The SEC’s Office of the Chief Accountant is seeking up to five professional accounting fellows to help develop proposed securities rules, work with standard setters in accounting and auditing, and consult with filers on reporting matters. The fellowships are for two years beginning in summer or fall of 2008.
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Your Computer’s Cookies Can Affect Cost of Air Travel
Like most businesses, airlines are eager to get new customers even if it means it will cost them a bit more to lure one from another airline. So many of their Web sites are designed to ferret out new arrivals. To do that, their Web sites are programmed to check
International
The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board issued a consultation paper outlining its proposed strategy for 2009–2011. The document includes a list of possible actions the IAASB may take to implement its proposed strategy. The list includes developing assurance standards relevant to raising international capital and contributing to development in
Tax Patents Reportable Transactions
The IRS and Treasury Department issued proposed regulations that add patented transactions to Treas. Reg. § 1.6011-4 on reportable transactions. REG-129916-07 also makes conforming changes to IRC section 6111 on disclosure of reportable transactions by material advisers. Comments and public hearing requests are due by Dec. 26. The AICPA and
Management Accounting Research for the C-Suite
This second installment in a series of columns on accounting research summarizes results from the field of management and cost accounting. The 2006 through June 2007 issues of five top-tier journals in management and cost accounting research were examined. Those publications included, alphabetically, Accounting, Organizations and
AICPA Assesses Form 990 Redesign
The AICPA proposed a list of suggestions for the IRS to mitigate what the Institute considers increased burdens that will result from the new draft of Form 990, Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax. The AICPA’s 990 Task Force said the changes improve transparency of reporting, aiding in performance
The Human Element: The Weakest Link in Information Security
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Social engineering attacks involve the use of deceptive or manipulative tactics on an individual to gain a result—often to gain unauthorized access to information assets. The practice sometimes is referred to as soft hacking and often is used to gather intelligence for a subsequent hacking
Peer Review
The kit is available at www.aicpa.org/members/div/practmon/practitioners_toolkit.asp.
Get Organized With A Window That Summarizes A File’s Contents
To create that format you first have to set Explorer to display more than the default data it usually shows. Begin by opening Explorer and clicking on the View icon in its toolbar and then on Details (see screenshot below). That will display Explorer’s default property categories. In my case
Work Force Investments
“As executives accustomed to making hard cost-benefit decisions…perhaps the key to your success is the capabilities of the people you employ.” — Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke, at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Education and Workforce Summit, Sept. 24. Source: www.federalreserve.gov.
Government Employment Tax Delinquencies Improved
The IRS has improved its coordination among offices to collect approximately $45 million in delinquent payroll taxes owed by federal government units, plus that owed by state and local governments, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration reported. The report followed a 2002 TIGTA audit finding that more than 12,000
Risky Business
Women business owners are not only educated, but they’re risk-takers. The 2007 Survey of Women Business Owners, sponsored by accounting firm RSM McGladrey, the Chicago chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners, the University of Chicago and the Committee of 200, found 40% of the 650 respondents had
Five-Card Withhold ’Em
On the heels of a Tax Court decision that held a poker tournament to be a wagering activity subject to IRC § 165 gambling loss limitations (Tschetschot v. Commissioner, TC Memo 2007-38, appeal pending in Eighth Circuit, filed 9/7/07, docket no. 9498-03), the IRS has issued a revenue procedure specifying
Tools for Financial Analysis
What do you do when a client asks you to look beyond the standard financial statements and help develop financial goals, forecasts and what-if scenarios? If you’re like many accountants, you’d hunker down with a spreadsheet and begin cobbling together an array of custom worksheets. Then you’d probably spend several
Horses, Houses and a Profit Motive
Taxpayers who deduct as business expenses what the IRS might regard as spending on an unrelated hobby generally run a distinct risk of an underpayment assessment. In one recent case, however, the Tax Court accepted that two seemingly dissimilar undertakings could be treated as a single activity for purposes of
Work Product Stands Up to IRS Summons
The decision in United States v. Textron gives taxpayers a boost in efforts to protect tax workpapers from an IRS summons, although the Service’s Chief Counsel Donald Korb cautions the victory “may be short-lived.” The U.S. District Court in Rhode Island said the work product privilege applied to the corporate
Refining Fair Value Measurement
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY FASB Statement no. 157 defines fair value as “the price that would be received to sell an asset or paid to transfer a liability in an orderly transaction between market participants at the measurement date.” The standard does not require fair values to be
Building Long-Term Value
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY To maximize the long-term financial performance and value of a business, CPAs should help management focus on two key components of value creation: revenue growth and achieving a return on invested capital (ROIC) in excess of the weighted average cost of capital (WACC). A lower WACC
Estate Tax Take Little Changed
Despite higher exemptions of taxable estates and far fewer returns filed, revenue collected from the estate tax slipped only slightly from 2001 to 2005, the IRS said. The number of returns fell 58%, but total estate tax revenue declined only 8% to $21.6 billion. The phenomenon indicates that estates with
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