Audit & Accounting

Despite Internal Revenue Service assertions that it had halted the decline in the government's efforts to police corporate tax non-compliance, the pace of corporate audits is running well below record-low levels registered in 2003, according to an analysis of IRS data.

There's good news for accounting and finance professionals -- starting salaries are expected to increase an average of 2.4 percent next year. But the news is far better for internal auditors and professionals focused on Sarbanes-Oxley and other corporate governance-related initiatives -- they're poised to see huge boosts in base compensation, according to staffing giant Robert Half International Inc.

Following its earlier decision to delay the implementation of a proposed standard to mandate stock option expensing, members of the Financial Accounting Standards Board decided that the standard will apply to private companies and small business issuers for fiscal years beginning after Dec. 15, 2005, as originally planned.

Grant Thornton LLP and its international parent firm are striking back against a $10 billion lawsuit filed against them by bankrupt dairy giant Parmalat.

The most significant challenge facing small firms in the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board's inspection process is the difference between the board's approach versus that taken during the peer reviews of the past, the deputy director of inspections in the board's New York office told a group of CPAs gathered here.

Grant Thornton LLP and its international parent firm are striking back against a $10 billion lawsuit filed against them by bankrupt dairy giant Parmalat.

The European Commission has proposed changes to European Union accounting rules that it says will help shore up confidence in financial reporting.

Members of the Professional Ethics Executive Committee of the American Institute of CPAs acknowledged a series of practitioner's concerns with regard to PEEC's revised interpretation of rules governing members who offer non-attest services to attest clients.

Thomas C. Newkirk, associate director in the Securities and Exchange Commission's Division of Enforcement, will depart the commission in November after 19 years of service to become a partner in the Washington office of the law firm of Jenner & Block LLP.

Member response to the American Institute of CPAs' recently formed audit quality centers has been favorable, an institute vice president told Council members here, noting that the Employee Benefit Plan Audit Quality Center has attracted nearly 700 firms since its launch in March. As of last week, some 690 firms have joined the voluntary center, with five to 10 additional firms enrolling daily, Susan Coffey, AICPA vice president of audit quality and professional ethics, told Council members in an update Monday. The Governmental Audit Quality Center, which launched on Sept. 27, has just begun recruiting members. Coffey noted that some 6,300 firms practice in that environment, which includes the audits of state and local governments and nonprofits, as well as certain for-profit entities that receive government funds. In addition, Coffey noted that 950 firms (auditing 96 percent of all SEC registrants) have joined the Center for Public Company Audit Firms. That center, a revamped version of what used to be the AICPA's SEC Practice Section, launched in January of this year.