Ever wondered how much it costs U.S. businesses to comply with the nation’s tax laws?

The long-awaited release Friday of a report from the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, headed by Paul Volcker, provides a rough answer: north of $40 billion per year, or more than 12 percent of the revenues collected.

That’s just one nugget from many in the report, which sheds a disturbing light on the tangle of dilemmas and inefficiencies that the tax code foists on companies of all sizes. more

What is the “financial reporting supply chain” and how can it be better managed in the wake of the global financial crisis?

Twenty-five senior corporate finance executives from around the world address these questions in recent research from the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC).

The postcrisis analysis follows a 2008 IFAC report that defines and examines the financial reporting supply chain.

The key insights of the more recent research (“Business Reporting Recommendations from Key Leaders”) are interesting:

• The primary responsibility of directors is performance, not compliance.

• Organizations should expand their view from a shareholder perspective to a stakeholder perspective.

• Organizations should take economic as well as social and environmental performance factors into account.

• Organizations should better integrate governance and sustainability into [corporate] strategy, operations, and stakeholder communications.

• Organizations should further improve their stakeholder communications.

Here is an overview of the report. ###

On February 24, 2010, the SEC issued a Statement in Support of Convergence and Global Accounting Standards reiterating its belief “that a single set of high-quality globally accepted accounting standards will benefit U.S. investors ….” It reconfirmed that statement as recently as early August with its latest update.

A final decision on IFRS for the U.S. has NOT been issued. In fact, such a decision is not expected until 2011, after the efforts of several working groups have been reviewed and public comments assimilated. In Canada, however, IFRS is a done deal and the first compliance deadlines are approaching.

So, if IFRS happens, what is the implication for the technology infrastructure? “It will be huge,” observes Matthew J. Kinver, director of the IFRS practice at Sunera Business Consulting. more

If your organization’s board is still in the dark about recent IRS moves targeting uncertain tax positions, I’d suggest (at the risk of nagging – see my blogs here and here) that it’s time to enlighten them.

You probably don’t want to phrase it in terms of: (a) the IRS is basically trying to get corporates to do their work for them; (b) it’s a case of “give us more rope to hang you with”; (c) the whole idea is to give the IRS full access to your innermost tax deliberations so that they can grab the full amount of the maximum tax adjustment that will likely be required in the proposed UTP Schedule. more

CFOs, chief risk officers, CEOs, and their reports are not the only corporate folks who have been boning up on risk management for the past 36 months.

The recent push for greater risk intelligence also extends to the board for directors.

Henry Essert, a former chief risk officer and a current executive in Ernst & Young LLP’s financial services office, identifies seven questions that directors should ask about their organization’s risk management capabilities in the following column.

Read through Essert’s questions so that you can be prepared the next time the board springs a risk-management pop quiz. more