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TOPICS / ACCOUNTING & REPORTING

FASB Seeks to Clarify Rules for Assessing Future Viability

FASB issued exposure drafts of proposed statements on going concern and subsequent events. The proposals converge U.S. GAAP and IFRS and incorporate accounting guidance related to determining the viability of entities. The proposed statement on Going Concern would require management to consider all available information about the future when assessing

FASB Adds “Business Combinations” to Accounting Standards Codification

FASB added the topic “business combinations” to the FASB Accounting Standards Codification. The addition integrates various standards, including FASB Statement no. 141(R), Business Combinations; FASB Statement no. 109, Accounting for Income Taxes; FASB Interpretation no. 48, Accounting for Uncertainty in Income Taxes—an interpretation of FASB Statement No. 109; and various

IASB, FASB Update MOU

The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and FASB published an update to their 2006 memorandum of understanding (MOU). The update reports the progress they have made since 2006 and sets the goal of completing their major joint projects by 2011. “This update outlines a plan and projected timeline for completing

Highlights

FASB issued a revised exposure draft of a Proposed Statement of Financial Accounting Standards, Earnings per Share—an amendment of FASB Statement No. 128. The proposed statement is intended to improve financial reporting by clarifying and simplifying the method of calculating earnings per share. As part of international convergence efforts, the

Financial Reporting

The CIFiR report provides practical proposals to improve financial reporting in five main areas: (1) increasing the usefulness of information in SEC filings; (2) enhancing the accounting standards-setting process; (3) improving the substantive design of new standards; (4) delineating authoritative interpretive guidance; and (5) clarifying guidance on financial restatements and

A Showcase of Tax Research

In this third installment of “In Practice,” we distill research published in tax and accounting journals that should be of interest to busy tax practitioners. The pervasiveness of tax considerations in the affairs of everyone from students to CEOs makes the field a particularly fertile one for studying financial behavior.

Financial Reporting

The guidance applies to the calculation of earnings per share under FASB Statement no. 128, Earnings per Share, for share-based payment awards with rights to dividends or dividend equivalents. Unvested share-based payment awards that contain nonforfeitable rights to dividends or dividend equivalents (whether paid or unpaid) are participating securities, according

The Standard-Bearer

B en Neuhausen took the helm of the Accounting Standards Executive Committee in 2005 and led the all-volunteer AICPA committee through a tumultuous time during which its responsibilities shifted. On his watch as chairman, AcSEC transitioned from a standard-setting body to a source of practical, nonauthoritative guidance for CPAs and

Financial Reporting

FASB and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) published consultative documents that seek public comment on two of the eight phases of their joint project to develop an improved conceptual framework that provides a foundation for developing future accounting standards. The first document is an exposure draft of the framework’s

Hightlights

       The SEC proposed new rules that would require securities issuers to provide an XBRL version of their financial statements. Under the proposal, all U.S. public companies and foreign private issuers listed with the SEC would be required to provide financial information using XBRL within three years. The

Financial Reporting

   FASB issued an invitation to comment on Reducing Complexity in Reporting Financial Instruments. FASB is seeking input from constituents on whether there is a need for it to take on a project intended to simplify and improve standards for measuring financial instruments. The document describes how current measurement requirements

Fair Value Roundtable

O n a quiet Friday in New York—less than a month after that chaotic Friday when Bear Stearns’ stock went into a free fall—a panel of financial reporting experts met with about 200 corporate directors and other stakeholders to discuss the role of accounting in the market turmoil that began

A New Day for Business Combinations

   EXECUTIVE SUMMARY FASB outlined a major overhaul of GAAP related to mergers and acquisitions when it issued Statement no. 141 (revised), Business Combinations , in December 2007. The standard is effective for fiscal years beginning after Dec. 15, 2008. A fundamental concept at the core of Statement no. 141(R)

Securitized Profits

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Securitizations in the mortgage industry are collateralized with home or commercial mortgage loans and are packaged into mortgage-backed securities (MBS) that are sold to institutional investors seeking to realize higher returns on investment-grade debt instruments compared with other securities of similar credit quality. Mortgage banks generate revenue through

Government

n FASAB has issued Technical Release 8, Clarification of Standard Relating to Inter-Entity Costs, and Technical Release 9, Implementation Guide for Statement of FASAB 29: Heritage Assets and Stewardship Land. TR8 provides guidance to federal entities on three aspects of full costing specified in SFFAS 4: (1) guidance on costs that

Framing the Future

  In 2009, FASB’s Accounting Standards Codification will affect the day-to-day work of nearly every CPA who practices, teaches or researches accounting in accordance with U.S. GAAP. By July 2009, FASB is expected to make the codification the single source of authoritative GAAP, overriding all existing literature. In other words, the

The Role of Fair Value Accounting in the Subprime Mortgage Meltdown

As the credit markets froze and stocks gyrated, investors and pundits naturally looked for someone, or some thing , to blame. Fair value accounting quickly emerged as an oft-cited problem. But is fair value really a cause of the crisis, or is it just a scapegoat? And might it have

Financial Reporting

n FASB issued proposed FASB Staff Position FAS 117-a, Endowments of Not-for-Profit Organizations: Net Asset Classification of Funds Subject to an Enacted Version of the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act, and Enhanced Disclosures. “The issues addressed by this FSP have widespread importance to the not-forprofit sector, especially organizations

Financial Reporting

FASB approved proposed FASB Staff Position no. FIN 48-2, Effective Date of FASB Interpretation No. 48 for Certain Nonpublic Enterprises, which defers the effective date of FIN 48 for qualified entities to the annual financial statements for fiscal years beginning after Dec. 15, 2007, unless they have issued a full

Highlights

     The SEC’s Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting voted in January to support a slate of preliminary recommendations designed to make the information presented by U.S. public companies more useful to investors while reducing the complexity of the financial reporting system. The preliminary proposals included a call for

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Building a better CPA firm: Stepping up service offerings

A key step in business model modernization is determining how to implement services that satisfy clients and employees.