Financial reporting

President Barack Obama reduced his demand for tax increases to $1.4 trillion from $1.6 trillion as he and House Speaker John Boehner traded another round of offers and inched toward a budget agreement.

A new report from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales urges the International Accounting Standards Board to “end the era of convergence,” and give all listed companies around the world the option of applying International Financial Reporting Standards.

Pannell Kerr Forster of Texas PC will now provide consulting services to businesses looking to file economic loss claims as part of a class action suit, such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

The Private Company Council held its inaugural meeting on Thursday to discuss how accounting standards should be adjusted for privately held companies.

CONNECTICUT

Seattle-based Top 15 Firm Moss Adams LLP has announced that it will merge with Silicon Valley-based Top 100 Firm Mohler, Nixon & Williams, boosting their combined presence in Northern California. The deal has been approved by partners at both firms, and is due to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2013.

John Karaffa had the right stats to found ProSport CPA five years ago, an accounting firm that serves professional athletes, as both an athlete and one that played abroad, like many of his clients.

The Financial Accounting Foundation’s board of trustees has appointed four new members to the Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Council and six new members to the Governmental Accounting Standards Advisory Council.

Check out the digital edition of the December 2012 issue of Accounting Today.

Financial Accounting Standards Board chairman Leslie Seidman and International Accounting Standards Board chairman Hans Hoogervorst appeared side by side at an AICPA conference Tuesday in a joint appearance to discuss what went awry in U.S. support for International Financial Reporting Standards.

Charles “Sandy” Kennedy Jr. joins G.T. Reilly & Co. as vice president and director of tax services.

Top 100 Firm Wipfli LLP and Minnesota-based Eikill & Schilling Ltd., have agreed to pair up.

American Institute of CPAs chairman Richard Caturano told an audience of CPAs at the AICPA’s Conference on Current SEC and PCAOB Developments in Washington, D.C., that the Institute is committed to engaging with regulators.

Accounting Today has issued a call for submissions for its 2013 Top New Products report.

James Peko has been promoted to national managing principal of Grant Thornton LLP’s Corporate Advisory & Restructuring Services practice.

Hurricane Sandy was an unfortunately frequent topic of conversation during Accounting Today's 3rd annual Growth & Profitability Summit=. Most of the attendees from the Northeast had flown out just ahead of the devastation, but regardless of geographic location, we all followed the news as the situation escalated -- though all in different ways.

Four trends to put the 'service' back in professional services

Don't retreat -- summit!

The fiscal cliff, once a seeming imaginary event far off on the horizon, is looming large as we approach the beginning of 2013 with a divided government. The cliff, a combination of tax increases and government spending cuts, threatens to send the country deeper into another recession, according to economists from the Congressional Budget Office.

Trying to sum up a complicated 2012 in accounting