Accounting

Estate planning for the Native Land Back Movement

Published

2 years ago

December 5, 2024

Philanthropically-inclined clients’ interest in the Land Back Movement is opening new realms of estate planning for financial advisors and tax professionals.

The Land Back Movement revolves around the mission of returning territorial assets seized from indigenous nations so that Native Americans reclaim ownership and stewardship of them. It is already playing out in various forms of land-transfer efforts in states such as California, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Alaska and Maine.

Individual estates’ bequests of land pose complicated planning questions begging the need for more collaboration among advisors, tax pros, attorneys and other professionals, experts said.

Land Back “should be on our radar” as, “at some level, a subset of charitable giving,” said Alma Soongi Beck, counsel with Lathrop GPM‘s Private Client Services unit focusing on estate planning, trust and probate law. Although financial professionals of many types are familiar with the concept of a real estate transaction, leaving the assets to a beneficiary in a position to manage them entails an array of historical and legal complexities, Beck said.

“Clients will just raise it. We talk about where you want to leave your stuff. I’ve had clients say they want to give their house back to the local indigenous tribe,” she said in an interview. “There has been a huge, almost exponential, awareness-raising in the last five years, and what I expect in the next five years is, it’s going to keep growing.”

Discussions of returning land to Native people often come up in environmental justice and sustainability circles. But that rhetoric is “sometimes utopian” and “often just jumps right over the legal issues,” according to Jo Carrillo, professor of law and the faculty director of the Indigenous Law Center at University of California College of the Law, San Francisco (formerly UC Hastings). Financial planners and others assisting landowners should keep in mind that the transfers require thinking about a donor-advised fund or another means of providing a further layer of resources to support the beneficiaries’ management of the land, she said.

“What I would like them to know is, if land is transferred, there should also be money transferred to maintain that land,” Carrillo said. “Land requires money to support owning it, and that’s a very important part of the gift.”

Furthermore, advisors and other professionals facilitating the transaction must avoid “creating unnecessary legal battles” with the discretion that they give to any trustee to select tribal nations as the beneficiary and conduct careful research as to which ones previously lived on the land and have the capacity to supervise it, Beck said. The federal government formally recognizes 574 tribes, but every state has as many as several hundreds of other nations, bands, pueblos or villages. A Canadian website, Native-Land.ca, can aid in the search, but any given address or area will list up to a dozen or more tribes who once populated the land.

“The ‘why’ of Land Back is not hard for clients to wrap their minds around,” Beck said. “The harder question — even for those of us who have done some Land Back work — is the ‘who’ and the ‘how.'”

That speaks to the necessity for fiduciary planners and trustees to “know better what you’re doing than just being generous” and for donors “to get comfortable with the ‘how’ question,” Carrillo said. Those inherent dilemmas won’t solve themselves.

“We’re at the start of Land Back. In 10, 15 years, we’ll be at the litigation phase,” Carrillo said. “We have a very small group of experts. It’s almost like working in the high-end art market where you have a very small group of agents, galleries and potential purchasers simply because of the price point.”

In that regard, Carrillo and Beck are seeking more connections in the wealth management and tax professional fields to move the conversations forward, they said. Beck participates in a study group of practitioners who meet every one to three months to discuss the most pressing estate-planning topics surrounding the Land Back Movement.

“Definitely talk about it with clients and raise it, but go slowly enough that you’re not creating more problems than you’re trying to solve,” she said. “What we can figure out in community will benefit the work that everyone does. Like Jo says, we’re in the early stages. We want to get ahead of the issues and not have to clean it up afterwards.”

Accounting

Continuous Auditing Transforms Corporate ERPs

Published

5 days ago

July 21, 2026

Business Finance News

continuous auditing transforms corporate erps

As corporate accounting departments cross the threshold into late July 2026, the adoption of continuous, automated auditing systems has reached a definitive turning point. Driven by advances in artificial intelligence and deep integration with modern Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platforms, leading finance organizations are moving away from traditional, periodic post-hoc audits in favor of real-time, 100% transactional verification. This technological transition is redefining internal control environments, reducing compliance costs, and eliminating the structural delays inherent in legacy quarterly closing processes.

Unlike traditional auditing frameworks that rely on statistical sampling—a process that inevitably leaves operational blind spots—continuous auditing software monitors operational data feeds continuously. Every purchase order, electronic invoice, payroll disbursement, and cross-border wire transfer is automatically cross-referenced against established corporate governance parameters, regulatory tax schedules, and anti-fraud algorithms in real time. Anomalies or unauthorized ledger entries are flagged instantly, allowing internal audit teams to investigate and remediate compliance gaps immediately rather than months after the close of a financial period.

The implications for executive financial management are far-reaching. By embedding continuous verification directly into daily transaction workflows, chief financial officers gain uninterrupted visibility into the organization’s true financial standing. Real-time balance sheet auditing eliminates the severe operational bottlenecks associated with month-end and quarter-end financial reconciliations, freeing accounting professionals to focus on strategic financial modeling, tax planning, and capital allocation rather than manual data entry and spreadsheet consolidation.

