Audit & Accounting

While individuals are allowed to exclude gain of $250,000 ($500,000 by a married couple filing a joint return) on the sale of property owned and used as a principal residence for at least two years in the five-year period ending on the date of the sale, they should still do everything possible to determine their basis in a principal residence.

While many accounting graduates have traditionally gone the Big Four or big corporation route for their first job, finance executives say that they'd advise new grads to start small, according to a recent survey.

Almost overnight, lease accounting has morphed into one of the profession's biggest headaches, as more than 300 companies have had to restate their financials, citing, among other issues, corrections to lease accounting errors.

Doubts are hovering over the timely implementation of the Basel II capital adequacy mandate in Europe, as the possibility lingers that the European Parliament will fail to clear the ruling smoothly.

With its role in standard-setting now clearly defined, the Auditing Standards Board has been making up for lost time as it moves toward a series of new proposed standards.

The Internal Revenue Service has been shifting its priorities from taxpayer service to enforcement and its management of the Business Systems Modernization program - an ongoing umbrella program of upgrades - from contractors to IRS staff.

The next few months should pump a little excitement into the profession as the Financial Accounting Standards Board moves to issue as many as 20 new documents - most of them exposure drafts - with some proposing significant changes to financial reporting.

In addition to its ongoing work on the implementation of Auditing Standard No. 2, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board will focus on rules related to auditor independence and tax services and strengthening its enforcement staff during the second half of the year, according to its chairman.

The Securities and Exchange Commission Advisory Committee on Smaller Public Companies will hold its second meeting next week in New York to finalize its agenda, to consider suggestions on defining the term "smaller public company" and to hear testimony on methods to scale securities regulations for smaller public companies.

As part of its broader effort toward convergence with international reporting standards, the Financial Accounting Standards Board has issued Statement No. 154, "Accounting Changes and Error Corrections."