The Financial Accounting Standards Board will hold two public roundtable meetings today to discuss the board's proposal to improve accounting for postretirement benefit plans, including pensions.

A California state Senate committee canceled a hearing on a bill to allow out-of-state accountants to provide tax services in the state without first notifying the state's Board of Accountancy.

California officials are starting to consider making changes to accounting reforms the state adopted in the wake of Enron Corp.'s collapse.

A joint initiative by FASB AND AICPA is seeking feedback on proposed enhancements to the FASB's standard-setting procedures that would determine whether the Board should consider differences in accounting standards for private companies within Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.

With a few years of Sarbanes-Oxley implementation behind them, both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board announced concrete steps that they will follow in considering some tweaking of the sweeping corporate reform law.Both regulators proposed a series of steps to make revisions to the Section 404 internal control requirements laid out under SOX.

Fannie Mae will pay $400 million to put an end to the accounting woes that have dogged the home mortgage giant since 2004.The latest estimates from government-chartered Fannie Mae, whose official name is the Federal National Mortgage Association, are that the company expects to reduce net income by upwards of $11 billion in financial restatements for fiscal years spanning 1998 to 2004.

The Auditing Standards Board is issuing a new standard on auditing internal controls. By adopting definitions from Auditing Standard No. 2 of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the standard will make audits of public and private companies more similar."This standard is important because it requires the auditor to communicate with management those areas of their internal control system that are not up to par," said AICPA vice president of professional standards and services Chuck Landes. "We want to make it clear that management has a responsibility for not only their financial statements but their internal control systems, and they are responsible to take appropriate action with respect to any material weaknesses or significant deficiencies that the auditor may identify."