The proposed regulations on preparer penalties, released on June 17, are the latest iteration of rules that tax practitioners should consider carefully when recommending and executing tax strategies. Not heeding them can result in stiff penalties or, worse, the loss of the right to continue to practice tax law and serious damage to a firm’s reputation in the client community.The simple reality is that those responsible for recommending prospective tax strategies are almost always drawn back into the matter by the signing return preparer once the transaction is completed. They are asked about tax benefit matters what was intended and whether things turn out as expected. That after-the-fact advice is enough to subject the practitioner to the label “return preparer” for purposes of the preparer penalties.

In a significant step toward more solid and relevant accounting standards around the world, the International Accounting Standards Board and the Financial Accounting Standards Board have rolled out two joint discussion documents that may indicate where the boards are going in their project to improve and converge their conceptual frameworks.One document, The Objective of Financial Reporting and Qualitative Characteristics and Constraints of Decision-Useful Financial Reporting Information, is a proposal for the first two chapters of the framework. The other is a preliminary views document that suggests directions the board might take on defining the reporting entity.

In this third installment in our Mythbusters series (with credit to the Discovery Channel show, MythBusters), we turn to the oft-repeated but seldom-scrutinized notion that reporting values in financial statements creates volatility.This idea has been in the spotlight because of the recent financial crisis, with one myth-monger after another blaming the Financial Accounting Standards Board and anyone but themselves for financial institutions’ crashing stock prices. They say that mark-to-market accounting made it look like these entities were going into the tank. How much better it would be, they said, if the collateralized debt obligations were just carried at their cost so things wouldn’t look so bad. And if they didn’t look so bad, we’d all be better off.

Energy company El Paso Corp., its subsidiaries and five former employees settled fraud charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission for improperly inflating proven oil and gas reserves and providing misleading financial statements.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson expressed their support for the convergence of International Financial Reporting Standards with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Sycamore Networks and three of its former executives with stock options backdating charges.

The Securities and Exchange Commission convened a roundtable of experts to discuss the controversial topic of fair value measurements in accounting.