More Vitriol Aimed at Obama’s Tax Plan

At a congressional hearing today, Mark Smetana, CFO of Eby-Brown Co., a privately held distributor, tried to persuade lawmakers that “pass-through” companies like his shouldn’t be effectively penalized for their tax status while larger companies fatten up on an overhauled tax code.He noted a rece...

By Sarah Johnson • March 7, 2012

Would House-Approved Bill Trim Federal Lending?

The House has passed a bill that aims to change the way the government accounts for its credit programs and could trigger cutbacks in federal lending to businesses. The Budget and Accounting Transparency Act requires the government to calculate the amounts budgeted for credit programs using fair-...

By Marielle Segarra • March 2, 2012

Explore the Trendline➔

Tax policy shifts: What CFOs need to know to stay ahead

Discover how evolving tax policies are creating new opportunities and challenges for CFOs.

By CFO.com staff

Free Cash Profiles: The Wholesalers

“It’s not a pretty sight,” says Chuck Mulford, musing over the inability of the wholesale industry to generate cash. Relative to other businesses, he adds, wholesalers suffer mightily from a lack of profitability and poor bill collection.That’s a recipe for a negative Free Cash Profile (FCP), not...

By David Katz • March 2, 2012

Getting a Fix on Repair Regs

New rules from the Internal Revenue Service for the tax treatment of repairs or improvements to property apply to nearly every company, starting with tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2012.But most tax executives are still unsure about how these so-called repair regs will affect their bu...

By Keith Button • March 1, 2012

Why Are Wholesalers Protecting High Returns?

As the Internet emerged and e-commerce took off during the 1990s, futurists foresaw the evolution of a more direct connection between those who make things and those who buy them. It became quite trendy to envisage a new economic order in which the middlemen of supply chains would no longer take ...

By Steven C. Treadwell and Gregory V. Milano • March 1, 2012

More on Social Media and Business

While your article “Who’s Out There?” (January/February) was very interesting and detailed, what you’ve shared are aspects of social media that largely involve either the marketing domain (externally) or that supplant the water-cooler chatter that was common when business units were geophysically...

By CFO Readers • March 1, 2012

Lots of Trouble

It’s no secret that in the years leading up to the Great Recession, the Big Three automakers were producing vehicles in excess of market demand, leading to large inventories on dealers’ lots across the country. Now, some researchers say they know why the automakers acted as they did, and they are...

By Marielle Segarra • March 1, 2012

Could IFRS Delay Strip the SEC of Power?

While the Securities and Exchange Commission continues to procrastinate on a decision about whether publicly traded U.S. companies must file financials using international financial reporting standards (IFRS), an international group has given the regulator a nudge.In February, the group that moni...

By Sarah Johnson • March 1, 2012

So, You’re the Boss of the CIO. Now What?

A recent poll on a popular LinkedIn group for finance chiefs asked: “Is it a good idea that IT reports to the CFO?” The vote, as of late January, was 67% yes, 32% no (the other 1% were presumably skiing in Gstaad). The comments were anything but subtle, ranging from concern about CFO ineptitude (...

By David Rosenbaum • March 1, 2012

Online Calculator for SEC Filings: A Killer App for CFOs?

Today at Baruch College of the City University in New York City, XBRL US, a nonprofit consortium for extensible business reporting language standards, awarded Calcbench, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based, two-person start-up, its $20,000 grand prize for the “most inventive and useful application” ...

By David Rosenbaum • Feb. 29, 2012

Hitting the Books: Court Grants Nexus in Tennessee

Last month the Tennessee Court of Appeals continued to erode the protection out-of-state retailers have from taxation if they don’t have a physical presence in a state.Incorporating an inventive argument by the state that marketing and distribution there amount to a physical presence, the appeals...

By Robert Willens • Feb. 28, 2012

Shareholders Asking Companies to Reveal Political Outlays

With nine months remaining before the U.S. presidential elections, some investors have expressed themselves politically via an earlier set of votes: Nearly one-third of shareholder resolutions filed for the upcoming annual-meeting season ask companies to reveal more about their campaign spending ...

By Sarah Johnson • Feb. 28, 2012

Three Overlooked Small-Business Tax Breaks

The language of tax rules is often considered dense, confusing, or downright off-putting. Indeed, the complexity of understanding and qualifying for tax incentives often leads small companies with limited resources to avoid them altogether, says Karen Kurek, national leader for manufacturing and ...

