Currently, the IRS often ends up auditing tax returns months — in some cases, years — after they’ve been filed. While no reasonable person would claim that audits are enjoyable in the first place, having such a gap between the date of the return and the start of an audit can make the process even more difficult.

Doug Shulman, IRS Commissioner, has talked about the difficulties the current system presents, and his goal of changing the system so that examinations occur nearer to the time when the returns are filed. Speaking in April 2011 before the National Press Club, Commissioner Shulman said, “This after-the-fact compliance approach can create problems and frustrations for both taxpayers and the IRS. It can be a real dilemma for taxpayers, who may no longer have the money that was refunded to them, but it turns out, they were not entitled to. There’s also possible sticker shock because interest and perhaps penalties may have been accruing on any tax due for up to three years. Taxpayers ask, ‘Why didn’t you notify me earlier?’ This hurts the IRS’ image and contributes to a “gotcha” perception.” more

After decades of badgering companies to backup their data, many organizations are still only just joining the backup bandwagon. They do it mainly because the auditors or regulators put a gun to their heads.

Over the years, backup and recovery has gotten much simpler and faster due to disk-to-disk (D2D) backup. And continuously falling disk prices combined with deduplication and compression technology has made D2D backup even cheaper.

Now with the advent of backup services readily available in the cloud, yet another backup option is available. A report by Asigra, cloud backup-recovery-restore player, answers commonly asked questions about cloud backup. more

As just about anyone with even a passing interest in economic news is aware, most of the growth across the world’s economies is occurring in emerging markets. While the World Bank expects the U.S. to grow at between two and three percent over the next few years, and Europe at less than two percent, it is forecasting growth of just under nine percent in China, five-plus percent in Turkey and about four percent in Mexico.

Companies that want to take advantage of the growth opportunities in these markets often turn to mergers or acquisitions, given that this usually is faster than trying to build operations from the ground up when working across national borders. In fact, a recent survey of M&A professionals by mergermarket and IntraLinks found that most expect cross-border M&A deals involving companies in emerging markets to outpace activity in the developed markets over the next 12 months. Nearly three-quarters of respondents expect cross-border M&A activity to increase in emerging markets, while just 50 percent predict an increase in developed countries. more

Risk has always been an integral part of business, but as I’ve noted, companies deal with risk with varying degrees of effectiveness. A complex, ongoing process, operational risk management identifies risks to support successful operations of an organization, estimates the monetary and other measurable impacts if a risk event occurs, establishes methods for mitigating the severity of impacts should they occur, continuously measures the probability of a risk occurring within a relevant period of time, periodically reports on the risk environment to appropriate decision-makers and alerts executives and managers when risk thresholds are crossed. These important activities should make operational risk management of greater interest to executives in today’s volatile business environment.

Operational risk management also is a key reason for an emerging trend toward action-oriented IT systems. The easier availability of broad sets of corporate data and third-party data, along with the ability to process it quickly and explore implications in real time, makes it practical to expand the scope of risk management and improve the effectiveness of responses when risk events occur. Operational risk now can be managed more comprehensively – and the potential consequences mean it should be. more

Asset-based loans (ABLs), which typically are secured by an asset on the company’s balance sheet, such as inventory or accounts receivable, enjoyed a record year in 2011. The value of ABLs made during the year topped $100 billion, according to data from Thomson Reuters LPC. About 375 deals were completed, or more than during any of the previous seven years. Asset-based loans accounted for 18% of the overall leveraged loan market, up from about 10% five years ago.

The bulk — in fact, more than 80% — of the loans were for refinancing. Conversely, the volume of new money deals came close to historical lows, due to drops in buyout financing for mergers and acquisitions, Thomson Reuters said. more