In testimony before lawmakers, Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox defended the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, but sided with critics of the sweeping reform act who maintain that parts of the mandate need to be changed— in particular Section 404.

Nearly one year after the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 was passed into law, a study by information and research services provider LexisNexis found that Chapter 7 bankruptcy filings were 71 percent lower than over the same period for 2004.

Despite corporations gaining more experience with complying with the mandates of Sarbanes-Oxley, concerns over the burdens of its implementation have grown over the past several years.

The Securities and Exchange Commission's top accountant has added his thoughts on how to properly account for stock options in the historical financial statements of public companies.

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it has filed and settled financial fraud charges against bank holding company Doral Financial Corp.

Accounting for derivatives has never been easy, but the Governmental Accounting Standards Board has proffered some thoughts on how it might be done, and 85 concerned industry professionals generally agreed - but not completely.GASB project manager Randy Finden said that the bulk of the board's complex preliminary views document could be boiled down to two sentences: "Put all derivatives in the balance sheet at fair value. Fair-value changes will be reported as gains and losses in income, except for hedging gains and losses, which will be reported on the balance sheet as deferrals."

The selection by an entity of its company structure, its fiscal year and its method of accounting are the three main mechanisms that a company can employ in performing substantial tax planning, according to Nicholas Crocetti, CPA, a partner in CBiz Accounting Tax & Advisory."The concept of an accounting method is much broader than what many people believe," he said. "Most companies employ a number of accounting methods. First, they have an overall method of accounting - for example, the cash method, accrual or some form of hybrid method. Additionally, companies need accounting methods for every timing item they encounter in their business, such as how to account for inventory, bad debts, vacation pay and self-insured medical expenses."