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Graison Dangor

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Audit committees are ‘zeroed in on’ cybersecurity: report

New SEC rules may be partly why nearly 70% called it a top-three priority.

Planning taxes in unplannable times

KPMG experts laid out the dilemmas facing tax leaders.

Drew Adamek

Cheat sheet round up: aligning FP&A and the C-suite, retained earnings, and essential skills. 

More quick reference guides for corporate finance.

Cheat sheet round up: FP&A and the C-suite, retained earnings, and essential skills. 

A broken out piechart icon denoting accounting

Accounting

Natasha Piñon

Frank Bisignano is officially doing double duty. This month, Bisignano was appointed by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, to take on the newly created role of CEO of the IRS. That brings his full-time job count up to two: Bisignano is already the head of the Social Security Administration.

If you’re glancing at your unread emails and wondering how anyone could possibly balance 

 stressful government agency gigs, you’re not alone.

The Treasury Department said in a statement that the IRS and Social Security Administration “share many of the same technological and customer service goals,” making “Mr. Bisignano a natural choice for this role.” But news of his appointment has ushered in worried comments from Social Security advocates who believe that whole thing about chasing two rabbits.

How’s he going to handle it? It helps to take a look at his track record (and new job description).

Before his new gig(s), Bisignano served as CEO of financial services and payments firm Fiserv from 2020. The year before, as CEO of First Data, he led a merger with that firm and Fiserv, according to the Treasury Department. Prior to those roles, he served as COO of JPMorgan Chase, and he held a number of roles at Citigroup, including CEO of its global transaction services unit.

In his new (IRS) gig, Bisignano will report directly to Bessent, who’ll stay in place as acting commissioner. Because Bisignano’s role didn’t previously exist at the IRS, he’ll likely avoid a lengthy Senate confirmation process.

As far as a job description goes, the Treasury Department said Bisignano will oversee “all day-to-day IRS operations while also continuing to serve in his role as Commissioner of the Social Security Administration.”

The leadership reshuffling is part of a larger trend at the IRS since the start of President Trump’s second term. Since January, Trump has kept turnover remarkably high, going through six IRS leaders in that time. One of them, Billy Long, “an auctioneer and former Republican representative from Missouri whose tax experience consisted of a three-day course,” only lasted in the role 

, CFO Brew previously reported. That’s not even the shortest tenure: Another IRS commissioner, Gary Shapley, held the title for just a handful of days in April.

In addition to a remarkable leadership turnover rate, the Trump administration has also shrunk the agency’s workforce by 26% this year.

Given the challenges facing the IRS, some experts have called into question Bisignano’s hiring and the nature of his multi-tasking role.

“I don’t see how you can [hold both roles] with the IRS being gutted the way it is, Social Security being gutted the way it is, the massive changes that they’ve got underway, and a massive tax law that you’ve got underway,” Nina Olson, former national taxpayer advocate, the IRS’s “consumer watchdog,” between 2001 and 2019, told 

“This arrangement doesn’t sound like stability at the IRS,” Alex Muresianu, senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, 

. “To me, this seems like yet another sort of odd, unusual interim arrangement.”

Others are worried that the sensitive information under the purview of the different agencies could intermingle.

“The reason it’s never happened in the history of the country is because there are two separate positions for very good reasons,” Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, an advocacy group that calls for the expansion of Social Security, told CNBC.

There might be a reason most of us only have one full-time job.

Who is Frank Bisignano, the new CEO of the IRS? 

If you’re glancing at your never-ending calendar of meetings upon meetings and wondering how anyone could possibly balance two stressful government agency gigs, you’re not alone.

Courtney Vien

Accounting firms are thriving. That’s according to Wolters Kluwer’s 2025 

, based on a survey of 2,768 global tax and accounting professionals conducted in April and May of this year.

Representatives of more than 4 in 5 (83%) firms globally and 86% of US firms said their revenue had increased year over year. At least eight in 10 firms globally and in the US reported profitability increases.

Advisory services continued to be a growth area. More than nine in 10 US firms now offer advisory services as either a core offering or upon request. Majorities of both small (52%), midsize (53%), and large (58%) US respondents said their firms had plans to expand such services.

More than three-quarters of North American firms (76%) planned to invest more in AI in the three years. And 37% of respondents started using AI tools in the past year, compared with 10% in 2024. The most common AI use cases for US firms included tax, accounting, and audit research (42%); as a productivity tool (41%); and summarizing documents (38%).