However, implementing continuous auditing requires accounting leadership to invest heavily in data governance and technical upskilling. Internal audit teams must evolve from manual ledger reviewers into system architects capable of auditing complex algorithms and validating automated data pipelines. Accounting firms and corporate controllers that master continuous auditing will establish a resilient compliance framework capable of meeting stringent international regulatory standards with total transparency.

Accounting

U.S. Imposes New 50% Tariffs on Canadian Imports Under Rare Legal Provision

Published

6 days ago

July 20, 2026

Business Finance News

U.S. Imposes New 50% Tariffs on Canadian Imports Under Rare Legal Provision

WASHINGTON — In a major escalation of cross-border trade friction, U.S. President Donald Trump has signed executive orders imposing new 50% tariffs on a wide selection of Canadian exports, citing discriminatory practices by Ottawa targeting American auto, dairy, and beverage industries.

The new duties, announced Monday, will take effect in 30 days. They target a broad spectrum of consumer and industrial goods—ranging from wine, liquor, and milk products to commercial cement, furniture, clothing, and hockey equipment.

Untested Legal Mechanism

To enact the sweeping measures, the administration invoked Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930—a rarely used legal provision allowing the executive branch to levy additional tariffs of up to 50% on foreign nations deemed to discriminate against U.S. commerce.

White House officials noted that Section 338 addresses trade discrimination rather than national security or economic emergencies. The move comes months after prior global emergency tariffs faced legal challenges in domestic courts, signaling Washington’s pivot toward alternate statutory authorities to maintain import duties.

Senior administration officials briefed reporters that the measure directly responds to Canadian provincial bans on U.S. alcohol, restrictions on American vehicle exports, and import quota disparities affecting U.S. dairy and cheese producers relative to third-party trading partners.

“While the administration continues to secure reciprocal trade agreements globally, Canada retaliated against efforts to protect domestic industry,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer stated.

USMCA Impact and Carve-Outs

Significantly, the newly ordered 50% duties will apply to designated items even if they otherwise comply with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

However, the administration confirmed key targeted exemptions:

Energy products (including oil and natural gas)
Potash and critical minerals
Fish and seafood
Goods already governed by sector-specific duties (such as existing steel and aluminum tariffs)

Administration representatives emphasized that the tariffs do not stem from recent disputes concerning drifting Canadian wildfire smoke, noting that policy options regarding environmental spillover remain under separate review.

Canadian Response and Market Reaction

Following the White House announcement, the Canadian dollar experienced a sharp decline against the U.S. dollar, falling approximately 0.4% during evening trading.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney issued a statement emphasizing that Canada’s earlier counter-duties had merely matched previous U.S. trade actions. “Canada stands ready to engage intensively to address outstanding issues with the U.S. to the mutual benefit of our citizens,” Carney stated, pointing to detailed proposals Ottawa submitted to modernize the USMCA framework.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford took a firmer stance, urging a “dollar-for-dollar” reciprocal response if the measures go into effect on August 19.

With a 30-day implementation window before the duties officially lock in, industry associations and trade groups on both sides of the border are calling for urgent bilateral negotiations to avert further supply chain disruption across North America.

Accounting

Automated Continuous Auditing: Transforming Compliance and Real-Time Financial Oversight

Published

6 days ago

July 20, 2026

Business Finance News

Transforming Compliance and Real-Time Financial Oversight

The traditional accounting paradigm—defined by periodic monthly closures and post-hoc annual audits—is rapidly giving way to continuous, automated financial oversight. As of July 2026, forward-thinking accounting practices and multinational corporate finance departments are leveraging continuous auditing systems powered by advanced machine learning models. These systems monitor operational transactions in real time, shifting audit methodologies from sample-based post-analysis to absolute, 100% transaction-level verification.

The operational advantages of continuous auditing are transformative. Standard auditing procedures historically relied on statistical sampling, which, despite rigorous methodology, inherently left gaps where anomalies or fraudulent transactions could go undetected for months. Modern continuous auditing platforms integrate directly with enterprise resource planning (ERP) databases, instantly cross-referencing purchase orders, invoices, bank feeds, and tax records. Any deviation from established control parameters or unusual transaction behavior triggers immediate flags for internal audit teams, dramatically reducing detection lag from quarters to seconds.

Beyond fraud prevention, continuous auditing fundamentally alters internal reporting and decision-making. Executive leadership no longer has to wait weeks after the close of a quarter to evaluate precise financial standing; real-time verified ledger data provides an uninterrupted view of operating margins, tax liabilities, and cash flow dynamics. This real-time visibility enables corporate controllers to adjust capital allocation strategies dynamically, mitigating liquidity constraints and capitalizing on emerging commercial opportunities far more efficiently than competitors bound to legacy reporting cycles.

However, implementing continuous auditing requires accounting professionals to acquire new analytical capabilities. The role of the auditor is evolving from manual data reconciliation toward system validation, algorithmic model governance, and strategic risk interpretation. Accounting firms and corporate finance departments must invest in continuous technical education, ensuring that audit staff possess the data engineering skills necessary to design, maintain, and evaluate complex automated compliance systems.