The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has received mostly negative comments on a recent proposal to require engagement partners with final responsibility for an audit to sign the audit report, and it may end up abandoning the idea.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission “never took the necessary and basic steps” that would have led to the agency uncovering Bernard L. Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme, according to the full report issued Friday by the agency’s Inspector-General.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Las Vegas accountant Michael J. Moore and his auditing firm Moore & Associates with issuing false auditing reports prepared by high school graduates who had little to no experience with accounting or auditing.

With trillion-dollar deficits, cap-and-trade and nationalized health care on the horizon, the issues involving the possible registering and licensing of tax preparers seem trivial. Yet the ability to fund the deficits and pay for a nationalized health care system ultimately depends on the ability of the federal government to collect tax.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has voted to adopt a new auditing standard on engagement quality review and to issue a concept release on requiring the engagement partner to sign the audit report.

The International Accounting Standards Board has issued amendments to its rules for companies adopting International Financial Reporting Standards for the first time to allow some exemptions.

Norwalk, Conn. - Governments have always found it difficult to properly report fund balances when the uses of various fund amounts were restricted in a number of ways. A dollar that couldn't be spent did not combine well with a dollar that could only be spent for a specific purpose, or a general fund dollar that could be spent without constraint.