The nation’s hospital bill, representing 39 million hospital stays, totaled more than $790 billion in 2004, according to a new report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). At the same time, the National Scorecard on U.S.

"With the future of social security up in the air and traditional corporate pension plans on the path towards extinction, contributing to a retirement plan provides some peace of mind that you'll be able to retire comfortably," explains Andrew Schwartz CPA, founder of CPA Niche, LLC.Advertisement

The Pension Protection Act of 2006 does far more than protect pensions.

Have you heard about a “stretch IRA” and wondered if it was some special kind of IRA? Well, it isn’t. In the simplest terms, a stretch IRA is an IRA that has a beneficiary designation that provides for the possibility of maintaining the tax deferred status of the IRA after the death of the IRA owner. You might be thinking, “I wish I had a stretch IRA. I only named my spouse as my primary beneficiary and my kids as my successor or contingent beneficiary.” Well, guess what? You have a stretch IRA.

A new law signed by President Bush on August 3, 2006, and supported by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), as well as others in the accounting profession, prohibits states from taxing the retirement income of partners who are not residents of that state.The law amends Title 4 of the Untied States Code to clarify the treatment of self-employment for purposes of the limitation of State taxation of retirement income. Specifically, the law clarifies that U.S.C.

A new accounting standard has states and local governments worried about their ability to borrow money, while employees fear their benefits may be cut.Advertisement

Successful transitions from the first to the second or third generations in family-owned businesses come from identifying the family member who is capable of running the business and then structuring the transition as a business transaction, says Christopher Hirschfeld, Vice President and Managing Director, Goelzer Investment Banking, according to insideindianbusiness.com.The business owner may assume that a child wants to run the business and is capable, but “this assumption needs to be validated well before the owner steps aside,” Hirschfeld says.

Lawmakers are pushing to eliminate penalties for seniors who failed to enroll in the new Medicare prescription drug benefit by the May 15 deadline.Tens of thousands of seniors hustled to call Medicare's customer service operators or enroll online before the midnight cut-off time, but many were so overwhelmed by the complexity of Medicare Part D and the variety of choices available, that they couldn't make a decision.

The success of the Paychex Partner Program from American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) Business Solutions has resulted in a five year extension of the contract. Initially named the preferred payroll services provider to CPA clients by CPA2Biz in 2003, under the extension Paychex will also be designated as the preferred provider of retirement plan services for CPA clients.