Globally, many firms are interested in pursuing private equity investment. Nearly a third (32%) of firms worldwide and in the US accepted PE money in the past three years. In the US, views toward PE were mixed: 44% of accounting pros said their firms were interested in private equity or third-party funding, while 29% indicated they weren’t at all interested.

Strategic partnerships or joint ventures are still a more popular investment strategy than PE; 37% of US firms pursued them in the past three years and 49% of respondents expressed interest in this avenue.

And acquisition activity continues to be a favored investment strategy: 28% of US respondents said their firms had acquired another firm in the past three years, and 44% were interested in acquisition.

Editor’s note 10/10/2025: A previous version of this story showed the 2024 survey results instead of the 2025 results.

83% of accounting firms had revenue growth year over year

Only 27% are using it, according to a Wolters Kluwer survey. 

Can you dodge a bullet twice? Forget the action movies—let’s ask the IRS.

Perhaps you remember: Tax filing season last year went 

. Repeating that in 2026, however, is where that second bullet comes in.

 at the start of the year, there were enough critical filing season employees to get through the 

, ultimately processing more tax returns than the year before, according to a recent report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

The IRS processed 142.2 million returns in 2025, compared with 139.9 million in 2024, while exceeding its 85% level-of-service goal for phone calls.

But things already don’t look the same for 2026, the IRS watchdog cautioned.

“Although the 2025 filing season was not impacted, the IRS is beginning to see the effects of the workforce reduction on post-filing season activities, and we are concerned how this will impact the 2026 filing season,” the report said, adding that “key IRS functions responsible for managing the filing season have lost 17% to 19% of their workforce.”

Meanwhile, an IRS initiative dubbed the Zero Paper initiative, 

 and meant to improve digital processing for paper-filed returns and mitigate impact from staffing cuts, “is already delayed,” the report noted. Best of luck with that second bullet.

2026 tax filing season looks rocky, IRS watchdog warns

While the IRS avoided major disruptions in 2025, repeating that success in 2026 looks unlikely. 

Need a dollar amount? Tariffs are expected to hit FedEx with $1 billion in costs in fiscal 2026, executives said during the company’s Q1 2026 earnings call last week.

Export volumes decreased for the quarter, especially stalling between the US and China. The company reduced its “trans-Pacific Asia outbound capacity by 25% YoY,” CEO Raj Subramaniam said on an earnings call Thursday.

The bulk of FedEx’s troubles with that particular trade route came from the halting of the 

, which President Trump ended last month via executive order. It allowed duty-free shipments to the US on orders under $800.

“Given a significant portion of our de minimis volume exposure previously came from China, we were able to use learnings from our experiences in May to help shippers elsewhere navigate the more recent exemption elimination,” Subramaniam said on the call.

Now, the shipping giant is focusing its efforts on other markets, including shipping within the US.

“Knowing our strongest international lane would be under pressure, we pivoted the commercial team and they have done a tremendous job capturing demand out of Southeast Asia and Europe,” Brie Carere, FedEx’s chief customer officer, told investors on the earnings call.

US average daily volume climbed 5% in the quarter, while Subramaniam noted that “Q1 also marked our best new business quarter in Europe in the last 2 years.”

And it’s not like the company is exactly struggling. Revenue climbed to $22.2 billion, a 3% YoY jump. Analysts FactSet polled expected $21.7 billion in revenue, the 

 reported. The company anticipates YoY revenue growth within the 4% to 6% range for fiscal 2026, ahead of Wall Street expectations.

Some big hits, sure, but FedEx is doing fine.

FedEx halts package shipping from some retailers

FedEx hurt by tariffs in Q1, but sales and profit rose 

 While the company reported a steep tariff hit, it was buoyed by domestic shipping strength. 

The accounting associations have written an exposure draft that clarifies and simplifies some of the language of the existing standards, which were last updated on January 1, 2024. The draft now organizes the standards by sections, rather than paragraphs.

The associations also propose some modest changes to the standards themselves. They recommend allowing professionals to initially earn one-half or one full CPE credit for group learning programs, and to initially earn one-fifth or one-half CPE credit for self-study programs. Some state boards of accountancy already allow professionals to initially earn CPE credit in these increments.

This change “would lay the foundation for future simplification” of CPE standards to eliminate the nano-learning category, the draft’s authors write, which could then be considered part of the self-study program category.

