Now that our eyes and ears have (mostly) recovered from the fireworks shows, let’s check in on the IRS rules on when to pay the new stock buyback tax, which the agency published the week before the holiday.

Public companies have been waiting nearly two years for regulations to implement the 1% excise tax on repurchased shares, which passed as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. The new rules give them a deadline for paying the new tax, although they’ll have to wait a bit longer for the agency’s final rules on how to calculate the tax and who has to pay it.

Spooky deadline. The first deadline for the new tax, which covers buybacks made in tax years ending anytime in 2023 up through June 30 of this year, is Oct. 31. So if you need a last-minute Halloween costume and need to file last-minute Forms 720 and 7208, you might have to choose just one. (We’d recommend filing the taxes.)

Going forward, the taxes must be filed in “the first full calendar quarter after the end of the corporation’s taxable year,” according to the new rules.

As KPMG put it in a new memo on how to report and pay the tax: “The time is nigh.”

Click here to read more on the new IRS regulations on stock buybacks.—GD

With so many new modern-day considerations and requirements, it’s no surprise that the retirement landscape endures constant shifts as a result.

Stay up to date on these changes and learn how they might impact you and your employees with this report from Marsh McLennan Agency. It lays out the key factors impacting how people save, invest, and plan for retirement. You’ll get insights on:

• generative AI’s transformative potential in finance
• the impact of inflation on retirement savings
• the blurred lines between wealth management and retirement planning
• fraud and cybersecurity challenges (ft. AI again)

Get the insights and analysis you need to make informed decisions about the financial future—for you and your team.

Download the report.

2022 was a small bump in an otherwise long-term trend of declining financial restatements, according to a new report from the Center for Audit Quality.

Public companies filed 402 restatement announcements in 2022, up from the 362 filed in 2021 but down from 858 in 2013.

The study includes both 4.02 and non-4.02 restatements, also known as “Big R” and “little r” restatements. In 2022, 4.02 restatements made up a larger portion of the total restatements than in the previous nine years, at 38%. Big R restatements accounted for one-quarter of restatements overall in 2021, 21% in 2020, and 28% in 2013.

According to the report, “It is too early to tell if the increase in restatements toward the end of the sample period is a true inflection point or simply a brief disruption of the previous downward trend.”

CAQ found that 41% of all restatements cited two or more accounting issues, and restatements contained 1.8 issues, on average.

In 2022, 24% of restatements cited “financial statement presentation issues,” roughly in line with the 10-year average of 27%.

Click here to continue reading.—AZ

Months after Dell warned most of its remote workers that they needed to return to office (RTO) or face the consequences, about half of its workforce has chosen the consequences.

In February, Dell mandated that remote staff choose between reclassifying themselves as hybrid—which requires a minimum of three days per week in office—or lose their eligibility for promotions and role changes. Dell management then implemented a color-coded attendance grading system for hybrid staff.

Even that push apparently wasn’t enough to get many Dell personnel back into the office. Business Insider, citing “internal data on the entire full-time workforce,” reported that almost 50% of the company’s US employees have chosen to remain remote. Among international staff, the percentage was around a third.

In some cases, employees chose not to come in because Dell had closed nearby offices, or so few colleagues were in their area that they saw no benefit from coming in. Dell workers also told the news site that there were few promotion opportunities. The company has reported rocky financials over the past few years.

While evidence as to whether remote workers are more or less productive is mixed at best, research has found that many workers would rather find a new job than return to the office (in part due to factors like the lack of a commute). University of Pittsburgh researchers released a paper earlier this year suggesting RTO mandates not only don’t improve business performance, but help management at ailing firms scapegoat workers.

Click here to continue reading IT Brew’s story.—TM