Accounting Today articles from May 2009

Accounting Today archives from May 2009

ACCOUNTING STANDARDS: Reaction mixed on fair value changes.(News)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Michael Cohn Accounting experts and industry organizations alternately praised and panned the Financial Accounting Standards Board's decision to loosen the standards for fair value and mark-to-market accounting. The board voted...

LETTER: Hats off to Miller & Bahnson.(Opinion)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Alfred M. King I'm standing shoulder to shoulder with you in the front lines. Your idea about competition between the International Accounting Standards Board and the Financial Accounting Standards Board ("Rethinking the rush...

Economy heightens the challenges of cost management.(Crisis Center)
May 4, 2009... Byline: James Ellis The realities of volatile capital markets and a struggling global economy confront management decision-making at every turn. In recent years, the challenge of managing costs has become increasingly complex, due, in...

IN BRIEF.(Crisis Center)
May 4, 2009... Cherry Bekaert Launches Online Recovery Center Richmond, Va. - Regional CPA and business advisory firm Cherry, Bekaert & Holland has launched an interactive portal to help businesses and individuals navigate the financial crisis. ...

FASB explains fair value changes.(News)
May 4, 2009... The Financial Accounting Standards Board issued a summary of the board's actions when it modified the standards for fair value and mark-to-market accounting in response to congressional demands: "FASB considered three proposals.... The...

IRS has deal for offshore evaders; But penalties may be harsher under new program.(Tax Practice)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Roger Russell Washington, D.C.-As part of its plan to generate intelligence on accountants, bankers and lawyers who help clients evade U.S. taxes by hiding money in offshore accounts, the Internal Revenue Service will grant...

IN BRIEF.(Tax Practice)
May 4, 2009... Volcker to Lead Tax Reform Washington, D.C. - The Obama administration will ask the Economic Recovery Advisory Board, led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, to form a task force to recommend an overhaul of the Tax Code. ...

TAX STRATEGY: 2009 Recovery Act helps ease debt restructuring.(Tax Practice)
May 4, 2009... Byline: George G. Jones and Mark A. Luscombe Business must act quickly, but cautiously, in assessing whether to take advantage of the temporary relaxation of cancellation-of-debt-income (CODI) rules and applicable high-yield discount...

GASB statement clarifies fund balance reporting.(Assurance)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Glenn Cheney Norwalk, Conn.-Governments have always found it difficult to properly report fund balances when the uses of various fund amounts were restricted in a number of ways. A dollar that couldn't be spent did not combine well...

IN BRIEF.(Assurance)
May 4, 2009... Boards and Audit Committees Change Oversight New York - About 89 percent of the 150 audit committee members at a recent KPMG conference said that the financial crisis had caused their company's board or audit committee to change the nature...

THE SPIRIT OF ACCOUNTING: Say it ain't so, Fred!(Assurance)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Paul B.W. Miller and Paul R. Bahnson Many years ago, the bookkeeper in a small manufacturing firm accidentally dropped one of the company's two adding machines when moving it from one desk to another. The equipment was so severely...

Broker/dealers pump up volume; Communicating with clients is crucial in crisis.(Financial Planning)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Liz Gold Financial advisors have a tougher job than most these days. In the turbulent wake of an unstable economy and plunging markets, several of the nation's broker/dealers are offering more resources and support to their...

Is your life insurance company going out of business?(Financial Planning)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Lance Wallach Do your clients have life insurance or annuity policies? If so, they - and you - may be in trouble. The plummeting financial markets are dragging down the life insurance industry, which is an important component...

IN BRIEF.(Financial Planning)
May 4, 2009... Survey: Only 33% Can Retire Fewer than one in three Americans expect that they will ever be able to fully retire, according to Scottrade's 2009 American Retirement Study. The survey showed that the volatile economy has significantly...

SOFTWARE REVIEW: Nonprofit accounting software - no universal approach.(Technology)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Ted Needleman The general consensus in the industry is that accounting software is accounting software. While there are different bells and whistles, the underlying processes are the same whether the entity is a professional...

IN BRIEF.(Technology)
May 4, 2009... Adaptive Planning on Suitecloud Financial planning and reporting services provider Adaptive Planning has become a charter member of NetSuite's SuiteCloud developer network - a multi-tiered program for software developers to leverage their...

BOOMER'S BLUEPRINT: 2009 strategies for growth and profitability.(Technology)
May 4, 2009... Byline: L. Gary Boomer Think Back to the 2008 Busy Season. My guess is that your biggest concerns were staffing, growing your firm and maintaining client relationships. Now fast forward to today. What are your primary concerns and...

8 pitfalls in compensation planning.(Practice Resources)
May 4, 2009... Byline: August Aquila Over the past several years, I have been working with firms to develop performance-driven compensation plans. Basically these are plans that pay a base salary to partners and staff at, or perhaps even above, market...

Tomorrow's look today.(Practice Resources - Accounting Tomorrow)
May 4, 2009... Here at Accounting Tomorrow, we love our readers. We also love to hear what they have to say. Since launching in November, Accounting Tomorrow - a Web site dedicated to the intergenerational dynamic in accounting firms - has received...

New Products.(Practice Resources)
May 4, 2009... SOFTWARE & SERVICES A Plan for a Plan It is one of the universe's cheaper ironies that whatever location you choose to store your carefully prepared disaster recovery plan is the place most likely to be destroyed in a disaster. This...

PEOPLE.(Practice Resources)
May 4, 2009... California Rebecca Teutschel and Jackie Matsumura have been named partners at Burr Pilger Mayer, San Francisco.... John Barber has joined Grant Thornton LLP, San Francisco, as a partner in its international tax practice.... Former New...

FIRMS.(Practice Resources)
May 4, 2009... California Greenstein Rogoff Olsen & Co. has been named one of the Best Places to Work in the Bay Area by the San Francisco Business Times. Florida Kirkland, Russ, Murphy & Tapp PA has been named one of the Tampa Bay Business...

Experts divided on Obama tax policies.(News)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Ken Rankin Washington, D.C.-Congressional leaders wrestling with President Obama's plan to make the Bush administration's tax cuts permanent for middle-class families earning under $250,000 a year are hearing a sharply divided...

Coming Events.(Practice Resources)
May 4, 2009... MAY 4: Succession Planning for CPA Firms, National Conference of CPA Practitioners, New Jersey Chapter. Victor's Maywood Inn, Maywood, N.J. Contact: Fred Bachmann (973) 377-2009. 4-5: 5th Annual Taxation of Intellectual Property...

PwC India auditors charged in Satyam case.(News)
May 4, 2009... New Delhi-Two auditors from the Indian member firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers have been charged in the Satyam accounting scandal. Auditors S. Gopalakrishnan and Srinivas Talluri were both charged in the case involving technology outsourcer...

CLARIFICATION.(News)(Correction notice)
May 4, 2009... "Small business to face closer audit scrutiny" (March 16-April 5, 2009, page 5) stated that the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board issued new guidance for auditors that "effectively directs accountants to take a more skeptical,...

Ex-KPMG execs sentenced in tax case.(News)
May 4, 2009... New York-Two former KPMG managers received prison terms and multi-million-dollar fines in a long-running tax shelter case. Former senior tax manager John Larson was sentenced to serve more than 10 years in prison and pay a $6 million fine....

From bad to worse: Besides economy, small biz faces rising IRS audits.(News)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Roger Russell Washington, D.C.-During a recent hearing of the House Small Business Committee, lawmakers questioned the Internal Revenue Service as to why small business audits are on the rise as corporate audits fall, and urged...

IN BRIEF.(News)
May 4, 2009... PCAOB Plans International Inspections Washington, D.C. - The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board released a list of countries abroad where it intends to conduct inspections of auditing firms. The PCAOB said in December that it would...

EDITOR'S DESK: If at first ...(Opinion)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Bill Carlino, Editor-in-Chief There are certain things in life that are inevitable. The Cubs will collapse in the post-season, the major U.S. auto manufacturers will lose money - lots of it - and my brother-in-law's latest...

COMMENTARY: An accounting tragedy.(Opinion)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Eli Mason Among the tragedies inflicted on thousands of victims by Bernard Madoff was that perpetrated on a tiny accounting firm in New City, N.Y., a hamlet some 30 miles north of New York City. The firm was Friehling &...

More than one way up? More firms are allowing tailored career programs.(News)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Liz Gold On April 16 this year, David Parlato boarded an early morning plane to Mexico for some deep-sea fishing. Considering that many CPAs skip town after busy season, this may not be much of a surprise. Yet for Parlato, the...

IN BRIEF.(Crisis Center)
May 18, 2009... Nader: CPAs 'MIA' in Crisis Washington, D.C. - Consumer advocate Ralph Nader has written an article for his Web site chastising the CPA profession for standing by while Wall Street firms "used the latest tricks to cook the books." The...

Proposed carried interest measure may cast wider net.(Tax Practice)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Roger Russell Proposed legislation that was written initially to target hedge fund managers could impact a much larger array of partnerships in areas such as real estate. The measure, originally introduced in 2007, is aimed at...

IN BRIEF.(Tax Practice)
May 18, 2009... COS. Foresee More Tax Audits New York - As governments desperately seek all kinds of additional revenue, senior business professionals see the increased possibility of an audit by taxing authorities as the most significant tax risk facing...

TAX STRATEGY: Making the Making Work Pay Credit work.(Tax Practice)
May 18, 2009... Byline: George G. Jones and Mark A. Luscombe The Making Work Pay Credit is this year's economic stimulus to help get the economy going, just as the economic stimulus payments and related recovery rebate credit were last year's effort to...

Is the auditing profession falling behind?(Assurance)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Ralph Nach Over the last several years, a substantial number of highly complex professional auditing and accounting standards have been issued by numerous standard-setters. Taken together, these new standards have profoundly...

IN BRIEF.(Assurance)
May 18, 2009... FASB's Final Answer on Fair Value Norwalk, Conn. - The Financial Accounting Standards Board has published the "final" versions of its three controversial FASB Staff Positions to improve guidance and disclosures on fair value measurements....

THE SPIRIT OF ACCOUNTING: It's time for a market survey on GAAP.(Assurance)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Paul B.W. Miller and Paul R. Bahnson Afew years back, we developed an informal market survey for financial reporting as an ice-breaker for after-dinner speeches and continuing education seminars. It's nothing fancy, but it is an...

Protect your asset portfolio from legal assault.(Financial Planning)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Darrell Aviss A nanny who worked for a wealthy business owner was driving her employer's children to school, talking on her cell phone, when she ran a red light and crashed into another car, killing a family of three. State law...

IN BRIEF.(Financial Planning)
May 18, 2009... Poll: Investors Preparing for Long Recession More than three quarters of those participating in a financial poll expect the current recession to last for at least one more year, while 40 percent of those surveyed have been saving more as a...

Pulaski builds (Smart)Vault for QuickBooks.(Technology)(Interview)(Viewpoint essay)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Alexandra DeFelice Eric Pulaski ventured into information technology security nearly two decades ago, took his company, BindView, public and sold it to Symantec for $209 million. Three years later, Pulaski's building a...

CLARIFICATION.(News)(Correction notice)
May 18, 2009... The software review of document management applications in the March 16-April 5, 2009, issue (page 16) said that the Doc.It Suite "delivers document management services in a manner that will particularly appeal to smaller firms that have their...

IN BRIEF.(American Institute of Certified Public Accountants )
May 18, 2009... AICPA Teams with Intacct The American Institute of CPAs and its CPA2Biz subsidiary have struck a deal with accounting software developer Intacct to market its "cloud computing" services to CPA firms. Under the agreement, the AICPA and...

BOOMER'S BLUEPRINT: Six core values for success.(Technology)
May 18, 2009... Byline: L. Gary Boomer Every firm has values, but does your firm know how to leverage them during difficult economic times? Do partners agree upon and operate by those values? Does your staff know about those values? Core values may...

Official 2009 XBRL taxonomy for GAAP released.(News)(Brief article)
May 18, 2009... WASHINGTON, D.C.-XBRL US has published the 2009 edition of the interactive data tags that the Securities and Exchange Commission will accept for coding financial statements in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles. ...

Leap from accountant to consultant!(Practice Resources)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Gale Crosley Admit it - you're good at what you do. Clients trust your proven ability to help improve their businesses. Perhaps it's time to enlarge your vision of yourself from accountant to consultant. Most good CPAs...

Tomorrow's look today.
May 18, 2009... Byline: Liz Gold Sometimes it pays to take a field trip out of the office. A little while ago, Alexandra DeFelice, my partner-in-crime at Accounting Tomorrow, and I took a subway uptown to visit Weiser in Manhattan. While there, we got...

New Products.(Practice Resources)
May 18, 2009... Software, Hardware & services A Surprising Fire In the past, it would have been hard to imagine sales and use tax figuring on anyone's list of burning issues -A and yet right now it's pretty high up there, with revenue-hungry states...

PEOPLE.(Practice Resources)
May 18, 2009... Alabama Lance Terry, a manager at Barfield Murphy Shank & Smith, Birmingham, has earned the Certified Valuation Analyst credential from the National Association of Certified Valuation Analysts. California Michael Savoy, a managing...

FIRMS.(Practice Resources)(briefs)(International Association of Practicing Accountants)(Brief article)
May 18, 2009... Colombia Latin Professional SA, Bogota, has joined the International Association of Practicing Accountants. Connecticut Haggett Longobardi, a Division of J.H. Cohn, Glastonbury, has been named the Best Place to Work in Connecticut...

Coming Events.(Practice Resources)
May 18, 2009... MAY 18-19: Nonprofit Organizations Conference, Texas Society of CPAs. Dallas. Contact: www.tscpa.org. 18-19: Earnings & Profits of Foreign Subsidiaries, Atlas Information Group. Philadelphia. Contact: www.atlas-sfi.com. 19:...

Improper ITINs generate billions in refunds.(Individual Taxpayer Identification Number)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Roger Russell Washington, D.C.-Billions of dollars in tax credits are being provided to Individual Taxpayer Identification Number filers without adequate verification of eligibility, according to a report from the Treasury...

Court OKs Deloitte's BearingPoint buy.(News)(Brief article)
May 18, 2009... New York-The U.S. Bankruptcy Court has given the go-ahead for Deloitte to acquire most of what remains of consulting firm BearingPoint's North American public services practice for $350 million. As part of the deal, which was announced in...

You have questions? They have answers; Providers unveil new online tax research apps.(News)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Roger Russell Both proprietary services and free online resources are growing as researchers utilize the latest in technology to find answers to their tax questions. Tax research at the Atlanta-based firm of HLB Gross Collins...

IN BRIEF.(News)
May 18, 2009... British Accountants Urge SEC to Adopt IFRS London - The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales has written to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission urging it to adopt International Financial Reporting Standards. ...

EDITOR'S DESK: Fee parties.(Viewpoint essay)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Bill Carlino, Editor-in-Chief Although I reside in one of the most overtaxed and inarguably free-spending states in the union, I did not attend any of the many "Tea Parties" held last month, fittingly, on April 15. Though I was...

COMMENTARY: Authentic audit reform: Abolish the monopoly.(Viewpoint essay)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Ronald J. Baker Customers are best served and protected when they have many competitive alternatives. We are suspicious of self-serving monopolies. Of course, as sellers, we all want to be monopolies, with little competition, and...

Sustainability looms as a bigger issue.(News)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Glenn Cheney Ten years ago, the Dow Jones Sustainability Index began to track the financial performance of leading sustainability-driven companies around the world. Within a year, the Global Reporting Initiative, the...

Nonprofits can survive and thrive in an economic drought.(Crisis Center)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Chris W. Brussalis Tough times deplete already-scarce resources across the economy, and governments are increasingly asked to provide more and more assistance as tax revenues diminish. Should the government's wells dry up, this...