Accounting
Kamala Harris’ tax policy positions begin to take shape
Kamala Harris, with the top spot on the Democratic ticket assured her, has been busy making her vice presidential pick (announced today as Minnesota’s Gov. Tim Walz) and gearing up to campaign in the “battleground” states, without spending much time laying out her tax positions — but experts say her track record is clear enough to surmise her position on a number of issues.
“People are looking at what she did while she was in the Senate, and on the campaign trail in 2019 and in 2020,” said Caroline Bruckner, tax professor at American University’s Kogod School of Business and chief counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
And of course, as a member of the Biden administration, she supported the Inflation Reduction Act, adopted in 2022, and the Green Book budget proposals. The Green Book proposes to not raise taxes on any taxpayer making $400,000 per year or less, which is a sensible-sounding goal, but one that might be difficult to design, according to policy experts.
“It’s fair to say that companies are bracing for an increased corporate tax rate,” said Bruckner. “In looking back to what she proposed in some of her other policies, they are consistent with where Democrats have been, but what is interesting is that in 2019 and 2020 she proposed a massive refundable tax credit as an antipoverty measure. Biden actually did that by increasing the refundability of the Child Tax Credit. Now they have data that shows how successful that was. It’s a big change from just talking about child poverty and combating it.”
“The Child Tax Credit is a real opportunity for her to tout the success of the refundable tax credit,” said Bruckner. “It was an essential part of her tax proposal in 2019, and the Biden administration was actually able to do that with the credit. There was a bipartisan proposal just sitting there that was passed by the House earlier this year which would have expanded the credit.”
The bill failed in a procedural vote of 48-44 in the Senate. It required 60 votes to advance.
“It’s also interesting to consider her strong connections to the tax community in California,” she continued. It is believed that the policies of a potential Harris administration will be reflected in support for Silicon Valley. They will be different from the Biden administration because of where she’s from, according to Bruckner.
With the upcoming 2026 sunsetting of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act provisions approaching, a priority for an incoming administration will be to decide whether to allow them to expire or attempt to revive some of them.
“The question is what to extend and how to pay for it,” said Bruckner. “The most likely ‘pay-for’ is an increase in the corporate tax rate. No one expected it to stay so low for so long. It’s an exciting time because there’s the opportunity to have a vigorous debate over tax and consider some of the successful tax policies that the Biden administration was able to put through. The entire Inflation Reduction Act was a signature piece of legislation that was aimed at combating climate change through the Tax Code.”
The Financial Accounting Standards Board has posted the
The FASB also announced earlier this month the availability of the
The 2025 GRT provides updates for accounting standards, including disaggregation of income statement expenses, profits interest and similar awards, and induced conversions of convertible debt instruments, and other recommended improvements.
The 2025 EBPT includes updates from the 2024 EBPT for elements specifically created for SEC Release Nos. 33–11070; 34–95025 which includes requirements for XBRL tagging of annual reports for employee stock purchase, savings and similar plans filing SEC Form 11-K.
The 2025 SRT offers improvements for elements whose underlying recognition and measurement are not specified by GAAP but are commonly used by GAAP filers and for SEC schedules related to supplemental information provided by insurance underwriters.
The DQCRT is structured from the typical design of XBRL taxonomies because it is narrowly focused on conveying the XBRL US Data Quality Committee’s validation rules, predominantly for regulator use. It isn’t intended to be used in SEC filers’ extension taxonomies. The DQCRT contains a subset of the DQC rules. The FASB Taxonomy staff evaluates the validation rules for inclusion in the DQCRT that have been available for use for more than a year, with consideration for how the DQC addressed any feedback received on a validation rule.
The 2025 MMT includes relationships focusing on accounting model information, which are viewed as helpful information for constituents. The objectives of the relationships in the MMT are to help preparers identify the proper elements for tagging their filings, assist data users in the consumption of data with additional relationship information, and assist in writing business rules that leverage the extra relationship information to help with the proper element selection and identification.
The
A federal appeals court has reversed itself, reinstating an injunction on beneficial ownership information reporting by businesses only days after lifting it.
On Monday, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
The appeals court issued an
“The merits panel now has the appeal, which remains expedited, and a briefing schedule will issue forthwith,” said the court. “However, in order to preserve the constitutional status quo while the merits panel considers the parties’ weighty substantive arguments, that part of the motions-panel order granting the Government’s motion to stay the district court’s preliminary injunction enjoining enforcement of the CTA and the Reporting Rule is VACATED.”
Earlier this week, after the appeals court panel initially lifted the injunction, the Treasury Department
I recently analyzed 132 deals across 212 accounting firms for 2024. The 2025 predictions I’m about to share are not investment advice, so please take it with a grain of salt and use your own judgement.
With that said, let’s dive in: In 2024, private equity money flooded the accounting M&A market. Top players scooped up niche firms left and right. The $2.3 billion
It’s causing excitement and apprehension in the small-to-midmarket space (some partners are raging at outside capital).
Check out the recent wave:
• Dean Dorton’s Florida pick-up of
• Citrin Cooperman’s spree (
•
Not just big names—smaller firms too:
•
•
•
To put it in perspective:
Mid-market and regional firms are grabbing specialty shops—cannabis (
Five p𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱
• Hyper-specialization reigns: Firms will zero in on ultra-niche areas (think AI-driven forensic accounting), leaving generalists scrambling.
• Open architecture models rise: CPA firms will partner with RIAs, ERP consultants and even legal advisors to become one-stop advisory powerhouses.
• Cross-border micro-mergers: Expect global mini-deals, just like
• Tech-centric valuations: Proprietary data analytics or AI stacks will influence deal pricing more than any traditional book of business metrics.
• PE-backed succession solutions: Outside capital will transform partner retirements from liabilities into strategic exit or growth opportunities.
For some, these moves will open the door to scale, differentiate and become indispensable. For others, it’s a stark warning: adapt or risk irrelevance.
RGTI, KULR, MSTR and more
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New 2023 K-1 instructions stir the CAMT pot for partnerships and corporations
Are American progressives making themselves sad?
U.S. Beneficial Ownership Information Registry Now Accepting Reports
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