The American Institute of CPAs has issued an exposure draft of a proposed audit and accounting guide for the airline industry and is looking for comments.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved a rule from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority that would crack down on abusive sales of deferred variable annuities, particularly to senior citizens.

Computer Sciences Corp. said it would restate its fiscal 2007 results after examining the impact of FASB Interpretation No. 48, or FIN 48, and discovering accounting errors for fiscal 1997 through 2007.

While the Internal Revenue Service has issued a plan that adopts the IRS Oversight Board's goal of 86 percent voluntary compliance by 2009, National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson cautioned against IRS efforts to ramp up enforcement excessively and cut corners in its treatment of taxpayers if it is pressured to do too much too soon."For fiscal year 2008, both the Internal Revenue Service and the Taxpayers Advocate Service face similar challenges," she said, in the second of her two annual reports to Congress. "The IRS is under scrutiny for its efforts to close the tax gap, while the TAS is struggling to address taxpayer difficulties that arise as a result of these very efforts."

In what Chairman Christopher Cox termed "a second front in an all-out war on complexity in financial reporting," the Securities and Exchange Commission has formed a Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting and called on it to formulate specific ways "to reduce complexity and all its costly burdens."The committee will have a year to search for solutions that have eluded standard-setters and regulators for decades. While fears of litigation have led to complex and detailed rules-based standards, a growing demand for simplicity has inspired calls for less specific standards that are based more on principles.

Responding to widespread uncertainties about the implementation of Financial Accounting Statement 133, Accounting for Derivative Instruments and Hedging Activities, the Financial Accounting Standards Board has issued a proposed implementation issue intended to make it easier for companies to use the "shortcut method" in accounting for many hedging transactions.It should also help those companies' confidence.

President Bush is considering the possibility of simplifying the corporate tax system, as long as the changes don't affect the amount of taxes the government collects.The president's announcement came on the heels of a conference convened by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in July, in which he proposed a cut in corporate taxes to make the U.S. more competitive.