September 2002 - Journal of Accountancy

    RC section 1033 requires a taxpayer (either an individual or a business) to make a timely election and a timely replacement to defer gain on property following an involuntary conversion—when property is completely or partially destroyed, for example, by fire or natural disaster. A gain often results when the

The teacher internship program (TIP) educates high school teachers about the accounting profession. Through TIP, state CPA societies connect teachers with firms and businesses in summer internships to provide them with “real world” business and accounting experience. Providing educators with professional business experience that can be incorporated into their classroom

   EXECUTIVE SUMMARY IN THE 2001 TAX ACT CONGRESS INCLUDED A NUMBER of expanded and improved education tax incentives. The differing limitations, definitions and interactions of these provisions with existing education benefits make it crucial for CPAs to plan carefully to ensure clients receive the maximum tax savings. CONGRESS EXPANDED

  Key to Instructions To help readers follow the instructions in this article, we use two different typefaces. Boldface type identifies the names of icons, agendas, URLs and application commands. Sans serif type indicates instructions and commands that users should type and file names. our client owns an auto dealership—we’ll

William R. Kinney received the AICPA’s Distinguished Achievement in Accounting Education Award. The award recognizes annually one college accounting professor for excellence in teaching and national prominence in the profession. Kinney holds the Charles and Elizabeth Prothro Regents Chair in Business and PricewaterhouseCoopers Auditing Fellowship at the University of Texas

Want an exciting business career? Interested in working with high-level people in diverse industries such as entertainment, sports and fashion? Want a career in a people-oriented profession? Then pursue an accounting degree and become a CPA. These are among the messages being delivered to millions of high school and college

    The JofA will track the progress of a practice-development initiative under way at Meyners and Co., LLC, an 80-person, seven-partner, 45-CPA firm in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The firm saw training its people in a range of communication, focus-sharpening and goal-setting methods as the first, essential step to increasing business.

  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY FOR ALL BUSINESSES, THE NUMBER of strategic relationships has been growing 25% per year since 1985. A FIRM’S FIRST STEP TOWARD a strategic alliance is to decide what capabilities it wants to add. Then it should decide what it wants to achieve: Does the firm wish to

  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AN AUTO-DEALER NICHE IS recession-resistant. In a poor economy dealers might want to cut CPA services but will need help with expense and inventory control. There are essentially five revenue streams in any dealership, and owners can adapt profit lines to fluctuations in the economy, making for

MATERIALS AVAILABLE—CPA iPACK The AICPA offers the CPA Information Package (CPA iPACK). Its highlights are the “Takin’ Care of Business” video, education handbook and career guides. The 15-minute video features five young, successful CPAs in exciting careers ranging from an FBI special agent to the controller of the New York

Our firm found an excellent resource to identify conscientious workers who provide us with a rewarding and profitable experience: recruiting students from the academy of finance (AOF). The AOF is an elective course of study for high school students exploring the broad world of finance. It is a member program

Influenced by the Bedford report—the 1986 study of the gap between what accounting students learned in school and what accountants actually did on the job—Kansas State University (KSU) set out in 1990 to transform its accounting curriculum from the traditional “preparer” perspective to one focused on broader learning objectives that

Increasing diversity within the profession remains a priority at the AICPA. The Institute’s 2001 supply-and-demand study revealed that of the CPAs working in public accounting firms, only 7% were minorities. At the same time, according to the latest U.S. census, minorities made up 31% of the population, showing there’s considerable

   ost clients are sharper than their advisers give them credit for. That makes them the most likely people to identify—and question—a financial arrangement that appears to influence a CPA’s judgment. Should a client somehow fail to discover an undisclosed commission arrangement, his or her attorney or even a competing

What do Accountants On Call, Robert Half and Monster.com have in common? If you answered “competency advertising,” then you are on the right track. Why are competencies the differential? Competencies are the knowledge, skills and attributes a CPA needs to perform successfully in a given position and to solve business

The 2001 report, The Supply of Accounting Graduates and the Demand for Public Accounting Recruits, documents the demographics of the accounting profession. Anyone will find the report useful. It is available online at www.aicpa.org/members/div/career/edu/sagdpar.htm . The data are based on an AICPA survey of colleges and universities that offer accounting

  This is the third article in a four-part series on identifying false invoices and their issuers. It explains the pay-and-return billing scheme, in which an employee creates an overpayment to a vendor and pockets the subsequent refund. The other stories focus on shell companies (See JofA, Jul.02, page 76

EDUCATION UPDATE What’s in store for the next generation of accountants? To attract students to the profession and provide them with the knowledge and skills necessary for success, practitioners and educators are employing a three-pronged strategy. First, they encourage early college, high school and even younger students to consider accounting

    EXECUTIVE SUMMARY CPAs CAN USE DATA ON AUDIT MALPRACTICE claims filed with CNA, which underwrites 22,000 CPA firms in the AICPA professional liability insurance program, to help them avoid high-cost claims when they audit nonpublic entities such as private companies, governments or NPOs. MOST NONPUBLIC AUDIT CLAIMS ARISE

Forty-eight states/jurisdictions have changed their laws to require 150 hours of education for CPA certification. The law is currently in effect in 39 states and will be enacted in 45 states by 2004. Questions have been raised about the impact of the higher education requirement on accounting enrollments and graduates