Audit & Accounting

You have to admire the Governmental Accounting Standards Board.In 2007, it will be deliberating some of the trickiest, thorniest accounting issues in contemporary governmental finance.

By the time this column is printed, many will be trying to comply, audit or otherwise cope with the Financial Accounting Standards Board's new standard on pensions.While there is no doubt that SFAS 158 is a huge improvement, no one should complacently think that it takes care of accounting issues related to pensions and other post-retirement employee benefits. Much remains to be done to make financial reports more realistic and useful because, in fact, generally acceptable accounting principles for pensions and OPEBs are almost totally unacceptable, not only when they are compared with reality, but also when they are contrasted with GAAP in other areas.

A recent study by the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed more than 1,400 accountants left the country to work overseas permanently last year, according to Australia’s Daily Telegraph.According to experts in the industry, that trend is only likely to worsen in the common years as the rest of the world adjusts to the International Financial Reporting Standards, which have been in place in Australia since January 2005. Those standards are set to be widely adopted in 2008.

The Texas State Board of Public Accountancy has stayed its license suspension of KPMG LLP in connection with the Big Four firm’s sales of questionable legal tax shelters.In a consent order approved by the board, KPMG’s license was suspended for five years -- although the stay order means that the firm will be placed on probation for the next three years.

Everybody and his dog seem to have checked in with their so-called golden rules for a successful retirement. In fact, some have five key rules; some have 15. If you added all of them up, you would probably find yourself with 65 different rules, a bit much.However, Ron Roberts, founder and president of Roberts Retirement Group based in Jackson, Calif., has come up with an even dozen, 12 if you will, that are most enticing.

Robert H. Herz has been reappointed to a second five-year term as chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board.

Top 100 Firm Blum, Shapiro & Co. PC announced that it has acquired Glastonbury, Conn.-based Scully & Wolf LLP.

A new report from the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board summarizes how practitioners have been implementing interim standards relating to auditor responsibility to detecting fraud.

Speaking at a New York State Society of CPAs conference earlier this week, Conrad Hewitt declined to speak in absolutes when it came to across-the-board implementation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act’s infamous Section 404.The Securities and Exchange Commission chief accountant avoided absolutes when speaking on the question of compliance for micro-cap companies -- the first time that I’ve heard a federal regulator hedge their bets on implementation that’s currently planned for 2008. It would be far from the first deferral for companies will market capitalizations under $75 million -- but the first ray of hope for those small companies since the SEC declined to strongly move forward on a number of recommendations outlined last year by an advisory committee.

Texas law firm Andrews Kurth will pay Enron's estate $18.5 million to settle potential malpractice claims stemming from legal advice the firm allegedly offered concerning the energy giant’s asset transactions.