Auditing regulators are exploring whether it’s possible for the routine audit of financial statements to borrow a few moves from the forensic-accounting playbook and more effectively detect or deter fraud. The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board convened a panel of forensic-accounting experts to address the Board’s Standing Advisory Group recently about how forensic-audit practices might […]
Tammy Whitehouse
Posted inAccounting & Auditing
Draft FIN 48 Guidance; GAAP On Pollution
The Financial Accounting Standards Board has published its proposed guidance on what it means by a “settled” tax position in Financial Interpretation No. 48, Accounting for Uncertainty in Income Taxes, which requires companies to begin showing more clearly on financial statements where they have tax positions that may not hold up under IRS scrutiny. FASB […]
Posted inAccounting & Auditing
FASB’s Fair-Value Choice; Private Co. Rules
The Financial Accounting Standards Board has published the latest chapter in the book on fair value accounting, a new standard giving public entities the choice of whether to report certain financial assets and liabilities at fair value. FASB says its objective with Financial Accounting Standard No. 159, Fair Value Option for Financial Assets and Liabilities, […]
Posted inInternal Controls
PCAOB Gets An Earful On Proposed AS5
As audit regulators now begin considering feedback to their proposed rewrite of rules governing audits of internal control over financial reporting, they are confronted with the ongoing tension between rules and principles—to give more or less guidance and to outline more or fewer prescriptive thresholds. With the public-comment period now closed on the proposed new […]
Posted inFrom the Archive
Can ESOARS Cure Option-Expensing Pains?
As Zions Bancorp prepares to introduce a new financial instrument to let the open market establish an expense value for employee stock options, the market itself is watching with guarded optimism. Observers wonder whether auctioning employee stock option appreciation rights (ESOARS, a moniker Zions is already trying to trademark) will determine a value that ultimately […]
Posted inAccounting & Auditing
New Panel On Rule Complexity; Audit Dates
Momentum is building for the creation of a new body of experts specifically charged with figuring out a way to reduce the complexity of financial reporting. Conrad Hewitt, chief accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission, said in a recent speech to an accounting audience that he wants to work with various rulemaking and professional […]
Posted inInternal Controls
404 Or Not, Audit Fees Up And Away
The enormous spike in auditing fees in the last three years may largely stem from reasons that have nothing to do with Sarbanes-Oxley, but rather from much more aggressive auditing overall, even for non-accelerated filers that have not yet encountered Section 404’s provisions over internal controls. New research shows that audit-related fees for accelerated filers […]
Posted inAccounting & Auditing
ESOARS Challenged; FIN 48 Guidance; More
A n influential voice among institutional investors has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to delay its approval of a market-based approach to valuing employee stock options, so the proposed security can be studied and any concerns about its validity be shared. In a Feb. 5 letter to SEC Chief Accountant Conrad Hewitt, the Council […]
Posted inAccounting & Auditing
What To Do With Audit Inspection Reports
So your auditor has been inspected. The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has issued a report about the firm’s performance. The report is sitting on your desk. Now comes the tricky question: What the heck do you do with it? Sizing up an auditor’s performance based on the PCAOB report is not quite easy, and […]
Posted inAccounting & Auditing
New, Redrafted Accounting Standards; More
In its Jan. 11 inaugural meeting as an advisory group to the Financial Accounting Standards Board, the Investors Technical Advisory Committee has said new accounting rules should require retrospective application and that private companies with public debt should be required to meet the same effective dates as public companies. ITAC floated the ideas as a […]
