Citigroup settled a longstanding civil complaint from the Securities and Exchange Commission over improper accounting during the economic crisis in Argentina in late 2001.

The SEC is coming under increasing pressure to decide on what date it will start requiring accounting firms to file financial statements in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued proposed regulations implementing amendments to the tax return preparer penalties.

All eyes are on the Securities and Exchange Commission as it prepares to issue a detailed roadmap this summer for the transition to International Financial Reporting Standards, but some representatives gave hints about what might be in that roadmap at a conference held by the Financial Accounting Standards Board in New York.

International work assignments — both inbound and outbound, short-term and long-term — have become more common as the world gets “smaller” and “flatter.”While on foreign soil, most employees feel that they deserve additional compensation and that they should be at least somewhat released from the growing number of domestic tax rules that restrict compensation packages. Some of the more irksome rules restricting compensation arrangements lately are contained in the final regs under Code Sec. 409A on nonqualified deferred compensation.

In a long-awaited shift in purview, the Auditing Standards Board has eliminated its standard on the hierarchy of generally accepted auditing standards just as the Financial Accounting Standards Board issued a new standard establishing the same hierarchy.Chuck Landes, the American Institute of CPAs’ director of auditing and attestation, said that the ASB fully approved of the shift in a vote at its quarterly meeting in May.

With all the recent brouhaha over the subprime controversy and claims that mark-to-market accounting contributed to or even caused problems for investors in collateralized debt obligations, lots of people have been commenting on the relative usefulness of original cost and estimated market/fair value.One of the recurring themes raised by the chorus of critics (who shall remain nameless) is that original cost is preferable because it’s more reliable than estimated value.