Accounting Today articles from December 2008

Accounting Today archives from December 2008

GEARING UP FOR TAX SEASON: Crisis prompts close look at tax changes, savings, for '09 season; The second in a two-part series.(News)
December 15, 2008... Byline: Roger Russell While staffing, training, new software applications and the latest tax law changes are at the top of every practitioner's to-do list for the tax filing season that looms ahead, the overriding concern this year is the...

New Congress eyes tighter regulation.(News)
December 15, 2008... Byline: Ken Rankin With the election now academic, a concerted drive to ratchet up regulation of the financial markets by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, and other bodies will be near...

Helping the affluent weather the financial storm.(Crisis Center)
December 15, 2008... Byline: Liz Gold Given the economic implosion where trillions have been lost in personal investments and wire houses are boarding up like ice cream shops in January, high-net-worth clients are looking to their accountants and wealth...

IN BRIEF.(Crisis Center)(J.H. Cohn and Co's new team to advise on financial crisis)(Adaptive Planning's new software)(College for Financial Planning is expanding its scholarship program )
December 15, 2008... Cohn Creates Recovery Team Roseland, N.J. - Accounting firm J.H. Cohn has formed a Client Economic Recovery Team to advise financial institutions and public companies affected by the financial crisis. The firm plans to assist senior...

Form up! Experts urge tax-exempts to review the new 990 now.(Tax Practice)
December 15, 2008... Byline: Roger Russell A completely revised Form 990 will require an overhaul of internal policies and procedures for most tax-exempt organizations, according to Joyce Underwood, director of nonprofit taxation at BDO Seidman's Institute...

IN BRIEF.(Tax Practice)(CCH Small Firm Services has acquired Orrtax Software Inc.)(tax penalties against FedEx Corp.)(report on tax revenues )
December 15, 2008... CCH SFS Buys IntelliTax Kennesaw, Ga. - CCH Small Firm Services, part of Wolters Kluwer Tax and Accounting, has acquired IntelliTax, a tax software company formerly known as Orrtax. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. CCH SFS plans to...

TAX STRATEGY: The usual temporary AMT relief - and a few surprises.(Tax Practice)
December 15, 2008... Byline: George G. Jones and Mark A. Luscombe Once again this year, the headline for the Alternative Minimum Tax is another one-year fix with no permanent solution. The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 raised the AMT exemption...

FASB, IASB push revamp to financial presentations.(Assurance)(Financial Accounting Standards Board)(International Accounting Standards Board)
December 15, 2008... Byline: Glenn Cheney In the current financial turmoil, what might help is a more presentable presentation of financial statements. As a result, the International Accounting Standards Board and the Financial Accounting Standards Board...

IN BRIEF.(Assurance)(The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board)
December 15, 2008... Fair Value Judgment: Cloudy? Washington, D.C. - Leaders of six business associations have written a joint letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission complaining that recent guidance about the use of judgment in fair value accounting...

THE SPIRIT OF ACCOUNTING: Tick, tick, tick goes the P-bomb.(Assurance)(Pension Protection Act of 2006)(Column)
December 15, 2008... Byline: Paul B.W. Miller and Paul R. Bahnson It's hard to believe we can write another column about pensions and the bad GAAP applied to them, but here we are again, beating the same old drum. In addition, there is a new drum in the...

Keeping retirees afloat in a changing economy.(Financial Planning)
December 15, 2008... Byline: Lance Wallach Government officials now expect 401(k) plan sponsors to conduct periodic due diligence reviews. With respect to their 401(k) or other retirement plans, the problem is that most sponsors (owners) do not have the...

Correction.(News)(Correction notice)
December 15, 2008... "AICPA mulls IFRS for private companies" (Oct. 20-Nov. 2, 2008, page 5) misidentified the Private Company Financial Reporting Committee as an American Institute of CPAs' committee; it is, in fact, sponsored by the Financial Accounting Standards...

IN BRIEF.(Financial Planning)(increase in clients for financial planners during economic crisis)(StreetSmart.com has upgraded its services)(Securities and Exchange Commission and North American Securities Administrators Association to waive fees for investment advisor )
December 15, 2008... Planners Get New Clients Two thirds of certified financial planners have seen an increase in potential clients as economic turbulence has increased in the past several weeks, according to a recent survey. Twenty-seven percent of CFPs...

Asset allocation software: More critical in hard times.(Technology)
December 15, 2008... Byline: Ted Needleman Let's face it - the economy is in bad shape. Investment houses are going out of business, banks are failing, and many investments have lost an incredible amount of value. If anything good has come out of this...

IN BRIEF.(Technology)(CCH)
December 15, 2008... Cougar Mountain Introduces E-Commerce Software Cougar Mountain Software has released an e-commerce product, CMS Total eCom. The software works with the vendor's accounting, point-of-sale and fund accounting software. Data Fabrication...

BLOOMER'S BLUEPRINT: Ready, aim, fire!(Technology)
December 15, 2008... Byline: L. Gary Boomer 'Ready, fire, aim" is not a strategy most firms follow in good times, much less in uncertain times. A sense of urgency is certainly needed, but firm management should focus on the firm - not just client problems....

Succession planning: Don't wait til it's too late!(Practice Resources)
December 15, 2008... Byline: August Aquila Firms today are facing succession-planning issues at an unheard-of pace. Blame it on the Baby Boomers and the overall demographics of the accounting profession and the population in general. Over the past year I...

IN BRIEF.(Practice Resources)(Survey)
December 15, 2008... Firms Need More Women Partners New York - "Women have been in the profession in equal numbers to men for more than 20 years, yet women represent just 19 percent of the U.S. public accounting shareholder/partner population," according to...

PEOPLE.(Practice Resources)(Beall Barclay and Co. PLC has appointed Chris D. Clark)(Grant Thornton L.L.P. has appointed Warren Johns)(McGladrey and Pullen L.L.P. has appointed Bruce Jorth)
December 15, 2008... Arkansas Chris D. Clark, Melanie K. Guinn and David N. Wyatt have joined Beall Barclay & Co. PLC, Fort Smith, as staff accountants. California Warren Johns and Daniel Segur have joined the San Jose office of Grant Thornton LLP as...

FIRMS.(Practice Resources)
December 15, 2008... Arizona Henry & Horne LLP, Tempe, has launched a not-for-profit blog, Nonprofit GPS, at www.hhcpa.com/blogs/non-profit-accounting-services-blog/. The blog is updated every Tuesday. California Hedman & Associates CPAs, Valencia, has...

Coming Events.(Practice Resources)(Calendar)
December 15, 2008... December 15-16: Advanced Tax Seminar, Alliance for Tax, Legal and Accounting Seminars. Chicago. Contact: (800) 207-4432 or www.atlas-sfi.com. 15-17: Investigating Conflicts of Interest/Conducting Internal Investigations, Association of...

And NOW - THE FUTURE!(Top 100 Products)(Editorial)
December 15, 2008... Byline: Bill Carlino, Editor-in-Chief I'm always amazed at how previews of anything command rapt attention. Who, for instance, when watching their favorite television program, doesn't suffer through the credits just to catch a sneak peak...

Preview: The 2008 Best Firms to Work For.(News)
December 15, 2008... Some 60 accounting firms from across the country have been honored as the Best Firms to Work For by Accounting Today. The official ranking of this inaugural feature will appear in our next issue, the Jan. 5-18 2009, along with in-depth...

Tech titans tout top trends, tools.(Top 100 Products)
December 15, 2008... Accounting Today polled several of the profession's high-profile technology experts and consultants to elicit their advice on what technologies CPA firms should be investing in, as well as to gauge their predictions on what current tech trends...

Top 100 products.(Top 100 Products)
December 15, 2008... High-End and Mid-Market Accounting ACCOUNTMATE FOR SQL AccountMate Software Corp. This accounting and business management software provides a stable and modifiable solution that is sold by the module, and the availability of...

Ones to Watch; Spoiled for choice: A wealth of new tech to choose from.(Top 100 Products)
December 15, 2008... Byline: Daniel Hood Two of the qualities that make for a Top 100 Product are longevity and the sort of patient accrual of incremental improvements that go with it. But most of our Top 100 started as brash innovations - and the past few...

Q&A: Almonte speaks out.(News)(Ernest Almonte)(Interview)
December 15, 2008... Byline: Liz Gold If you attended the American Institute of CPA's Fall Council in October, you had the opportunity to see history in the making. Ernest Almonte, the auditor general for the state of Rhode Island, took the podium as 2008-2009...

IN BRIEF.(News)(accounting firms have shown growth during past two years)(report on Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002)(Internal Revenue Service)
December 15, 2008... Firms Grew Strongly Prior to Crisis New York-A large majority of CPA firms reported continuing strong growth during the past two years, according to a new survey by the American Institute of CPAs and the Texas Society of CPAs, but the...

Editor's Desk: Dear Mr. President-elect ...(Viewpoint essay)
December 15, 2008... Byline: Bill Carlino, Editor-in-Chief Congratulations on your victory. In the interest of full disclosure, I did not vote for you, but nonetheless admired the amount of support, not to mention funding, that you were able to generate in a...

COMMENTARY: The unwarranted revision of warrants.(Viewpoint essay)
December 15, 2008... Byline: Wanda A. Wallace Statement of Financial Accounting Standard No. 128, Earnings per Share (Appendix E: Glossary, Paragraph 171), defines "Dilution (dilutive)" as: "A reduction in earnings per share resulting from the assumption that...

SEC publishes proposed IFRS roadmap.(News)(Securities and Exchange Commission)(International Financial Reporting Standards)
December 15, 2008... Byline: Michael Cohn The Securities and Exchange Commission has published its long-delayed roadmap for the transition from U.S. generally accepted accounting principles to International Financial Reporting Standards. The roadmap was...

IN BRIEF.(News)(survey of Accounting students)(American Institute of Certified Public Accountants has updated their website)
December 15, 2008... Survey: Career Ops No. 1 For Accounting Students New York - Accounting students said that career opportunities matter most to them, according to a new survey by KPMG. In the survey of 2,026 accounting students nationwide, 43 percent...