Audit & Accounting

It's hard to believe we can write another column about pensions and the bad GAAP applied to them, but here we are again, beating the same old drum. In addition, there is a new drum in the Pension Protection Act of 2006.While we're putting this column together, the market is continuing its sliding and bouncing, and the government is doling out money left and right (and in between) to bail out insurers, mega-banks, regional banks, investment banks, depositors, money funds, brokerage houses, and who knows what else.

Government officials now expect 401(k) plan sponsors to conduct periodic due diligence reviews. With respect to their 401(k) or other retirement plans, the problem is that most sponsors (owners) do not have the in-house resources to do so.This is not something that 401(k) plans historically did. On the heels of the recent mutual fund scandals, though, Labor Department officials indicated that sponsors had a duty to periodically investigate plans and benchmark funds and fees.

PLANNERS GET NEW CLIENTSTwo thirds of certified financial planners have seen an increase in potential clients as economic turbulence has increased in the past several weeks, according to a recent survey.

On Thursday, Congress passed a waiver of the minimum distribution rule for 2009, but not for 2008, for employer-provided qualified retirement plans and individual retirement accounts and annuities in H.R. 7327, the Worker, Retiree, and Employer Recovery Act of 2008. President Bush is expected to quickly sign it.The Treasury Department is studying whether to provide relief with regard to 2008 minimum distributions.

The European Union has formalized its waiver allowing companies to file financial statements in European markets using U.S. generally accepted accounting principles -- as well as the accounting standards of five other countries -- without reconciling them to International Financial Reporting Standards. The measures declare U.S. GAAP, as well as accounting standards from Canada, China, Japan, South Korea and India, to be "equivalent" to IFRS as adopted in the European Union. An earlier transitional waiver was due to expire at the end of this year. European Internal Market and Services Commissioner Charlie McCreevy welcomed the measures: "Today's adoption by the commission is a momentous step. It marks the culmination of important work spanning several years." Standard-setters in the U.S. and at the International Accounting Standards Board, which sets IFRS, have been working to converge the two sets of standards. Earlier this year, the U.S. announced that it would allow companies to file here in IFRS without reconciling their accounts to GAAP. The European Commission said that it would review the situation of standards in Canada, China, South Korea and India by 2011 at the latest.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has published its long-delayed roadmap for the transition from U.S. generally accepted accounting principles to International Financial Reporting Standards.

A completely revised Form 990 will require an overhaul of internal policies and procedures for most tax-exempt organizations, according to Joyce Underwood, director of nonprofit taxation at BDO Seidman's Institute for Nonprofit Excellence.

Once again this year, the headline for the Alternative Minimum Tax is another one-year fix with no permanent solution. The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 raised the AMT exemption amount for 2008 to $69,950 for joint filers and $46,200 for single filers. This represents another inflation-adjusted extension of the exemption amount designed to preserve the status quo and keep an additional 21 million taxpayers from being subject to the AMT in 2008. And, once again, without further action, the AMT exemption amount reverts to its pre-2001 level in 2009 unless further congressional action is taken.

In the current financial turmoil, what might help is a more presentable presentation of financial statements.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Bernard L. Madoff and his company, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, with securities fraud for perpetrating an alleged multi-billion-dollar Ponzi-style fraud on their advisory clients. The SEC alleged that Madoff himself had described his firm as "a giant Ponzi scheme" that paid returns to certain investors out of principal from other investors, and that he had told two of his firm's senior employees last week, "It's all just one big lie." (According to The Wall Street Journal, the two senior employees were Madoff's sons.) The commission also said that Madoff had estimated that the losses from the fraud were at least $50 billion. "We are alleging massive fraud," said SEC Director of Enforcement Linda Chatman Thomsen. The commission noted that Madoff's company had $17 billion in assets at the beginning of 2008, according to regulatory filings, but that "virtually all assets of the advisory business are missing" now. According to a Bloomberg News report, Madoff's entire company was audited by a three-person accounting firm, Friehling & Horowitz, out of a tiny office in a New York city suburb -- a circumstance that so alarmed a hedge fund advisor that it warned clients away from investing with Madoff. Madoff, a former chairman of Nasdaq, was arrested by federal agents last Thursday morning, and released on $10 million bail, according to his lawyers. At the SEC's request, a federal judge appointed a receiver to secure the firm's accounts and assets.