Audit & Accounting

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has issued an exposure draft of proposed changes in the standards for financial reporting about troubled debt restructurings.

Dutch financial markets regulator Hans Hoogervorst will succeed Sir David Tweedie as chairman of the International Accounting Standards Board next June when Tweedie retires from the most powerful and influential position in the accounting profession.

In February, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued a Commission Statement in which it made it clear that it believed that a single set of high-quality globally accepted accounting standards would benefit U.S investors, and in which it directed its staff to execute a workplan to help evaluate the impact IFRS might have on the securities market.

FASB RETOOLS STANDARDS FOR PENSION PLANS

The American Institute of CPAs’ Accounting and Review Services Committee made the most significant changes to compilation and review engagements in over 30 years with the issuance of Statement on Standards for Accounting and Review Services No. 19, Compilation and Review Engagements.

Norwalk, Conn. - The Financial Accounting Standards Board intends to host two public roundtable meetings to solicit input on private company accounting and reporting issues.

In a rough economy, when liability claims against accountants tend to rise, it's especially critical for CPA firms who expand their practices beyond their comfort areas to know exactly what their policy covers and to make any necessary adjustments. It's especially important considering that liability carriers treat issues differently in their policies, according to Gary Sutherland, chief executive of North American Professional Liability Insurance Agency, an independent broker.

Our column in the Feb. 11, 2008, issue addressed the pitfalls of pursuing off-balance-sheet financing. In light of the August 2010 exposure draft from the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board that proposes capitalizing all leases, we decided to republish it in order to help readers who might be baffled by this massive paradigm shift. In the next issue, we'll reprint a follow-up column in which we responded to criticisms from an individual who basically had no problem with operating lease accounting, to the point that he didn't even consider it as a way for management to deliberately mislead financial statement users.

A majority of members of the Blue Ribbon Panel on Standard Setting for Private Companies voted in favor of establishing a separate standard-setting board for private company accounting at a meeting Friday, but will wait until December to issue its final recommendations.

The International Accounting Standards Board has amended its standards on financial instrument disclosures to beef up the disclosure requirements for financial asset transfer transactions such as securitizations, and discourage questionable balance-sheet “window dressing.”