Audit & Accounting

The Financial Accounting Standards Board issued a proposal that would require employers to recognize over funded or under funded defined benefit postretirement plans, including pension plans, in their balance sheets. The proposal would also require that employers measure plan assets and obligations as of the date of their financial statements.

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that 17 companies -- compared to nine under an initiative launched last year -- have already agreed to participate in a new pilot program to use interactive data in their financial statement filings.

Senior U.S. financial executives are confident in the financial performance of their own companies, even if the economy does not perform well this year, said a survey from accounting firm Grant Thornton.

House lawmakers heard from various regulatory bodies and association leaders on ways financial reports could be made more user-friendly for investors and the general public.

Public companies and their auditors will have some added leeway to ensure compliance with still unfinalized Public Company Accounting Oversight Board rules restricting the kinds of tax services auditors can provide.

One of the 19 defendants facing tax fraud charges over KPMG's sale of questionable shelters struck a surprise deal with federal prosecutors, copping to one count each of conspiracy and tax evasion.

For the 2005 fiscal year, just 30 out of the country's more than 180,000 millionaires received a face-to-face audit from the Internal Revenue Service, according to Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

The prosecution has rested in the ninth week of the government's fraud and conspiracy trial of former Enron chairman Kenneth Lay and chief executive Jeffrey Skilling.

A survey of public company filings has revealed that the spike in audit fees under the early years of Sarbanes-Oxley may really have been temporary, though fees did increase in 2005.

The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board has re-issued an exposure draft titled "The Audit of Group Financial Statements."