Ross Jenkins, COO of New Zealand-based Xero, will retire by the end of 2015. The company said Jenkins, who has been interim CFO since March will transition that position to the new executive, Sankar Narayan. Jenkins returned to the financial job when Doug Jeffries resigned after eight weeks in that position.

The average combined sales tax rate in the United States shrank marginally in the second quarter despite a 30-percent increase in new local indirect taxes. A OneSource Indirect Tax report from Thomson Reuters, which summarizes quarterly changes in sales, use and value-added tax, shows that state-imposed retail sales tax remained unchanged at 5.457 percent across the nation, for the third straight quarter.

The Internal Revenue Service recently proposed rules to stop what it says are abusive maneuvers by private-equity firms. With these rules, the IRS is seeking to limit private-equity executives' practice of reducing their tax bills by reclassifying how their management fees are taxed.