Accounting standards

The American Institute of CPAs and the Financial Accounting Standards Board have set a date for FASB's Private Company Financial Reporting Committee to meet.

The Center for Audit Quality named three of its first public board members, including a former SEC commissioner, Harvey Goldschmid.

Proxy researcher Glass Lewis & Co. has rolled out its ESG Watch List Service, a tool that enables Glass Lewis' proxy voting clients to track companies with environmental, social or governance policies and/or practices that may create operational, performance, financial, legal or accounting risks. The service incorporates ratings from IW Financial, a provider of research, analytics and consulting services that enable investors to incorporate ESG factors into the investment process. ESG Watch List Service notifies users when the practices or the ESG performance of a company within their portfolio approaches a level that may be of concern based on evaluation criteria established for the list by the client. Glass Lewis ViewPoint clients can set up one or more pre-set profiles, or can elect to create custom profiles for rating the 3,000 U.S. companies in the Glass Lewis-IW Financial databank.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged some 37 audit firms and 32 audit partners with reviewing the financials of public companies without undergoing mandatory registration with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.According to the regulator, the unregistered firms and partners conducted some 60 audits between November 2003 and October 2005.

The American Institute of CPAs has issued an exposure draft of a proposed audit and accounting guide for the airline industry and is looking for comments.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved a rule from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority that would crack down on abusive sales of deferred variable annuities, particularly to senior citizens.

Computer Sciences Corp. said it would restate its fiscal 2007 results after examining the impact of FASB Interpretation No. 48, or FIN 48, and discovering accounting errors for fiscal 1997 through 2007.

While the Internal Revenue Service has issued a plan that adopts the IRS Oversight Board's goal of 86 percent voluntary compliance by 2009, National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson cautioned against IRS efforts to ramp up enforcement excessively and cut corners in its treatment of taxpayers if it is pressured to do too much too soon."For fiscal year 2008, both the Internal Revenue Service and the Taxpayers Advocate Service face similar challenges," she said, in the second of her two annual reports to Congress. "The IRS is under scrutiny for its efforts to close the tax gap, while the TAS is struggling to address taxpayer difficulties that arise as a result of these very efforts."

In what Chairman Christopher Cox termed "a second front in an all-out war on complexity in financial reporting," the Securities and Exchange Commission has formed a Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting and called on it to formulate specific ways "to reduce complexity and all its costly burdens."The committee will have a year to search for solutions that have eluded standard-setters and regulators for decades. While fears of litigation have led to complex and detailed rules-based standards, a growing demand for simplicity has inspired calls for less specific standards that are based more on principles.

Responding to widespread uncertainties about the implementation of Financial Accounting Statement 133, Accounting for Derivative Instruments and Hedging Activities, the Financial Accounting Standards Board has issued a proposed implementation issue intended to make it easier for companies to use the "shortcut method" in accounting for many hedging transactions.It should also help those companies' confidence.

President Bush is considering the possibility of simplifying the corporate tax system, as long as the changes don't affect the amount of taxes the government collects.The president's announcement came on the heels of a conference convened by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in July, in which he proposed a cut in corporate taxes to make the U.S. more competitive.

The International Accounting Standards Board issued a revised version of its standard for the presentation of financial statements aimed at improving users' ability to analyze and compare the information in them.

Robert DeSantis, a top executive with the parent organization of the Financial Accounting Standards Board and Governmental Accounting Standards Board, has resigned.

CEOs of Fortune 100 companies are receiving increasingly valuable financial planning perks, according to a new study.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., has written letters to the Big Four accounting firms asking what they are doing to let their financial institution clients know about waivers on mortgage accounting standards that could let borrowers refinance their loans.

The American Institute of CPAs is asking the Internal Revenue Service to reconsider some of its proposed monetary penalties for misbehaving practitioners and firms.

The Office of the Chief Accountant at the Securities and Exchange Commission has chosen three professional accounting fellows who will be working with the office for two-year terms starting this fall.

Charles “Chuck” Allen has worked for the accounting firm Crowe Chizek for his entire career. Fresh out of college as a campus recruit, he joined the firm in 1975. In April of this year, the 53-year-old became CEO of Crowe Group, the Oak Brook, Ill.-based firm’s parent company, succeeding two-term CEO Mark Hildebrand. Before becoming CEO, Allen served as managing executive of Crowe’s commercial services group. During his career, he has concentrated on assisting private investors with acquiring and financing companies and establishing a private equity group client base. He talked with WebCPA about his plans for broadening the Midwestern firm’s national footprint, the recent challenges facing the accounting and private equity industries, and his firm’s efforts at recruitment and retention.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has begun asking for comments on a document that outlines a variety of proposed changes in the way companies do their financial reporting.

The American Institute of CPAs’ professional ethics division has issued a proposal that would outline the independence requirements of CPA firm networks and associations.