Audit & Accounting

The ambitious road map to give the world a single accountancy standard - by converging U.S. generally accepted accounting principles with International Financial Reporting Standards by 2008 - may be fraught with bumps, potholes and even worse along the way, it was revealed at a recent conference of the European Accountants Federation, here.Delegates at the conference heard that the convergence plan would involve much more than a simple "clean up" of the U.S rules-based accountancy system dating back to the 1930s and the EU's brand-new principles-based system.

Edward Knauf didn't take long to get to work after rising to the chairmanship of the American Institute of CPAs' Technical Issues Committee. Within a month of his appointment, he met with the three organizations of most concern to the small and midsized accounting firms that comprise the TIC's constituents.All three - the Financial Accounting Standards Board, the Auditing Standards Board, and the AICPA's Professional Ethics Executive Committee - are, in the diligent pursuit of their respective missions, putting increased pressure on auditors, who are already stretched in one direction by the demands put upon them and in another by the scarcity of human resources available to satisfy those demands.

ISO 22222, the Standard on Personal Financial Planning, has been approved as an international standard. All ISO members (standardization institutes in approximately 150 countries around the world) can now adopt ISO 22222 as a national standard.According to Stuart Kessler, chairman of the International Standards Organization's blue-ribbon committee on personal financial planning, "ISO 22222 is by nature not legally binding, but a document of 'good practice' that can be applied voluntarily, unless there is a reference to it in legislation or it is part of a contract, in which case it might become binding."

Commerce Bancorp Inc., parent to some 375 Commerce Bank branches in the New York, Philadelphia and Southeast Florida markets, has acquired online wealth manager eMoney Advisor for $32 million.

Brian Cartwright, a law school and, later, law firm colleague of Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox, was named general counsel at the regulator.

New York-based public relations firm Burson-Marsteller released its 2005 reputation survey of, and found Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman and chief software architect, to be the world's most admired business leader.

On the heels of the $11.2 million audit scandal at the Roslyn, N.Y., school district that resulted in the convictions of the superintendent and several associates, New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi has singled out a number of school districts in Westchester and Rockland Counties for audits.

The Governmental Accounting Standard Board has published a Guide to Implementation of GASB Statement 44 on the Statistical Section.

The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service have issued final regulations regarding Sections 401(k) and 401(m) related to designated Roth IRA contributions.

Larry E. Bergmann, senior associate director in the Securities and Exchange Commission's Division of Market Regulation, will retire from the regulator in January to join the law firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher.