With their combined call for a top-down, risk-based assessment of internal controls over financial reporting and a single, more focused audit opinion, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board are at least on the right path in curbing excessive auditing. But the call for a single audit opinion won’t, by […]
Tammy Whitehouse
Posted inAccounting & Auditing
Pension Liabilities; Hedge Accounting; More
A recent study says companies probably need to increase assumed year-end discount rates as they establish pension-related assumptions that will help calculate pension liabilities—which are making their debut on corporate balance sheets this spring. Waite SEI, an asset-management firm, recently published its 2007 update of annual research that examines key barometers affecting pension-related assumptions. Jon […]
Posted inAccounting & Auditing
A New Year, And 409A Tax Bomb Explodes
Companies with backdated stock options are scrambling to fix a host of problems before recently issued tax guidance hammers them and their employees with income taxes, penalties, and withholding requirements. Companies like Nvidia Corp. even hurriedly issued tender offers asking employees if they’d like to turn in their improperly granted options for properly dated (and […]
Posted inFrom the Archive
A Year’s Account Of Fair Value, AS2, Errors
Disclosure took center stage in modern accounting last year, as regulators and investors pushed for more details about all sorts of costs—and for assurances that companies have proper, effective internal controls to make such disclosures. From Sarbanes-Oxley and Section 404 to pensions, taxes, and fair-value accounting, companies had a barrage of new standards come at […]
Posted inRegulatory Enforcement
New AS2 Would Curb Auditor Reach
The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has proposed a series of new standards and rule changes that would steer auditors in a new direction for the controversial audit of internal control over financial reporting. At a Dec. 19 meeting, the board voted unanimously to propose a new standard to replace existing Auditing Standard No. 2. […]
Posted inAccounting & Auditing
‘Catch Up 10-K’ Backdating Help To Come
For companies numbed by the prospect of multiple restatements because of problems with historical stock option grants, the Securities and Exchange Commission is poised to offer instructions on an alternative: a catch-up 10-K disclosure that creates an escape from daunting restatements, but not the long arm of enforcement officers. In an address to the American […]
Posted inAccounting & Auditing
Derivative Disclosures; Pension Rules; More
T he Financial Accounting Standards Board has issued a proposed statement that would lead to new and clearer disclosures about derivatives and their impact on a company’s financial statements. FASB says the draft statement would address shortcomings of Financial Accounting Standard No. 133, Accounting for Derivative Instruments and Hedging Activities, to provide information about derivatives […]
Posted inAccounting & Auditing
Dig Deep To Ensure FIN 48 Tax Compliance
Calendar year-end companies preparing to close the books should be digging deep into tax documents today to comply with a new tax-reporting rule that effectively goes into force with the end of fiscal 2007, according to recent professional accounting guidance blessed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Financial Interpretation No. 48, which becomes effective in […]
Posted inAccounting & Auditing
PCAOB May Stall Pace Of Audit Inspections
In a public admission that it may not be able to live up to its responsibilities, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board is considering whether it should reduce the frequency of audit inspections for firms that audit fewer than 100 public issuers. The PCAOB made an 11th-hour addition to its meeting agenda for today, Dec. […]
Posted inAccounting & Auditing
Help On FAS 157, FIN 48; PCAOB Budget
Speaking at the XBRL International Conference last week in Philadelphia, Chairman Robert Herz told the crowd that Financial Accounting Standard No. 157, Fair-Value Measurement, is meant to be “a new kind of standard … that acts more as a repository for what we mean by fair value,” since the concept crops up in multiple accounting […]