February 2004 - Journal of Accountancy

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY WITH MORE STATES CONDUCTING AUDITS, CPAs need to encourage companies to pay greater attention to their unclaimed property liability. This includes both reporting unclaimed assets to the right state and making sure the company properly reflects the liability on its balance sheet. UNCLAIMED PROPERTY HOLDERS MUST exhaust all

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ONE RISK EVERY CPA FIRM SHOULD CONSIDER is the possibility departing employees may attempt to take clients of the firm with them. Firms can use a noncompete agreement to prevent an employee from engaging in such actions. TO ENSURE AN ENFORCEABLE NONCOMPETE AGREEMENT, a firm should make sure

he flurry of IRS and Treasury Department activity focusing on split-dollar insurance arrangements came to a close when the Treasury issued final regulations for all such arrangements entered into or “materially modified” after September 17, 2003. Notwithstanding voluminous taxpayer and practitioner comments, these regulations offer few changes from the July

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY THE ACCOUNTING PROFESSIONALS interviewed for this article were positive about some Sarbanes-Oxley requirements, saying management’s reporting on and the external auditor’s attestation to the internal controls are good ideas. They advocated audit committees’ hiring CPAs because it could reduce the pressure on audit fees and lead to better-quality

all me a skeptic. Maybe it’s because I’ve investigated a couple of thousand fraud cases over a career now entering its fourth decade. Perhaps it’s because questioning is one of a CPA’s most valuable talents. While I believe that as a profession we’re moving in the right direction, I’m convinced

Key to Instructions To help readers follow the instructions in this article, we use two different typefaces. Boldface type is used to identify the names of icons, agendas and URLs. Sans serif type indicates commands and instructions that users should type into the computer and the names of files. ost

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY CPAs CAN PROVIDE A VALUABLE service to their employers or clients by helping them plan their strategic approach to compliance with section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. NEW SOFTWARE PRODUCTS CAN IMPROVE corporate governance and external communications about financial performance. They also can enhance the efficiency