IRS Warns Taxpayers of Jump in Email Scams

With tax season in full swing, the Internal Revenue Service is warning taxpayers to beware of phishing emails disguised as official communications from the IRS and others in the tax industry.In a consumer alert issued Thursday, the IRS said it had received reports of 1,026 incidents of phishing a...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 19, 2016

What You Need to Know about Inversions

After nearly going extinct, corporate inversions have come back strongly in the last few years. In response to the practice, which generally reduces a company’s tax bill, the U.S. Treasury Department issued several pronouncements in 2014 designed to limit the government’s loss of revenue. The mea...

By Jerome Schwartzman and Steven Tishman • Feb. 19, 2016

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

The Rise of Marketplace Lenders (Podcast)

CFO Editor-in-Chief Edward Teach interviews Vincent Ryan of CFO.com about his February 2016 cover story, “Fast Money.” Ryan discusses how bloated cost structures, deteriorating credit portfolios, and new regulatory burdens for banks in the wake of the financial crisis opened the door for online, ...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Feb. 18, 2016

American Express to Slash $1B in Expenses

American Express on Wednesday said that it has set a target of reducing costs by $1 billion over the next two years as part of a re-adjustment of its expense base “to get ahead of the changes that are altering the dynamics of the payments business.”The New York payments company said it approach f...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Feb. 18, 2016

SunEdison Cutting Jobs, Closing Plants

SunEdison on Thursday announced moves to “re-engineer” its business, after its shares crashed in the pre-market and its attempts to de-leverage hit a snag.The Maryland Heights, Mo.-based clean energy developer announced plans to sell its Kuching, Malaysia silicon wafer production facility to Chin...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Feb. 18, 2016

Finance Roundup for Executives

Our Latest HeadlinesThe increasingly aggressive and rising level of investor activism leveled against corporations has been both a cause of concern to managements and boards and a sign of greater corporate responsiveness to investor stakeholders.Among the major companies recently targeted are Amg...

By Kerry Maruna • Feb. 18, 2016

CFOs Losing Confidence in Value of Reporting

Amid an increasingly demanding corporate reporting environment, CFOs are losing confidence in the effectiveness of reporting, with many complaining of reporting overload, according to a new EY survey.The survey of 1,000 CFOs across 25 countries in organizations with revenue greater than $500 mill...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 18, 2016

Finance Roundup for Executives

Our Latest HeadlinesCFO openings are taking longer to fill these days, as noted in a recent Wall Street Journal article. While the article didn’t get very deeply into the question of why this is happening, it suggested that both companies and candidates are getting pickier.That’s true, so let’s e...

By Kerry Maruna • Feb. 17, 2016

Finance Roundup for Executives

Our Latest HeadlinesIt’s not hard to validate the oft-expressed observation that sales is typically the sole responsibility of autonomous agents. Companies advise their salespeople that they will be held accountable for outcomes, not activities. They are paid commissions — and sometimes only comm...

By Kerry Maruna • Feb. 16, 2016

Finance Roundup for Executives

Our Latest HeadlinesHow would you like to get a loan with an interest rate 1% to 2% lower than you’d likely be able to get otherwise, with a seven-year term during which you don’t have to repay any principal — and even then you’ll have to pay back only 80% of what you borrowed?You may be skeptica...

By Kerry Maruna • Feb. 12, 2016

Mylan to Pay 92% Premium for Sweden’s Meda

Mylan NV has agreed to acquire Meda for about $7.2 billion, representing a hefty premium for the Swedish drug maker, which it began pursuing in 2014.Mylan will pay 165 Swedish kronor ($19.62) per share, a 92% premium over Meda’s closing price of 86.05 kronor on Wednesday and more than Meda’s all-...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 11, 2016

Finance Roundup for Executives

Our Latest HeadlinesWhether a company prepares full-blown forecasts of operating performance every month or every quarter, speed matters.Informed predictions about trends in revenue, cost, and operating profit provide the basis for decisions about staying on course or shifting focus. They are esp...

By Kerry Maruna • Feb. 11, 2016

Metric of the Month: Financial Forecasting Speed

Whether a company prepares full-blown forecasts of operating performance every month or every quarter, speed matters.Informed predictions about trends in revenue, cost, and operating profit provide the basis for decisions about staying on course or shifting focus. They are especially critical in ...

By Mary C. Driscoll • Feb. 10, 2016

Monsanto Settles Accounting Violations for $80M

Monsanto has agreed to pay $80 million to settle charges that it delayed recording costs associated with rebate programs for its flagship Roundup product, resulting in material misstatements of its earnings during a three-year period.The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said the agribusine...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 10, 2016

Finance Roundup for Executives

The Latest Headlines from CFOLike it or not, we live in a world that’s increasingly drowning in data. Getting the right data to the right person at the right time — and in a form they can easily and rapidly absorb — is often a requirement for productive performance in a wide range of business cri...

By Kerry Maruna • Feb. 10, 2016

Accelerating IT Planning for Revenue Recognition Changes

Enterprise resource planning systems are challenging to implement, and once implemented, there’s a constant need for updates and changes based on a company’s internal and external circumstances. Most often, business changes can be anticipated in advance, and with proper upfront preparation, the r...

By Jeff Johnson and John McGaw • Feb. 8, 2016

Finance Roundup for Executives

The Latest Headlines from CFOIn today’s acutely dynamic world, there’s an unfortunate tendency to fixate on tracking the instant increments of change, and the reasons therefor, with less consideration for long-evolving trends that may shed light on the present.At the end of 2014 there were 62 wom...

By Kerry Maruna • Feb. 8, 2016

Rob Frolik Steps Down as CFO of Yelp

Consumer review website operator Yelp said Monday that CFO Rob Krolik was stepping down after nearly five years on the job.Krolik’s resignation was announced as Yelp reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter results. Net revenue rose 40% to $153.7 million, above Wall Street estimates of around...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 8, 2016

Retail, Energy Lead Surge in U.S. Job Cuts

After hitting a 15-year low in December, U.S. job cuts surged last month amid heavy downsizing in the retail and energy industries, according to a new report.The global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas said employers reported 75,114 planned layoffs in January, up 218% on ...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 5, 2016

For Playboy, Losing Nudity Means Winning Business

About two seconds after hearing last October that Playboy Enterprises planned to stop publishing photographs of nude women in its magazine, I experienced a rare moment of pristine clarity, expressed as: This is a last, futile grasp. Can you say “Dead Magazine Walking”?I wasn’t the only one shakin...

By David McCann • Feb. 5, 2016

LinkedIn Shares Dive on Weak 2016 Guidance

While LinkedIn surpassed analysts’ expectations for 2015, the professional social networking company’s weak forecast for this year sent its stock tumbling, wiping out $11 billion in market value.LinkedIn on Thursday forecast full-year revenue of $3.60-$3.65 billion, missing the average analyst es...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Feb. 5, 2016

Finance Roundup for Executives

The Latest Headlines from CFOAll CFOs realize the value of actively managing their organization’s investment portfolio, but those who understand the value of managing their project portfolio the same way can add insight to discussions in the boardroom about maintaining competitive advantage.Proje...

By Kerry Maruna • Feb. 4, 2016

Danish Tax Dispute Weighs on Tempur Sealy

Tempur Sealy swung to a loss in the fourth quarter as a tax dispute with Denmark that may take years to resolve continued to weigh on the world’s largest mattress maker.The net loss of $11.3 million, or 18 cents a share, reflected in part a balance sheet charge related to the dispute over Tempur ...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 4, 2016

The Sooner Finance ERP Moves to the Cloud, the Better

It started with customer data a decade ago, followed by human capital management. Now the wave of cloud adoption is lapping at the door of finance as organizations begin to move their enterprise systems out of the company premises and into the cloud. KPMG estimates that 20% of organizations’ ERP ...

By Patrick Fenton • Feb. 4, 2016

GM’s Record Profits Don’t Impress Wall Street

General Motors posted record profits of $6.3 billion for the fourth quarter and $9.7 billion for 2015 but its stock continued to slide amid concerns that it may be heading toward a cyclical downturn.The latest quarter included a $3.9 billion noncash gain reflecting improved results in Europe, as ...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 4, 2016