Financial reporting

The Financial Accounting Standards Board plans to draft proposed updates to fair value accounting standards with new disclosure requirements.

IMGCAP(1)] All too often, professional leadership seminars fail to live up to their potential for lively, intellectually engaging discussions about current issues and those on the forefront. I recently returned from the AICPA’s Inaugural Leadership Academy in Chicago where 28 young CPAs discussed topics affecting accountants everywhere.

The American Bankers Association is objecting to the newest proposed accounting standards for financial instruments, claiming that they would dramatically expand the use of the much-maligned mark-to-market accounting.

The International Accounting Standards Board has published a set of proposals on the classification of rights issues to clarify their accounting treatment when they are in a currency other than the issuer’s.

Accounting firm Plante & Moran has introduced a “Liquidity Stress Test” tool that manufacturing businesses can use to assess their working capital needs.

Grant Thornton has introduced a service designed to speed companies through the bankruptcy and workout process.

Eli Mason, whose career in public accounting spanned more than seven decades as a practitioner, and a proponent of the profession, has died after a long illness.

General Electric has agreed to pay $50 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges that the company reported false and misleading results in its financial statements.

IMGCAP(1)]In Fall 2008, I read about AICPA Board Chair Ernie Almonte’s vision for the Leadership Academy with great interest. Fast forward eight months, where I had the opportunity to travel to Chicago and attend the Academy. After three inspiring days of networking and roundtable discussions, it was no surprise to hear Almonte express to the participants of the inaugural Academy that it was the culmination of “a dream come true.”

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, reassured attendees at the American Accounting Association’s Annual Meeting that he had no intention of legislating accounting standards.

BDO Seidman said the firm’s national director of accounting, Ben Neuhausen, has passed away after a prolonged illness.

The push for a “lowest common denominator” set of international accounting standards, along with the failure of Sarbanes-Oxley reforms to curb last year’s financial meltdown, are among the factors contributing to the ongoing global recession, experts in corporate governance told Congress.

BDO Seidman said its revenue for the fiscal year ended June 30 fell 5.9 percent to $620 million from last year’s revenue of $659 million.

The Financial Crisis Advisory Group has published a report concluding that accounting standards are not to blame for the economic crisis.

IMGCAP(1)] As a new or young accountant there are a number of responsibilities and challenges on your plate.

Seven in ten Americans ages 45-74 say they plan to work in retirement or never retire, according to AARP. In stark contradiction to the single paradigm of “retirement” as an end to work, older Americans are redesigning the whole notion of life and work.

The task of making financial reporting simpler and more useful isn’t so simple as one might hope, according to several influential accounting officials who met to discuss the problem.

The International Accounting Standards Board has proposed changing the accounting standards for measuring and classifying financial instruments in response to concerns raised by the financial crisis.

Turmoil in the financial markets has negated the value of fair value accounting, according to more than half the respondents to a new survey.

IMGCAP(1)] Malik, a first-year African-American associate assignedto a major accounting firm’s California office, frets that he has blownhis one chance to make a good first impression: