Audit & Accounting

The American Institute of CPAs has decided to consolidate its continuing professional education operations in North Carolina, which will result in the closure of its Texas office by next March.

Our regular readers know that our shtick is criticizing generally accepted accounting principles, as well as those who create and implement them without fully anticipating their negative impact on the quality of the resulting financial statements. This time we're going after accounting for income tax effects, which has roots dating back to 1967 and APB Opinion 11. Even though the Financial Accounting Standards Board tried to reform tax accounting with SFAS 109 20 years ago, we don't see much actual improvement.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has issued an Accounting Standards Update that would revise the rules for how companies can deal with repurchase agreements like the kind Lehman Brothers used to temporarily move billion of dollars of assets temporarily off its books before reporting its quarterly results.

Truck maker Navistar International has filed a $500 million lawsuit against its former auditor Deloitte & Touche alleging professional malpractice.

The American Institute of CPAs said Wednesday that it is expanding the registration and exam options for its specialty credentials, providing CPAs with more flexibility and opportunity to pursue designations that help differentiate them in the market.

Accounting and business consulting firm J.H. Cohn announced revenues of $236 million for the fiscal year ending Jan. 31, 2011.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has released a study recommending that the existing auditor attestation requirement in Sarbanes-Oxley be kept in place for companies with a public float of between $75 million and $250 million.

The International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board has published its 2011 Handbook of International Public Sector Accounting Pronouncements.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has issued an exposure draft of a proposed Accounting Standards Update that aims to simplify how an entity is supposed to test goodwill for impairment.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board provided a progress report Thursday on the latest timeline for their major convergence projects.