help Cooking Banks' Books: Jonathan WeilBloomberg.com: Orange County, California, gave us much of the mortgage mess. Now one of its local congressmen is seeking new ways to keep us from knowing how bad it is. Meet U.S. Representative Gary Miller, a real-estate developer by trade, whose home county once included five of the nation's 10 largest subprime home lenders. Last week, Miller succeeded in getting a little-noticed amendment attached to a bill aimed at helping struggling homeowners refinance their mortgages. The insert woul
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Will Americans Foul Up Global Standards?CFO.com: The idea of forcing American companies to file results using international financial reporting standards makes preparers and auditors in other countries edgy. "The world is very nervous about a U.S. move to IFRS because they are afraid [the standards] will turn into 25,000 pages of rules," asserted Richard Fuchs, a partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers, during a panel discussion Tuesday. Today, U.S. generally accepted accounting standards runs about 25,000 pages, while IFRS comprises ab
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IASB's Jones: Insurance accounting is brokenReuters: Current accounting rules for insurance companies are so different from those in other industries that they may not show investors the true economic realities the firms are facing, a top international accounting rulemaker said on Tuesday.
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What's Wrong with Subprime Accounting?CFO.com: "Kill the Q," was the Financial Accounting Standards Board's response to a self-examination about how to prevent a future subprime mortgage crisis. During a two-day meeting held in London last week, FASB and the International Accounting Standards Board met to discuss, among other things, whether a failure to comply with accounting rules, or in the standards themselves, contributed to the mortgage meltdown.
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Accounting can be a bit disorganizedCanada.com: Not everyone turns up at the accountant's office with file folders, neatly labelled "income" and "expenses.""Artistic types come in with plastic bags," said George Bardosh, an N.D.G. tax consultant who has been in the business for more than 20 years.
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