News

A woman who owned four H&R Block franchised stores faces up to two years in prison after pleading guilty to a charge that she opened lines of credits using stolen client identities. The store owner, Sherry R. Kelley, age 41, of Exmore, Va., pleaded guilty to one county of aggravated identity theft. She had been indicted on ten counts of aggravated identity theft and ten counts of using others' Social Security numbers.

Mayer Hoffman McCann faces a hearing on a possible cease-and-desist order from the SEC over a client's owning the stock of the accounting firm's partner, CBIZ. The SEC says the trader-broker client Tradebot's owning the stock meant that MHM's independence was impaired for its audits of Tradebot's financial statements for 2008 through 2012. The hearing of issuing an order will be held within 30 to 60 days of a September 25 notification by the SEC.

A Pennsylvania CPA who falsified tax documents to help a mobster get a mortgage loan has been sentenced to 40 months in prison. Howard Drossner of Amber, Pa., had pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in a case that involved Lucchese organized crime family member Nicodemo "Nicky" S. Scarfo. But Drossner's involvement went far beyond that act the government said.

Sage's pending purchase of Paychoice lays the ground for Sage to begin offering payroll services through its accountants network. The acquisition of the Mount Laurel, N.J-based company for $157 million in cash, announced this week, also provides Sage the opportunity to integrate its major accounting software packages with the Paychoice offerings and to cross sell payroll and human resource products.