Audit & Accounting

The American Institute of CPAs, the AICPA Foundation, the National Endowment for Financial Education and the American Red Cross have launched a new, broad-based disaster preparedness and planning guide for consumers.

Grant Thornton executives this week urged regulators, public company boards and executives, and auditors to move to protect capital markets and investors by taking steps to increase choice and competition for public companies and auditors.

Companies that limit Sarbanes-Oxley reviews to a small group of senior management have worse performance records compared with those that involve much of the organization in their review process, according to a report by research firm AberdeenGroup.

The Coca-Cola Co. announced a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission related to allegations that the company used a channel-stuffing practice known as "gallon pushing" to meet earnings expectations.

The Professional Ethics Executive Committee of the American Institute of CPAs has proposed in an exposure draft a new ethics interpretation of rules to determine whether financial interests held by a company's external auditor impair independence.

Big Four firm KPMG LLP has agreed to pay more than $22 million to settle charges brought against it by the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with its audits of Xerox Corp. from 1997 through 2000.

The American College, based here, and the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors have partnered to create the Financial Services Specialist designation, a new financial planning credential.

President Bush has signed into law H.R. 1134, exempting qualified disaster mitigation payments from tax.

Employers and their advisors are still trying to puzzle through the creation of health savings accounts.

Sherman Hanna is a professor of consumer sciences at Ohio State University. He is also the co-author of a new measure that he says is a better way to calculate how much risk people are willing to take in their investments. It has an interesting twist.