Audit & Accounting

The National Taxpayer Advocate is raising concerns about the effectiveness of the Internal Revenue Service’s increasing reliance on correspondence exams instead of face-to-face audits.

Corporate audit giant Ernst & Young operates a lobbying firm in Washington, D.C., that has been hired in recent years by several corporations that were at the same time E&Y audit clients, prompting two senior lawmakers to demand closer regulatory scrutiny.

The world's largest accounting and auditing firms, known as the Big Four, have been pumping more money than ever before into U.S. lobbying and political campaigns as they confront new challenges from their regulator and Congress.

Regulators are seriously seven major changes in financial reporting that could be game changers for accountants.

The March edition of Accounting Today’s Accountants Confidence Index reveals that the profession has lowered its expectations for growth in the next three to six months.

Check out the digital edition of the March 2012 issue of Accounting Today.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board plans to hold a series of meetings to discuss a proposal to require mandatory audit firm rotation.

Firm News -- March 9

Grant Thornton has released a new paper calling for an overhaul in the current thinking of the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board on lease accounting standards, instead advocating the use of two different lease accounting models.

International Accounting Standards Board chairman Hans Hoogervorst told attendees at a financial conference in Mexico City that the board plans to give accountants a period of relative stability to give them time to adjust to all the new standards.