Barry Melancon has been leading the American Institute of CPAs since 1995. As president and CEO of the AICPA, he has been keeping busy on a number of fronts this past year. The Institute has been working with Congress on patent reform to keep tax strategy patents from taking hold. Another priority has been CPA mobility, so CPAs face fewer regulatory barriers when practicing across different states. Melancon has also been closely involved with the effort to move toward Extensible Business Reporting Language for financial statements, spearheading an initiative to assign data tags to generally accepted accounting principles. He was recently named co-vice chair of the Center for Audit Quality and to a position on the Treasury Department's new Advisory Committee on the Audit Profession. Melancon is also a member of the AICPA's delegation to the International Federation of Accountants. His accounting career began in 1979 at Bergeron & Co. in Louisiana. Before joining the AICPA, he served for eight years as executive director of the Society of Louisiana CPAs.

The American Institute of CPAs has begun a two- to three-year project to revise its auditing standards in an effort to achieve greater clarity.

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox said that regulators in different countries should avoid revising International Financial Reporting Standards to meet the needs of local markets.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has appointed Paul A. Beswick to serve as senior advisor in the SEC Office of the Chief Accountant.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has set up a new unit to speed the move to interactive financial reporting by public companies.

The Center for Audit Quality (CAQ) is living up to its name, as it has issued three white papers in response to the so-called “liquidity crisis” that began in the subprime mortgage-related markets and, according to CAQ, has spread to other corners of the credit markets with “a potentially pervasive impact on public companies generally with respect to investments held.”

The Internal Revenue Service has lost the first round in a much-anticipated test case against Textron Inc., in which it sought judicial approval for a new program seeking tax accrual workpapers during the examination of corporate clients.The IRS is interested in Textron's and others' workpapers, since they document what the company considers its questionable tax positions.