Associations

The American Institute of CPAs has named California accounting professor Robert S. Roussey as the 2004 recipient of its Special Recognition Award, which is presented to individuals who have made substantial contributions to the accounting profession.

Improving taxpayer service, enhancing enforcement of the tax law, and modernizing the Internal Revenue Service through its people, processes and technology should be the tax administration's top priorities for 2005, according to the American Institute of CPAs.

The majority of tax professionals who enter the financial planning business do so by hooking up with an independent broker/dealer firm, according to a report by market research and consulting firm Tiburon Strategic Advisors.

While he conceded that the current financial reporting system needs lots of improvement, Financial Accounting Standards Board chair Robert H. Herz urged members of the profession to make changes at a measured pace.

On the heels of the Securities and Exchange Commission's decision to temporarily postpone the filing date for smaller accelerated filers' management reports on internal controls, the commission's chief accountant hinted this week that foreign issuers could also get a reprieve on implementing the new rules.

2004 was a banner year for local and regional firms across the U.S., with many reporting salary increases and double-digit revenue growth, according to this year's PCPS/Texas Society of CPAs National Management of an Accounting Practice Survey.

The American Institute of CPAs' marketing arm, CPA2Biz, has expanded its small business banking services program to CPAs in 12 additional states.

Improving taxpayer service, enhancing enforcement of the tax law, and modernizing the Internal Revenue Service through its people, processes and technology should be the tax administration's top priorities for 2005, according to the American Institute of CPAs.

By almost anyone's accounting, accounting is making a comeback.

While specialty credentials, auditor independence and XYZ were thrust to the forefront of member issues during past Council meetings of the American Institute of CPAs, attendees at the 2004 fall confab were urged to take a more proactive role in what is inarguably a new era in the timeline of the profession.

AICPA adopts outsourcing ethics

As part of its multi-pronged educational effort on financial literacy, the American Institute of CPAs has launched a consumer Web portal that offers information and articles organized by a series of life stages, such as college, entrepreneurship, marriage, parenthood, home ownership and retirement.

The American Institute of CPAs has named Thomas J. Purcell III to a two-year term as chairman of its Tax Executive Committee, the tax policy and standards-setting body of the AICPA.

The American Institute of CPAs has adopted ethics rules that place new requirements on members who outsource clients' work to third-party providers and broaden the definition of those providers.

The American Institute of CPAs has named Thomas J. Purcell III to a two-year term as chairman of its Tax Executive Committee, the tax policy and standards-setting body of the AICPA.

The American Institute of CPAs awarded the 2005 Gold Medal for Distinguished Service, its highest honor, this week to former Financial Accounting Standards Board chair Dennis R. Beresford.

In his inaugural speech at the American Institute of CPAs Fall Council meeting here, incoming chairman Robert L. Bunting detailed his priorities for the coming year and called on his fellow CPAs to not only embrace change, but to initiate it.

Members of the Professional Ethics Executive Committee of the American Institute of CPAs acknowledged a series of practitioner's concerns with regard to PEEC's revised interpretation of rules governing members who offer non-attest services to attest clients.

The long-existing gap between what the public thinks the profession's responsibilities are when it comes to fraud and what the profession's actual responsibilities are, is getting wider, rather than narrower, the chief executive of the American Institute of CPAs warned. In an update to AICPA Council members at their meeting here Monday, CEO and president Barry Melancon said that, in the post-Sarbanes-Oxley world, "the expectation of the public has changed," particularly in the area of audit function. "New gaps are developing, and in the area of fraud, the gap is widening," Melancon said. "The public's expectation that the profession has an obligation to detect fraud has moved to an expectation that maybe we ought to be preventing fraud," he told Council members. Melancon added that a new expectation gap is developing in the area of internal controls assessment, an issue that falls under SOX Section 404. At issue is what the public's -- and the courts' -- expectation is of what attestation will mean when something goes wrong.

Member response to the American Institute of CPAs' recently formed audit quality centers has been favorable, an institute vice president told Council members here, noting that the Employee Benefit Plan Audit Quality Center has attracted nearly 700 firms since its launch in March. As of last week, some 690 firms have joined the voluntary center, with five to 10 additional firms enrolling daily, Susan Coffey, AICPA vice president of audit quality and professional ethics, told Council members in an update Monday. The Governmental Audit Quality Center, which launched on Sept. 27, has just begun recruiting members. Coffey noted that some 6,300 firms practice in that environment, which includes the audits of state and local governments and nonprofits, as well as certain for-profit entities that receive government funds. In addition, Coffey noted that 950 firms (auditing 96 percent of all SEC registrants) have joined the Center for Public Company Audit Firms. That center, a revamped version of what used to be the AICPA's SEC Practice Section, launched in January of this year.