By Marielle Segarra • Feb. 24, 2012

Seven 401(k) Strategies for 2012

Some strategies for maximizing the performance of 401(k) plans, spurring greater participation levels, and achieving regulatory compliance are boilerplate at this point for many plan sponsors. But they should consider some other, specific measures in response to recent events and trends in the de...

By David McCann • Feb. 23, 2012

Newly Public Growth Companies May Get Years to Comply With Regulations

Companies with less than $1 billion in revenue at the time they go public could ease into their publicly held status under legislation the House Financial Services Committee overwhelmingly passed last week.The bill would give so-called emerging growth companies a five-year break from parts of the...

By Sarah Johnson • Feb. 22, 2012

New Rules Wreak Havoc for Retirement-Plan Sponsors

On February 2, the Department of Labor finally issued long-anticipated final regulations requiring retirement-plan service providers to disclose to employer-plan sponsors all of their direct and indirect compensation and potential conflicts of interest. The requirements put both the plan sponsors...

By Jeff Mamorsky • Feb. 21, 2012

How One Company Teaches Employees the ABCs of Finance

Companies are in business to make money. So why is understanding how money is made — and core business concerns like risk management, financial reporting, and investor relations — almost solely the province of the finance department?For salespeople, for example, it’s surely the case that knowing ...

By David McCann • Feb. 16, 2012

Rx for Emerging-Market Investment: Lower Hurdle Rates for Growing Nations

There is little doubt that emerging markets are growing faster than the developed markets of North America and Western Europe. Companies that realize the importance of growth have been investing in such emerging economies as China and India for years.But while some companies are more aggressive, ...

By Jeffrey L. Routh and Gregory V. Milano • Feb. 15, 2012

Foot-Dragging on IFRS Decision Could Strip SEC of Power

While the Securities and Exchange Commission continues to procrastinate on a decision about whether publicly traded U.S. companies must file financials using International Financial Reporting Standards, an international group has given the regulator a nudge.Last week the group that monitors the I...

By Sarah Johnson • Feb. 13, 2012

Accounting for Social Media

LinkedIn, the professional social-networking site, reported yesterday that its profits jumped 30% and its revenue more than doubled in its last quarter (from $81.7 million last year to $167.7 million), strongly suggesting there’s a financial reality underpinning the buzz and hype surrounding soci...

By David Rosenbaum • Feb. 10, 2012

Groupon CFO Defends Use of Non-GAAP Measures

Dismissing as “silly” a suggestion that Groupon might be boosting its cash-flow numbers by not paying its bills, Jason Child, CFO of the online coupon company, defended his company’s use of several non-GAAP measures in its quarterly earnings report in an interview with CFO on Friday.Groupon, whic...

By Marielle Segarra • Feb. 10, 2012

Say It Ain’t So, Mr. CFO

When I learned last night that Steven Neil, the CFO of Diamond Foods, had been placed on administrative leave as part of the “corrective actions” the company was taking after an internal probe revealed accounting misdeeds and internal controls failures, the news had a familiar ring to it.It remin...

By David Katz • Feb. 9, 2012

Groupon’s Use of Non-GAAP Measures Questioned

On Wednesday CFO Jason Child fielded Groupon’s first earnings call since the company went public in November. The company reported a fourth-quarter net loss of eight cents per share, up from a loss of $1.08 per share the year before. Higher-than-expected overseas tax expenses were partly to blame...

By Marielle Segarra • Feb. 9, 2012

IRS Sparks Confusion on Property Upgrades

New IRS rules for the tax treatment of repairs or improvements to property apply to nearly every company, starting this year. But most tax executives are still unsure about how these so-called repair regs will affect their businesses, according to a recent survey.Of 1,900 tax executives surveyed ...

By Keith Button • Feb. 7, 2012

Managing Growth Risk at EDGAR Online

Eighteen months ago, XBRL provider EDGAR Online had 90 full-time employees (FTEs) and a little over $19 million in annual revenue. By the end of 2011, it had about 400 FTEs and revenues around $30 million, says EDGAR Online CFO and COO David Price, who presented at last month’s CFO Corporate Perf...

By David Rosenbaum • Feb. 6, 2012