Accounting standards

The Financial Accounting Standards Board voted Wednesday to reorganize its future agenda to focus more closely on the issues most important to FASB stakeholders, as it anticipates completion of its remaining four convergence projects for harmonizing U.S. GAAP with International Financial Reporting Standards.

Nearly 80 percent of business executives surveyed last year by Deloitte anticipate that complying with the lease accounting standards that the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board have been collaborating on will be difficult, with concerns especially high about data quality and information technology systems.

The Financial Accounting Foundation said Tuesday that it will contribute up to $3 million to the International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation to help complete some of their joint accounting standards convergence projects.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has launched the FASB Outlook, a new quarterly e-newsletter designed to keep people informed about FASB’s current projects and activities.

The European Commission has appointed the French accounting firm Mazars and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales to team up on a report assessing the effects of using International Financial Reporting Standards in the European Union.

The Financial Accounting Foundation has released an updated print edition of the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s FASB Accounting Standards Codification, the authoritative source of U.S. GAAP for public and private companies and not-for-profit organizations.

The International Accounting Education Standards Board has published three new International Education Standards, adjusting the suggested content of educational programs for initial professional development of aspiring accountants.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board issued a pair of updates Thursday to U.S. GAAP to provide alternatives for private companies on the subsequent accounting for goodwill and for interest rate swaps.

A task force that has been investigating the budget crisis affecting many states across the country is calling for major changes in the ways that states handle their budgeting and financial reporting.

A roundup of audit and assurance from the previous month

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board approved a 2014 budget of $258.4 million, and a 2013-2017 strategic plan that includes a greater focus on accounting firms' burgeoning consulting practices.

Miller & Bahnson reprise a column on the redefinition of comparability

The Financial Accounting Foundation has appointed investor and asset manager Ann Spruill to its Board of Trustees, effective Jan. 1, 2014.

Thomson Reuters released a report on the IRS’s new regulations impacting taxpayers who acquire, produce or improve tangible property.

The IASB published for public comment Wednesday an exposure draft of five proposed amendments to four International Financial Reporting Standards under its annual improvements project.

A new study finds almost 40 percent of researched companies have audit committee members with social ties to the CEO.

While the flow of high-quality information is critical to the functioning of capital markets, many are coming to see the independent audits that vouch for that information as irrelevant, according to PCAOB Chairman James Doty.

Audit firms may not be appropriately executing engagement quality review, according to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board acknowledged Tuesday that a 1992 standard on accounting for income taxes did little to simplify the accounting.

FASB Chairman Russell Golden looks at what's to come