Tammy Whitehouse

In the latest of our conversations with regulators, compliance executives, and other players in the corporate governance realm, we talk with Ed Trott, recently retired from the Financial Accounting Standards Board. What’s your view on achieving convergence of U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles with International Financial Reporting Standards? We saw in our marketplace when Enron […]

U.S. and international accounting standards setters are developing a basic approach to simple lease transactions, but numerous complex issues remain before the boards publish their initial concepts as planned in 2008. In a comprehensive project to review how companies account for lease transactions, the International Accounting Standards Board and the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board […]

International accounting standards setters are crafting definitive rules for customer loyalty programs that, so far, appear to be more elusive under U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. The International Financial Reporting Interpretations Committee has issued Interpretation No. 13 to describe how entities reporting under International Financial Reporting Standards should account for obligations to provide free or […]

Cash flow—how a company gets, spends, and invests its cash—has traditionally seemed a fairly straightforward concept in financial reporting. But in the Sarbanes-Oxley era, where even bedrock principles have become subject to new debate, the cash flow statement is getting increasing scrutiny. Governed by the 66-page body of rules and examples in Financial Accounting Standard […]

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has censured the Spokane, Wash.-based accounting firm of Williams & Webster, barring partner Kevin Williams from auditing financial reports of public companies and suspending another partner, John Webster, from such audits for one year. The PCAOB said the accounting firm raised concerns about departures from Generally Accepted Accounting Principles […]

Accepting the reality that fair value is in growing demand in financial reporting, policy makers are now turning their attention to how to make it work. In a span of a few short weeks, accounting rulemakers formed a new body to help figure out where more guidance is needed; the prevailing accounting professional group published […]

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board churned out another bundle of audit reports recently, most notably for Deloitte & Touche and McGladrey & Pullen, continuing to point out specific instances where audits fell short in complying with the Board’s auditing standards. Making good on its promise to quicken the inspection reporting process, the Board’s reports […]

Accounting rulemakers on both sides of the Atlantic are finishing a proposal that they hope will shore up many of the differences in how companies report the effect of deferred income tax liabilities and assets in their financial statements. Inevitably, however, differences will remain—most notably, how the International Accounting Standards Board and the Financial Accounting […]

Armed with a private, independent valuation analysis, the Council of Institutional Investors has lobbied the Securities and Exchange Commission to rescind its endorsement of a derivative instrument invented by Zions Bancorp to establish market values for stock option grants. Jeffrey Mahoney, the CII’s deputy chief counsel, recently met with officials of the SEC’s Office of […]