Tammy Whitehouse

A Treasury Department advisory committee has published a new set of recommendations to reform the auditing industry, this time tackling sensitive subjects such as litigation reform, the content of the auditor’s report, and transparency of the audit firms themselves. The ideas—published as an addendum to previous recommendations published in a May 5 draft report—are sure […]

It won’t be long before the next wave of corporate writedowns begins—this time gutting the balance sheet of “goodwill” that has accumulated from old mergers or acquisitions. Valuation experts believe writedowns in goodwill are inevitable, given the downward spirals the market has already witnessed in stock values and earnings. “We had five or six years […]

New accounting rules forcing companies to capitalize research costs will boost net income and total assets at the time of a business acquisition but then pinch future income, especially for companies in research-intensive sectors, according to a recent study. The Georgia Tech Financial Analysis Lab studied historical figures for a variety of public companies to […]

The Big 4 accounting firms are lending their global expertise to universities to improve accounting education on International Financial Reporting Standards, just as the profession plans to update its standards for passing the Certified Public Accountant exam. Deloitte & Touche said last week it is forming an International Financial Reporting Standards University Consortium, through which […]

As the movement toward international accounting standards kicks into high gear, the Financial Accounting Standards Board may be planning to set aside certain portions of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and simply adopt the international equivalent. Such is apparently the case with accounting for income taxes, where FASB staff is advocating the wholesale replacement of Financial […]

Accounting executives now have a new roadmap for navigating Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, specifying which GAAP literature carries authority over what. The Financial Accounting Standards Board has published Financial Accounting Standard No. 162, Hierarchy of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, to answer criticisms that the GAAP hierarchy was better described in auditing literature than in accounting […]

As liquidity and earnings continue to go down the drain in a flood of first-quarter earnings reports, bankers are stepping up their appeal to regulators to help rein in fair value accounting—and investor advocates are preparing to stand their ground. The American Bankers Association fired off a fresh round of correspondence last week to banking […]

As the epitaphs are written on the market for auction rate securities, corporate investors are left to struggle with how to clean up the mess they’ve created for their balance sheets and income statements. Trading in auction rate securities lurched to a halt in February as credit worries deepened, making even the most common transactions […]

An innovative but fledgling security meant to establish market values for employee stock options may have hit a critical speed bump on the road to viability. Zions Bank developed the security it calls “ESOARS” during implementation of Financial Accounting Standard No. 123R, Share-Based Payment. FAS 123R requires companies to expense employee stock option grants as […]