Here’s a glance back at this year’s most clicked-on stories from Business Finance and the Big Fat Finance Blog. A couple of surprises for me in this list, e.g., No. 5. Who knew that one would be so popular? more

On reading recently that the Texas Society of CPAs has thoughtfully compiled a list of recommendations for money-minded toys that “give children the gift of financial literacy,” such as remote-controlled electronic safes, I suddenly realized that there’s a huge need for toys that teach tax literacy. How can we expect our children to master a 70,000-page tax code and the intricacies of tax accounting unless they start really, really early?

While I’m waiting for the patents to come through on my Pals ‘n’ Playmates FAS 109 Calculator and FIN 48 Shark Attack! Board Game, I’ve put together my annual roundup of bizarre-o, vaguely business-related tax stories, just to prove that taxes can be every bit as much fun for grown-ups as they soon will be for kids. more

In a blog post roundly denouncing the Obama/GOP Tax Accord today, Berkeley prof and economic pundit Robert Reich points an accusing finger at what he calls “a Republican secret-money organization” that got much of its funding from wealthy hedge fund and private equity managers. “Why would they sink so much money into the midterms?” asks Reich, a former Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton. “Because they’ve been so strongly opposed to a proposal by congressional Democrats to treat the earnings of hedge fund and private equity managers as ordinary income rather than capital gains (subject to only a 15 percent rate).”

Whether or not Reich is right about the shadowy influence of Republican groups, there’s no doubt the hedge fund and PE industries have had their way in Congress this week. The proposal to tax fund managers’ “carried interest” earnings as ordinary income, so popular during the anti-Wall Street hysteria of Spring 2009, died with hardly a whimper in the negotiations over the Bush tax cuts. more

Whoa, where did that come from?

President Obama has been campaigning for a bonus depreciation tax break for businesses for months now, but I have to admit I didn’t expect it to show up in the tax deal he struck with Republican lawmakers yesterday on the Bush tax cuts. more

A BizTaxBuzz guest blog by Brad J. Monterio, chair of the XBRL Committee for IMA, a worldwide association for accountants and financial professionals working in business.

In my earlier post, I described the impact of eXtensible business reporting language (XBRL) on corporate tax departments and offered some reasons why tax pros should get to know this technology sooner rather than later.

It’s important to remember, too, that tax departments are not alone in realizing the benefits of XBRL. The global information standard is increasingly being used across other areas of the corporation, and for a wide range of information needs, both internal and external. Several XBRL mandates exist around the world today for primary financials and detailed footnotes to those financials, annual accounts, mutual fund risk/return summaries, and other asset classes. XBRL initiatives are under way in the areas of corporate actions, proxy, credit reporting agencies, and more. Remember, too, that XBRL is an interoperable standard — it doesn’t matter which platform or system you’re using, because it can work across any of them.

What all this means is that XBRL presents tax departments with an unparalleled opportunity to improve their integratation with the rest of the organization through the common data thread running through their information systems. more