Audit & Accounting

Wayne Carnall, the chief accountant in the SEC’s Division of Corporate Finance, had some good advice to dispense to corporate accountants on keeping out of hot water with his department.

Financial Accounting Standards Board Chairman Bob Herz said the $64,000 question is, “Where are we going with IFRS?” as he described plans for FASB and the International Accounting Standards Board to work more closely on uniting U.S. GAAP with International Financial Reporting Standards.

Leaders of the American Institute of CPAs and the Center for Audit Quality registered strong objections to proposed legislation that would put banking regulators in control of U.S. accounting standards.

CROWE UNVEILS APP FOR ARRA

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has beefed up the disclosure requirements for some types of fair value measurements.

The former CFO of the American Cancer Society has formed her own CPA firm.

The International Accounting Standards Board has published a new standard on classifying and measuring financial assets to determine whether an asset should be measured at amortized cost or fair value.

Grant Thornton’s national managing partner of professional standards, John Archambault, has been appointed to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s Standing Advisory Group.

IMGCAP(1)]Opaque financial instruments that banks and insurance companies have created and misrepresented, and that were blamed for the current recession, seem to call for greater transparency. But what exactly is transparency? How is it done? Does it work?

A measure approved last week by the House Financial Services Committee to change Sarbanes-Oxley audit rules would lead to a higher incidence of fraud and an increase in the amount of fraud losses, said the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.