The exposure draft also “expands the requirement for learning engagement to all types of formal CPE programs” and provides examples of learning engagement for group, self-study, and blended learning programs.

The proposed changes also include loosening the requirements around the types of feedback that CPE providers give on review questions. The exposure draft represents a “move away from requiring evaluative feedback for each incorrect answer and reinforcement feedback for the correct answer,” the draft’s authors wrote. They had received input that the feedback requirements were among “the most time-consuming and difficult” for CPE providers to comply with and that many self-study platforms have limited capability to offer feedback.

 on the exposure draft until December 16.

AICPA, NASBA propose tweaks to CPE standards

They recommend streamlining the standards and making some small changes.

 in recent years, as students realize they can make higher starting salaries in related fields like finance. That’s contributed to a persistent and perhaps growing 

Firms may have taken notice. The median starting salary for new accountants at public firms 

 since 2023, climbing to $60,834, according to the AICPA’s 

And that’s just for new hires with bachelor’s degrees. Those with master’s degrees have seen salaries jump 17% to a median $67,750 since the last time the survey was conducted two years ago.

Whether that’s enough to lure students away from other fields remains a concern. “Higher starting salaries and more competitive pay across the board will definitely help accounting firms attract and retain more talent,” Lisa Simpson, VP of firm services at the AICPA, said in a Journal of Accountancy article. “The profession is making progress in this area, but we need to continue to evaluate pay compared to other career opportunities.”

Partners are still making bank, the survey found. Their compensation grew 10% over 2023, to a median of $202,521. Net remaining per owner, or profit per partner, rose 12% to $252,663.

The MAP survey polled 1,073 firms from May through July of this year, asking them about FY 2024 data. The majority of the firms surveyed (81%) were smaller, with net client fees (a measure of revenue) below $5 million.

Firm revenues also grew over the past two years, the MAP survey found, though not as dramatically as in recent years. The median revenue growth was 6.7% in FY 2024, compared with 9.1% in FY 2022, when firms saw business pick up after the pandemic. The larger firms in the survey, with revenues over $10 million, had the most revenue growth in 2024, with a median rise of 9.1%.

Firms aren’t in a rush to adopt AI or automation. (AICPA CEO Mark Koziel 

.) Though 65% of respondents said they were open to the technologies, only 13% said they had successfully implemented them.

Firms also haven’t made robust plans for upskilling staff should routine tasks become automated. Around a quarter of firms (26%) said they’d conducted informal, occasional training to prepare staff to take on more strategic roles, and just 5% said they’d begun formal training in this area.

But if firms do adopt automation more broadly, accountants may have a pleasant surprise in store: 45% said they’d use the time savings from automation to reduce hours and improve work-life balance. John Maynard Keynes 

Close up of business shoes walking up an increasing height of podiums with dollar signs. (Credit: Illustration: Anna Kim, Photos: Adobe Stock)

Starting salaries on the rise at public accounting firms

Firms’ revenues are also growing, though more slowly than they did post-pandemic. 

Jesse Klein

If we were Nvidia’s CEO, we’d probably be staring in the mirror screaming, “What more do you want from me?!”

 its second quarter earnings last week. It reported $46.7 billion in revenue, edging out analyst expectations of $46 billion. That’s a 56% increase from $30 billion a year ago, making it the ninth straight quarter Nvidia had a more than 50% increase in YoY earnings.

Even so, Wall Street gave a collective shrug and considered the numbers underwhelming. Shares 

 in post-trading hours on after the release.

, Goldman Sachs analysts are looking for 

 that will influence Nvidia’s stock price for the rest of the year: continued spending on AI by the Magnificent 7, updates on the Rubin chip, and whether the company can circumvent the ban on exports to China.

Strong chip sales to major tech firms signaled Nvidia is still riding the AI wave, mitigating bubble concerns. It has distributed about 

 per week since they were released late last year. With an estimated price of $30,000 each, that’s a good chunk of change for the company. But data center revenue was disappointing, coming up short for the second quarter in a row.

The elephant in the room was China. In Q2, Nvidia didn’t sell any chips to the country because of a ban on exports, and ongoing negotiations between Washington and Beijing.. . Nvidia’s $54 billion Q3 forecast excludes China, but if sales resume, that “would lift its revenue higher,” the NYT reported.

If President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping work things out, Nvidia stands to profit. China offers a $50 billion annual revenue opportunity for the company, according to Business Insider.