The Financial Accounting Standards Board recently released Accounting Standards Update (ASU) No. 2016-09, which finalizes significant changes aimed at simplifying the accounting for share-based payments. The final rules are effective for annual periods beginning after December 15, 2016 for public companies and after December 15, 2017 for all other entities. Early adoption is permitted, but if a company chooses to early adopt, it must do so for all amendments in ASU 2016-09.

Spin-offs of the proposed merger of Dow and DuPont and other mega mergers will create buying opportunities for PE firms that invest in coatings, adhesives and sealants.

The United States enacted the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act to uncover U.S. persons who were hiding money in offshore financial institutions and similar investment vehicles.

If Jimmy Fallon had a tax background and were to write one of his thank-you notes for this topic, it might read “Thank you, purchase accounting, because regular accounting for income taxes wasn’t complicated enough.”

Following private equity investors' and strategic acquirers' stable appetite for restaurant acquisitions in the U.S. during the 1st quarter of 2016, Alvarez & Marsal highlights several unique accounting and operational considerations associated with restaurants that new owners, prospective investors and other stakeholders should understand.

This is the first installment of a three-part series dealing with law firm retirement plan obligations.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, on April 4, 2016, the IRS and Treasury released proposed and temporary regulations attacking corporate inversion transactions with an even bigger bite than expected. The first to fall victim to the new rules was the Pfizer-Allergan deal. In its press release issued on April 6, 2016, Pfizer announced that the merger agreement was terminated by mutual agreement of the companies. Pfizer indicated that the decision was “driven by the actions announced by the U.S. Department of Treasury on April 4, 2016.”

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) issued its final overtime rule (the “Rule”), dramatically increasing the minimum salary threshold required to qualify for the Federal Labor Standards Act’s (the “FLSA”) white collar exemptions.

Many retailers are failing to assess the true contribution their stores make as part of the multi-channel business model and customer journey, which in turn can result in poorly informed store closure programmes, resulting in sub-optimal formats and further decline.

As is often the case in practical tax planning, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” On April 4, 2016, the IRS and Treasury issued proposed regulations under the authority of Section 385 of the Internal Revenue Code. Numerous commentators have questioned the IRS and Treasury’s authority to create several of the rules in these regulations. As a result, their validity may or may not be upheld in court, if the regulations are finalized as proposed. Unfortunately, while the possibility of a future court battle between taxpayers and the IRS over these regulations may be of major academic interest, it is of no present or practical help to internal tax departments that are undoubtedly asking the questions, “What do these regulations mean to my company? What should I be doing about them now?”

Drug overdose deaths in the United States averaged a record 118 per day in 2014, with prescription opioids (e.g., Vicodin, Percocet ) accounting for 40 to 50 percent of the total. Heroin, formerly the scourge of poor and urban areas, has now penetrated middle-to-high-income suburban areas with a low cost, high potency product. Fentanyl, with 40 to 50 times the potency of pure heroin, is also available. Alarming headlines, combined with growing evidence of death and devastation, has led to an outcry for additional legislation, manpower and funding to address substance abuse and dependency disorders.

On April 4, 2016, the IRS and Treasury released two sets of proposed and temporary regulations that caused various taxpayers, investment bankers and large sectors of the investment community, particularly in the pharmaceutical and biomed sectors, to sound alarm bells.

Performance Management is an umbrella term encompassing the processes and applications that support strategy development, planning and forecasting, financial management, profitability management, and reporting and analytics. EPM, CPM and BI are popular acronyms referring to Performance Management. At A&M, we call it Integrated Performance Management (IPM) because we believe that the core of management excellence and achieving the success of our clients’ programs is integration.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has been busy of late producing internal guidance for its examiners (both specialists and non-specialists) for use in auditing foreign and cross-border transactions.

To understand compensation practices in the energy sector, specifically, for exploration and production (E&P) companies, Alvarez & Marsal’s Executive Compensation and Benefits Practice examined the latest proxy statements for 100 of the largest E&P companies in the U.S.