Financial reporting

No matter how much money your client has, it's crucial to have a basic estate plan simply because such a plan will then ensure that the financial goals of the client are met after the client dies.

The timeline for adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards in the United States faces several hurdles, including the long-delayed appointment of several SEC commissioners.

No matter how much money your client has, it's crucial to have a basic estate plan simply because such a plan will then ensure that the financial goals of the client are met after the client dies.

No matter how much money your client has, it's crucial to have a basic estate plan simply because such a plan will then ensure that the financial goals of the client are met after the client dies.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board issued an exposure draft of a proposed standard on accounting for hedging activities.

No matter how much money your client has, it's crucial to have a basic estate plan simply because such a plan will then ensure that the financial goals of the client are met after the client dies.

The most comprehensive cost analysis in long term care in the industry and the only one that provides comprehensive data for the past five years was released by Genworth Financial. The study found that nationwide the cost of long term care in nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and in the home increased for the fifth consecutive year. The national average for a year in a private nursing home is now $76,460, more than one and a half times the average annual household income in the U.S. of $48,201. In short, most long term care services in this country are rising at a rate faster than inflation. In fact, for one year in a private nursing home in Miami, the cost is an astounding $91,022. Each year Genworth surveys the cost of care in more than 10,000 nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and among home care providers in all 50 states and 90 geographic regions including the District of Columbia. This year, it also included adult day health care costs for the first time. The study also reveals an imminent shortage of caregivers. In actuality, the U.S. will need to recruit 200,000 new direct-care workers each year to meet future demand among the 78 million Baby Boomers as they age. Moreover, the care-giver workforce is dwindling and faces issues of retention. “Rising long term care costs are creating significant financial planning challenges for millions of Americans and their families,” say Buck Stinson, president of Genworth Financial’s Long Term Care Insurance business. As it stands now, a private one-bedroom unit in an assisted living facility has an average annual cost of $36,090. For home care, the average rate for a non-Medicare certified, state licensed home health aide is $19.18, a cost that translates to $43,884 per year for 44 hours per week of care. As far as adult day health care is concerned, first year research findings indicate the average annual cost for five days a week in an adult day health care facility is $15,236 nationally. The survey, 2008 Cost of Care Survey, along with a research paper, “A Workforce to Care for Our Aging” is available at Genworth./com/CostofCare.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has issued an exposure draft of a proposed standard for expanding the required disclosures of certain loss contingencies.

The International Accounting Standards Board has formed an advisory panel to deal with the controversial topic of determining the value of financial instruments in inactive markets.

Cheshire Software has released a new version of its financial planning software program, Cheshire Wealth Manager, with a new feature for analyzing insurance-planning needs.

Adaptive Planning has added team collaboration and the sharing of best practices to the latest version of its business performance management software.

A new accounting standard is giving executives second thoughts about plans for mergers and acquisitions.

Nonprofit accounting software vendor Blackbaud has struck a deal to acquire rival Kintera for $1.12 per share, or approximately $46 million.

The Internal Revenue Service said that economic stimulus payments directly deposited to individual retirement accounts and other tax-favored accounts may be withdrawn tax- and penalty-free.The relief is designed to help taxpayers who may have been unaware that by choosing direct deposit for their entire regular tax refund, they were also choosing to have their stimulus payment directly deposited as well. The tax relief is available for amounts withdrawn from tax-favored accounts that are less than or equal to a taxpayer’s directly deposited stimulus payment.

There are some classes of software that simply don’t change much from year to year, and retirement planning software is one of them.In any given year, you may see tax tables updated or compatibility with new operating systems and hardware slip in, but these are, by definition, very stable applications whose core strength is that they offer reliability and a strong set of features. Nor do they need to compete with consumer applications for the beauty of their interface or use of colors. Most of the work of a good retirement planner is done in the background, with little or no reason to bother with aesthetics anywhere other than in the final client presentation.

PLANNING NICHE GROWS FOR CPASFinancial planning has helped fuel an increase in revenues at CPA firms, according to a new study by the American Institute of CPAs and CPA firm Moss Adams. The survey found an average financial planning practice size of $460,000 among the 431 CPA firms that responded, with an average yearly growth rate of 34.9 percent between 2004 and 2006. Respondents anticipated a 20.6 percent increase in assets under management in 2007.

With governmental accounting changing fast in a fast-changing financial environment, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board has added projects to its agenda to deal with the increasing variety of public/private partnerships, the common presentation of financial statements for reporting units that do not qualify as reporting entities, and for developments in pension accounting.The decision to review existing standards on post-employment benefits was based on an extensive research project that began in early 2006.

The May 2008 issue of The Journal of Accountancy ran opinion pieces on the role of accounting in the subprime crisis and subsequent bursting of the credit market bubble. Paul Miller was invited to comment on a controversial claim that mark-to-market practices made things worse. The critics claim that GAAP practices weakened institutions that invested in collateralized debt obligations by revealing large losses when the CDOs’ market values evaporated.They assert that financial statements would better serve the public interest if managers can keep unrealized losses (which they consider to be unreal) out of their financial statements. By a huge leap of ego, they conclude that they and everyone else would be better off if nobody is aware that those losses had occurred. After all, everyone knows they aren’t real because they are always followed by gains. Except when they aren’t, of course.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board may change some accounting rules to make it more difficult for banks to get subprime loans off their books.At an accounting conference held last month in New York, FASB Chairman Robert Herz said that the rules might require banks to keep loans on their books that they previously have been able to package and sell off or securitize.

The American Institute of CPAs has sent the Internal Revenue Service a spreadsheet-full of comments on the draft instructions for the revised Form 990 that will be used by tax-exempt organizations to file their returns next year.