Accounting standards

The California Board of Accountancy is requiring CPAs licensed in California to take additional ethics education classes starting in the New Year, and all accounting firms in the state will be subject to peer review.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has established an academic fellowship program to recruit accounting researchers to spend a year at the PCAOB’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board said it has achieved its goal of substantial convergence with International Financial Reporting Standards dated Dec. 31, 2008, with a series of new or improved standards.

Financial Executives International has written a report listing the top challenges it sees for financial executives next year.

The case of Bernard Madoff’s former auditor, David Friehling, has cast the ethics of the accounting profession into a harsh light and forced his state CPA society to take action.

Earlier this year, I was asked to participate in a sort of town-hall-style forum to discuss a number of profession-centric issues. The session was slotted for one hour and, as is my custom, I hoped to make enough cogent points to not only fill the time slot, but also to keep the attendees interested (read: awake) and in their seats, and not just hanging around long enough to earn CPE - but we hardly had enough time to cover the critical events that surfaced in 2009 and will remain there to greet the profession in 2010.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board is facing an uncertain future after several justices on the high court appeared to side with the accounting firm and conservative group that hope to prove the board is unconstitutional.

The International Accounting Standards Board has published a new standard on classifying and measuring financial assets to determine whether an asset should be measured at amortized cost or fair value.

IMGCAP(1)]Opaque financial instruments that banks and insurance companies have created and misrepresented, and that were blamed for the current recession, seem to call for greater transparency. But what exactly is transparency? How is it done? Does it work?

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has received mostly negative comments on a recent proposal to require engagement partners with final responsibility for an audit to sign the audit report, and it may end up abandoning the idea.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission “never took the necessary and basic steps” that would have led to the agency uncovering Bernard L. Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme, according to the full report issued Friday by the agency’s Inspector-General.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Las Vegas accountant Michael J. Moore and his auditing firm Moore & Associates with issuing false auditing reports prepared by high school graduates who had little to no experience with accounting or auditing.

With trillion-dollar deficits, cap-and-trade and nationalized health care on the horizon, the issues involving the possible registering and licensing of tax preparers seem trivial. Yet the ability to fund the deficits and pay for a nationalized health care system ultimately depends on the ability of the federal government to collect tax.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has voted to adopt a new auditing standard on engagement quality review and to issue a concept release on requiring the engagement partner to sign the audit report.

The International Accounting Standards Board has issued amendments to its rules for companies adopting International Financial Reporting Standards for the first time to allow some exemptions.

Norwalk, Conn. - Governments have always found it difficult to properly report fund balances when the uses of various fund amounts were restricted in a number of ways. A dollar that couldn't be spent did not combine well with a dollar that could only be spent for a specific purpose, or a general fund dollar that could be spent without constraint.

Can anything good come out of a $65 billion Ponzi scheme?

The economic downturn, coupled with proposals to make the Research and Development Credit permanent, the potential repeal of LIFO, and higher individual tax rates under the Obama administration, could significantly reshape the landscape of S corps over the next several years."For planning purposes, the proposal to make the R&D Credit permanent has significance because it will affect what types of investments companies will make," explained Rick Klahsen, managing director at RSM McGladrey's national tax department. "However, the proposed repeal of the LIFO inventory method would have a tremendous negative impact on S corporations. Many S corporations are manufacturers, and the loss of the LIFO method will cost them in terms of additional taxable income. It will cause them to take a look at the types of inventory investments they might make."

Washington, D.C.-In the wake of several high-profile Ponzi schemes - most notably, the $65 billion fraud perpetrated by the now-jailed Bernard Madoff - the Internal Revenue Service has issued new guidance for victims of these types of schemes and their tax preparers.

Among the many changes born of the financial crisis that's sweeping the globe are changes in internal auditing departments.