NYSSCPA Member in the News

Salvatore Collemi (Manhattan/Bronx)
The Decline in Global Audit Quality
Accounting Today
Ask any practicing CPA who cares about the profession, and they’ll tell you about the need for continuous improvements when it comes to a public accounting firm’s system of quality control policies and procedures. This need is at the very heart of the dynamic world of auditing, where subjectivity and the professional judgment of the auditor meet. There are some who understand what needs to be done at the grassroots level and are taking proactive steps.

Other  Accounting and Financial News Stories

ADP Finds Private Sector Added 177,000 Jobs in August
Accounting Today
Private sector employers added a healthy 177,000 jobs this month, according to the monthly national employment report from payroll giant ADP. ADP reported that small businesses added 63,000 jobs in August, down from 68,000 in July. The total included 24,000 at small businesses with between one and 19 employees and approximately 38,000 at businesses with between 20 and 49 employees.

IRS Warns Of 2017 Tax Refund Delays
Forbes
It’s better to owe taxes in April than to get a refund, and for the 2017 tax filing season, it’s especially important. The Internal Revenue Service today issued a warning of 2017 tax refund delays for certain taxpayers, urging folks to adjust their tax withholding now. We’re talking about your 2016 taxes that are due April 15, 2017.  There’s good reason to pay attention—at least there’s something you can do about it.

Yesterday, Outraged by Apple’s Tax Dodge. Today, by Its Tax Bill
New York Times
American lawmakers have for years been assailing companies for dodging taxes with overseas maneuvers. But now that the European Union has done something about it by trying to wrest billions of dollars from Apple, those officials have offered a response viewed by many as rife with hypocrisy: collective outrage. Tax avoidance has become a lightning rod as the presidential campaign has taken on a strong populist cast, and leading Republicans and Democrats in Congress have demanded that companies be forced to pay their fair share.

Stocks Lose Ground in August
Wall Street Journal
U.S. stocks finished August with slight losses, capping an unusually calm month in the market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2% in August after rising for six months in a row, and the S&P 500 snapped a five-month streak of gains with a 0.1% decline. Trading volumes dropped off, major U.S. indexes moved in a narrow range and investors’ expectations for stock-market swings plumbed their lowest levels in years during the month.

Birth of the Index Mutual Fund: ‘Bogle’s Folly’ Turns 40
Wall Street Journal
Forty years ago today, the index mutual fund was born when Vanguard Group’s First Index Investment Trust (now Vanguard 500 Index Fund) opened for business with $11.3 million in assets. That was far short of the $150 million target that Vanguard’s founder and the fund’s creator, John C. Bogle, had set. The investment banks underwriting the fund were so disappointed by the measly amount they had raised that they wanted to give investors their money back.

Obamacare Premiums Set to Rise, Even for Savvy Shoppers
New York Times
In the last few years, even though premiums in the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance marketplaces were rising, most customers could avoid a big price rise by shopping for a cheaper plan. Next year, according to a preliminary analysis, that is going to be a lot harder. Even someone who shopped wisely this year and is willing to switch plans to get the best deal next year is looking at an average premium increase of 11 percent, according to an analysis of rate filings in 18 states and the District of Columbia provided by the McKinsey Center for U.S. Health System Reform.

Business Expansion Projections at Highest Level Since Early 2015, AICPA Survey Finds
Yahoo Finance
Buoyed by higher profit growth expectations, business executives are predicting an increase in corporate expansion for the coming year, according to the third quarter AICPA Economic Outlook Survey, which polls chief executive officers, chief financial officers, controllers and other certified public accountants in U.S. companies who hold executive and senior management accounting roles.

Tax Adviser to Sports Stars Sifting Through ‘Jock Taxes'
Bloomberg BNA
Resident versus domiciliary. Whether New Jersey taxes the income of Pennsylvania residents working within its borders. These issues may not grab national headlines, but the people most impacted do: names like Tom Brady and Sidney Crosby. Professional athletes like those are Sean Packard's clients. And so Packard, tax director at the sports agency Octagon Financial Services, closely tracks “jock taxes,” including recent proposals to exempt Olympic awards from taxation—Michael Phelps is an Octagon client—and the whereabouts of clients throughout the year.

EU’s Tax Decision Invites More Scrutiny of Apple
Wall Street Journal
When the European Union’s antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager ruled this week that Apple Inc. owed billions of euros in alleged unpaid taxes, the decision created a financial and public relations problem for the technology giant. It also opened up a Pandora’s box of legal questions for Apple and other multinationals operating in Europe. Apple has said it would appeal the decision. The finance minister for Ireland, which the European Commission accused of violating the bloc’s rules against selective “state aid” by forging a sweetheart tax deal with the iPhone maker, has also recommended the government lodge an appeal.

Puerto Rico’s Fiscal Affairs Will Be Overseen by 7 Experts in Finance and Law
New York Times
The White House said it had chosen seven experts in finance and the law to supervise Puerto Rico’s fiscal affairs in the coming months under a law enacted this summer intended to help the island restructure its $72 billion debt. Four of the supervisory board members are Republicans and three are Democrats, chosen from lists provided to the White House by the party leaders of both houses of Congress. And four of the members are Puerto Ricans, which is three more than required under the new debt-restructuring law.