Tammy Whitehouse

The Financial Accounting Foundation has charged ahead with major changes to the operation of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, including reducing the board from seven to five members and giving the chairman full authority to set the technical agenda, despite questions about and criticisms of the plan. The FAF issued a proposal in December to […]

Audit firms should be held to a higher standard of internal review to catch more audit problems before reports are published, according to a new proposal from the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. The PCAOB last week proposed a new standard for firms’ engagement quality reviews, traditionally known as concurring partner reviews, that would give […]

Audit regulators have summoned their advisers to share views on whether and how regulators should establish a framework for the use of judgment among auditors. The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board is convening a meeting of its Standing Advisory Group on Feb. 27 in Washington, D.C. The agenda asks the SAG to review a proposal […]

When the staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission publishes its views on some financial reporting topic, public companies and auditors typically flock to those comments and pore over every word, looking for any guidance they might offer to help the companies’ own financial reporting and auditing. Those comment letters, dutifully published in the SEC’s […]

A Senate sub-committee is pressing the Financial Accounting Standards Board for information on what additional action the Board plans to take to curb off-balance-sheet accounting that obscures financial risks from investors’ views. Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., chairman of the Senate Sub-committee on Securities, Insurance, and Investments, sent letters to FASB Chairman Robert Herz asking for […]

Corporate America’s spasm of hiring new audit firms since Sarbanes-Oxley finally seems to be easing. That doesn’t mean things will be getting any easier for the Big 4. According to data from research firm Glass, Lewis & Co., 1,193 public companies dismissed and hired a new audit firm in 2007, representing 10.1 percent of all […]

While a recent government study says consolidation in the audit profession is not much to worry about, industry players testifying to the U.S. Treasury’s Advisory Committee on the Audit Profession see things differently. Neal Spencer, managing partner for accounting firm BKD, says regional and local accounting firms would expand their audit practices to serve public […]