Information security & privacy

  For news from the AICPA and state societies, visit www.cpa2biz.com , which also offers online CPE, AICPA professional literature, practice management aids and links to state society Web sites.   The AICPA accounting standards executive committee (AcSEC) issues Statement of Position (SOP) 03-3, Accounting for Certain Loans or Debt

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. requests comments on a proposed rule it issued in conjunction with the Federal Reserve Board, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Office of Thrift Supervision, the National Credit Union Administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission and the Commodities

OBITUARYMilton Wilson—Texas’s first African American CPA—died in October. Licensed in 1952, he also was among the nation’s first 100 African American CPAs. During the civil rights era, Wilson was one of the first seven African Americans to earn a doctoral degree in accounting. According to A White-Collar Profession: African American

XBRL International, a global consortium of more than 200 accounting, technology and financial service organizations, releases version 2.1 of extensible business reporting language (XBRL), a protocol for electronic financial reporting ( www.xbrl.org/newsandevents/index.asp?sid=4 ). The new implementation will make it easier for software developers to create XBRL tools that work without

GASB issues a proposed Technical Bulletin, Tobacco Settlement Recognition and Financial Reporting Entity Issues, which addresses accounting treatment by state or local governments in connection with settlements made by U.S. tobacco companies ( www.gasb.org/exp/tb2003-b.pdf ). The proposal also clarifies asset and revenue recognition guidance for such transactions by the settling

The AICPA professional issues task force issues Practice Alert 2003-3, Acceptance and Continuance of Clients and Engagements, to give practitioners and their firms guidance on establishing policies and procedures for deciding whether to accept or continue a client relationship and whether to perform a specific engagement for that client (

The SEC issues an interpretive release, Commission Guidance Regarding Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations ( www.sec.gov/rules/interp/33-8350.htm ). Commonly called MD&A, such information is included in public companies’ disclosure documents. The guidance emphasizes the MD&A should not be merely a recitation of financial statements in

The Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) released a series of questions and answers about audit waiver requirements under its October 2000 Small Pension Plan Security Amendments. The publication ( www.dol.gov/ebsa/faqs/faq_auditwaiver.html ) explains how small pension plans can determine whether they qualify for an audit waiver under the

The AICPA has developed comprehensive guidelines to assist colleges and universities in designing, implementing and administering meaningful internship programs and other forms of experiential learning ( www.aicpa.org/members/div/career/edu/internships.htm ). The guidance classifies various programs, provides examples of program administration and evaluation forms and refers to the AICPA core competency framework (

The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) publishes 13 revised international accounting standards (IASs) to address concerns, questions and criticisms raised by securities regulators and other interested parties about the existing set of IASs ( www.iasb.org.uk ). The revised standards are IAS 1, Presentation of Financial Statements; IAS 2, Inventories; IAS