Amanda Coston was preparing for a meeting with her advisor Monday afternoon when her friend, another first-year PhD student in Carnegie Mellon's machine learning department, knocked on her door. Had she seen the email? A few minutes earlier, the university's Graduate Student Assembly had sent a Google Doc to department representatives across the university, and those reps had forwarded the document to their grad students.

Accounting standard-setters are tweaking the rules for the standards taking effect in the next few years, according to officials. Financial Accounting Standards Board chairman Russell Golden explained how FASB is using what he called the “Kaizen” approach to standard-setting, a Japanese word for “change for the better.”

Even though the successor corporation in an attempted tax-freemerger filed a single tax return in the year of reorganization that only included a pro forma attachment for the activity of the predecessor corporation, the Tax Court held that the filing was sufficient to trigger the running of the statute of limitation, thereby barring the IRS from assessing a deficiency for the predecessor corporation's failure to file under Sec. 6501(c)(3).

The implementation effort surrounding FASB’s new revenue recognition standard is nearing an end for many companies, which have prepared for the transition for several years running. The deadline for compliance for public companies is the beginning of 2018 (private companies have an additional year for implementation).

Reduces income tax brackets: There are seven federal income tax brackets in today's code that are taxed at 10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33%, 35% and 39.6%. The House bill consolidates those into four brackets: 12% (on the first $45,000 of taxable income for individuals; $90,000 for married couples filing jointly) 25% (starts at $45,000 for individuals; $90,000 for married couples) 35% (starts at $200,000 for individuals; $260,000 for married couples)

Another holiday season is in high gear, and CPAs of all ages are turning their thoughts to family, food, festivities, and what kind of high-tech gear they might get as gifts this year. In what has become an annual tradition, the JofA technology gift guide is here to help you find the perfect present for that tech-savvy CPA in your life. This year's guide was put together the new-fashioned way: crowdsourcing. Some of the top tech-oriented professionals in the accounting space shared the technology products on their radar this holiday season. Here's a guide to their selections.

You may wonder what a financial advisor does with your money and how this professional decides on the best investments and course of action for you. This article breaks down, step-by-step, exactly what a financial advisor does. You’ll understand what informs the advisory process and how the professional selects appropriate investments for you. In sum, this money professional has a detailed plan and system to help you construct your life today and tomorrow as well as how to grow your wealth.

• The Senate began debate on the tax bill at 10 a.m. Friday, with Republicans pushing for a final vote later in the day. • Senator John Cornyn, the majority whip, says he is confident they have the votes needed to pass the bill along party lines.

President Donald Trump is pitching the Republican tax-cut plan as aimed primarily at helping middle-class Americans, but the biggest beneficiaries of cuts in the individual tax rates are in the wealthiest income brackets. A study from Congress’s own think tank provides some of the most recent evidence of this. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service concluded that under the Senate plan, Americans making between $500,000 and $1 million a year would see the biggest percentage increases in their after-tax income.

Coinbase Inc. lost a bid to block an Internal Revenue Service investigation into whether some of the company’s customers haven’t reported their cryptocurrency gains. U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley in San Francisco ruled that the tax agency’s demand for information isn’t overly intrusive. The price of bitcoin has been soaring and crossed $10,000 Tuesday.