The Financial Accounting Foundation, overseer of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, named former Paine Webber/UBS managing director Donald M. Young to the board of the accounting standard-setter.Young's three-year term is effective Jan. 1, 2005. He will compete the term of Gary S. Schieneman, who resigned.In addition to a five-year stint at Paine Webber/UBS, Young's resume includes two years as managing director at Prudential Securities, as well as serving as a director and senior vice president at Lehman Bros.He also held a number of marketing and finance posts at Burroughs Corp., now called Unisys Corp.

When President Bush signs the FSC/ETI bill, the days of small business owners and professionals such as doctors and lawyers expensing luxury SUVs are over.Writers of the 600-page measure closed a tax break that allowed business owners to save as much as $33,000 on the purchase of a $1000,000 vehicle, according to Tax Analysts.The Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 created the break by increasing from $25,000 to $100,000 the amount that small businesses can expense in the first year for buying a vehicle weighing 6,000 pounds or more.The incentive was originally written to assist farmers and contractors to invest in larger equipment, but the floodgates opened when it was discovered that luxury SUVs also qualified.The amendment reduces the SUV deduction to $25,000, while still allowing the farmers and contractors the break.

Members of the Financial Accounting Standards Board voted Wednesday to give public companies another six months to implement the board's proposed standard for expensing employee stock options.

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil fraud charges against Dutch grocer Royal Ahold and three of its former executives in connection with an accounting scandal involving the overstatement of hundreds of millions of dollars of earnings.

The International Accounting Standards Board and the Accounting Standards Board of Japan announced that they have started talks about a joint project to minimize differences between international financial reporting standards and Japanese accounting standards.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has released a proposed bulletin that seeks to clarify accounting requirements for employers' contributions to pension and other post-employment benefit plans.

Consumer favorite Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc. said that the ongoing probe into its accounting practices by the Securities and Exchange Commission has become a formal investigation.