Audit & Accounting

The Standing Advisory Group of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board will meet next month to discuss topics related to the implementation of PCAOB Auditing Standard No. 2, which deals with internal control audits.

The Institute of Internal Auditors has released a series of free reports for chief internal audit executives and their staffs intended to provide guidance in assessing technology-associated risks and implementing best practices.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board released guidance related to attest engagements regarding Extensible Business Reporting Language data furnished under the Securities and Exchange Commission XBRL Voluntary Financial Reporting Program on the Edgar System.

The chairman of a House appropriations subcommittee with oversight of the Securities and Exchange Commission, has called on the Government Accountability Office to investigate reported SEC budget shortfalls.

While Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley says management is responsible for establishing and reporting on a company's system of internal controls, more than half of 329 companies reporting control deficiency disclosures did so because their external auditors identified and reported those weaknesses, according to a report by the Financial Executives Research Foundation.

Expressing optimism that the bipartisan bickering over a litany of Capitol Hill issues would be suspended at least temporarily, Treasury Secretary John W. Snow said that a finding a solution for the wheezing 70-year-old Social Security program would be the test of lawmakers from both sides of the aisle to come together.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board revoked the registration of a New York public accounting firm and disciplined three of its partners for concealing information from the board and submitting false information in connection with a PCAOB inspection.

A bipartisan coalition of members of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, including chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa; ranking member Max Baucus, D-Mont.; Ron Wyden, D-Ore.; and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., have introduced legislation to repeal the alternative minimum tax.

The president's panel studying tax overhaul options isn't expected to recommend major changes to the estate tax, according to published reports.

Legislators and the public should be aware that carry-over basis problems of estate tax repeal could be a nightmare, according to the American Association of Attorney-CPAs.