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Guangzhou, China — The annual Canton Fair in Guangzhou is China’s largest import-export trade show. It covers a space equal to about 200 football fields and has been running since 1957 — when China’s economy was isolated from the rest of the world. The country’s leaders decided the expo, since formally named the China Import and Export Fair, was the best way to overcome trade obstacles imposed by the West and to drum up business investment and interest from overseas markets.In the almost seven decades since, China has transformed into the world’s manufacturing powerhouse. But President Xi Jinping’s government believes the…

House Republicans plan to raise more than $15 billion in revenue through increasing U.S. oil, gas and coal lease sales, as well as other measures, to help pay for President Donald Trump’s massive tax cut package, according to a document seen by Bloomberg News. The document, prepared by the House Natural Resources Committee, details plans to mandate at least four sales in the coastal plain of Alaska’s Arctic Arctic National Wildlife Refuge within the next 10 years, and resume lease sales in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. Republicans also plan to resume quarterly onshore oil and gas lease sales as well as…

President Donald Trump declared that Harvard University would lose its tax-exempt status, a designation that has allowed the school to avoid paying levies on its revenue under a classification for educational institutions.Trump posted the announcement after weeks of threatening an Internal Revenue Service review of the Ivy League’s tax-free treatment. “We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!” Trump wrote early Friday morning.Conservatives have targeted Harvard and other elite universities in recent years over accusations of ideological bias and allegations of a rise in antisemitism amid campus protests against the war in Gaza. Trump…

Key House Republicans on Thursday discussed ways to direct an expanded state and local tax deduction to those making less than $400,000 as they seek to balance the cost of the tax break with the political needs of several lawmakers from New York and other high-tax states. The $10,000 cap on SALT, one of the most contentious issues in the GOP debate on its giant tax bill, remained unresolved as lawmakers left Washington Thursday. Republicans on the House tax panel discussed a series of options to direct the deduction to middle-class households, New York Representative Nicole Malliotakis told reporters. Committee members delved…

Insult to injury; lack of progress; gone fishing; and other highlights of recent tax cases.Los Angeles: Christopher Kazuo Kamon, former longtime head of the accounting department at a now-shuttered personal injury law firm, has been sentenced to 10 years and a month in prison for enabling the embezzlement of millions of dollars from the firm’s clients and for embezzling money from the firm itself.Kamon, formerly of Encino and Palos Verdes, California, and who was residing in the Bahamas at the time of his November 2022 arrest, was also ordered to pay $8,903,324 in restitution. He pleaded guilty in October.From 2004…

Public Company Accounting Oversight Board chair Erica Williams told Accounting Today that the role played by the PCAOB can’t simply be “cut and pasted” into the Securities and Exchange Commission after the House Financial Services Committee approved legislation that would effectively shutter the audit overseer.Speaking on the sidelines of Baruch College’s annual financial reporting conference in New York on Thursday, the day after Republicans on the committee voted to advance the bill, Williams declined to speculate on what would happen in the event of a transition of the PCAOB’s duties to the SEC. “I will say that I think that…

Enjoy complimentary access to top ideas and insights — selected by our editors. The contentious 150-hour rule — the number of college credit hours required to sit the CPA exam — has been a sticking point in the profession since it became the standard in the 1990s. With an ongoing talent crisis, uncompetitive salaries and rising education costs further weakening the inflow of new professionals, is the end of the rule the first step to changing the tide?Median annual salaries for entry-level accountants hover around $65,000, according to 2024 research by Accounting Today. It’s not until the managerial tier that…

Enjoy complimentary access to top ideas and insights — selected by our editors. Tax season has wrapped up, and this year there were increases in almost every filing statistic category compared to 2024.  According to data from the Internal Revenue Service, the number of returns filed as of April 18, 2025 (the latest figures available), was up from last year by 1.1%, with 140,633,000 returns received. The IRS processed 138,057,000 of these returns, up 1.5% from 2024.Read more: IRS marks Tax Day amid layoffs, cutbacks This year, the number of refunds was about the same as 2024, at 86,021,000. The total amount…