Tammy Whitehouse

Just as companies were expecting some relief from the aggressive audits of Sarbanes-Oxley, regulators have dispatched auditors to dig deeper into corporate stock option grants, looking for evidence of whether grants were doctored to create windfalls for executive compensation. The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board issued an audit alert giving auditors a roadmap for how […]

International accounting rulemakers have decided to give companies a break from new rules for a few years, with no major new rules becoming effective until 2009. So says the International Accounting Standards Board, which announced the moratorium last week. Sensitive to complaints that companies and nations alike are struggling to adopt International Financial Reporting Standards, […]

Transparency may be a concept most often discussed in the context of financial reporting, but a recent decision by accounting rulemakers will force companies to think more about transparency as they compile their tax returns. Bortman It’s a foreign notion to tax specialists. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard a tax person, except for a […]

Fulfilling a promise they made this spring, accounting rulemakers in the United States and abroad have opened a new, long-term project to rewrite lease accounting rules. The Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board met separately last week, each deciding to adopt a joint project, with a goal of issuing a preliminary […]

Despite objections by retirement-plan sponsors and actuaries, the Financial Accounting Standards Board has decided to require companies account for projected future salary costs when stating their pension liabilities. The Board voted last week to stick with its original plan, as part of a larger effort to clarify pension costs and move those liabilities from financial […]

A task force of the American Bar Association is planning to ask regulators to give auditors better guidance on what kinds of documents they should avoid asking clients to produce to minimize the risk of exposing a company’s sensitive, private information. Stanley Keller, a partner with the law firm Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge and […]

Companies mired in investigations over backdated stock options already worry about visits from the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Justice Department and plaintiff lawyers representing angry shareholders. Next up might be the most unwanted guest of them all: the Internal Revenue Service. Tax experts say the potential backlash for companies caught up in questions about […]

Following generally accepted accounting principles, companies may be overstating their operating cash flow and understating their debt—or at least making it tougher for investors to draw their own conclusions, according to recent research by the Georgia Tech Financial Analysis Lab. Companies have long bundled accounts receivable and sold them to investors in securitized transactions, turning […]

As companies and actuaries continue their fight against proposed new accounting rules that would require companies to show pension obligations based on projected future earnings, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s chief accountant has made clear that he favors the rulemakers’ “include everything” approach. The Financial Accounting Standards Board held six hours’ worth of roundtable discussions […]