According to the AICPA’s 2008 PCPS Succession Survey, almost 70% of multi-owner firms and more than 50% of sole proprietors (sole owner firms and sole practitioners) believe succession planning will be a significant issue for them in the near future.

But only 35% of multi-owner firms and 9% of sole proprietors actually have a written succession plan in place.

For more of the survey’s findings and to access the Succession Planning Resource Center, visit http://pcps.aicpa.org/Resources/Succession+Planning.

Source: The AICPA, www.aicpa.org.

Despite the SEC-proposed mandate that all public companies adopt XBRL by 2011, a Compliance Week survey found that few are prepared for implementation.

Of the 236 publicly held companies surveyed, nearly 80% said no member of their staff is well-versed in XBRL, and 15% said they had no knowledge of XBRL at all.

Forty-four percent of the respondents said they just started researching XBRL and have done no previous testing.

Source: Compliance Week, www.complianceweek.com.

Twenty percent of employed persons did some or all of their work at home in 2007, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The BLS study also found:
Hours worked at home averaged 2.8 hours per day, while hours worked at a workplace averaged 7.9 hours per day.

Men and women were equally likely to do some or all of their work at home.

Self-employed workers were more likely than wage and salary workers to have done some work at home—55% vs. 16%.

Multiple jobholders were almost twice as likely to work on an average weekend day as were single jobholders—62% vs. 33%.

Watching TV was the leisure activity that occupied the most time, accounting for about half of leisure time, on average, for both men and women.

On an average day, 20% of men did housework compared with 52% of women. Thirty-seven percent of men prepared food compared with 64% of women.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2007 American Time Use Survey, www.bls.gov.

IRS estimates indicate about 60% of all tax forms will be electronically filed during 2008, far short of a 1998 congressional mandate of 80% by 2007. For a second year, the Service’s Electronic Tax Administration Advisory Committee recommended that Congress authorize the IRS to require e-filing by paid tax preparers who use tax software to prepare more than 50 individual returns per year.

ETAAC also urged the IRS to “strongly encourage” e-filing vendors to eliminate filing fees.

Source: The IRS Electronic Tax Administration Advisory Committee’s Annual Report to Congress, www.irs.gov.

The hotel industry leads the nation in customer satisfaction related to call center assistance, according to CFI Group’s Contact Center Satisfaction Index 2008.

The CCSI industry scores were:
Hotels (78)

Multi-Channel Retail (76)

Insurance (75)

Cell Phone Service (72)

Banking (71)

Government (70)

Personal Computers (69)

Cable and Satellite TV (66)

Source: CFI Group, www.cfigroup.com.

Outlays by foreign direct investors to acquire or establish U.S. businesses increased sharply in 2007 after also increasing strongly in 2006, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Outlays reached $276.8 billion in 2007, the second largest recorded and the highest since 2000, when new investment outlays peaked at $335.6 billion.

As in previous years, most outlays by foreign direct investors were to acquire existing U.S. businesses. These outlays totaled $255 billion, compared with $21.9 billion to establish new U.S. businesses.

The total value of all foreign-owned assets in the U.S. at the end of 2007 was nearly $20.1 trillion. In comparison, the total of U.S.- owned assets abroad was $17.6 trillion.

U.S. businesses that were newly acquired or established by foreign direct investors employed 487,600 people, more than double the 223,400 people employed by businesses that were newly acquired or established in 2006.

Outlays increased most substantially in manufacturing, which accounted for nearly half of total investment outlays in 2007.

Outlays by investors from most major geographic areas increased. Overall, the outlays from Europe accounted for more than half of the worldwide total.

Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis, www.bea.gov.

What are employees really doing when they take a “mental health day”?

According to a poll by ComPsych, a provider of employee assistance programs, the top five reasons employees take a mental health day are:

1. Family/relationship issues (30%)
   
   
2. Work stress/workload (20%)
   
   
3. Financial, legal or other personal issues (15%)
   
   
4. Lack of physical energy/well-being (12%)
   
   
5. Boredom/lack of motivation (5%)

Eighteen percent of workers surveyed reported not taking mental health days.

Source: ComPsych’s Tell It Now survey, www.compsych.com.

A prerequisite for good decision making is access to timely, reliable and accurate data, including financial data. But such financial information is the exception rather than the rule for many governments around the world, according to a Deloitte study.

The report, Mastering Finance in Government found:

69% of the public officials surveyed cited a lack of up-to-date information as either a moderate or significant barrier to improving the organization’s performance.

63% of respondents said program managers do not understand the total cost of their services.

More than half of those surveyed said their organizations do not thoroughly understand the relationship between the investments they make in programs and the outcomes those programs produce.

Only 27% of respondents described their organization’s risk management capabilities as being beyond a basic level.

The study examined 200 government departments from 28 countries.

Source: Deloitte’s Mastering Finance in Government, www.deloitte.com.

Thanks to SOX section 404 rules and guidance issued by the PCAOB and the SEC in May 2007, many internal audit committees are finding time for other responsibilities.

According to Moving Internal Audit Back into Balance, a Protiviti survey of 321 internal audit professionals, four in 10 internal audit departments decreased the time devoted to SOX compliance since the new standard and guidance were announced.

As a result, these departments have resumed more traditional internal audit responsibilities, including regulatory compliance and advising senior management and the board’s audit committee.

Source: Protiviti, www.protiviti.com/go/rebalancing3.