Audit & Accounting

The American Institute of CPAs has launched the third of its planned Audit Quality Centers.

In a move aimed at reducing the paperwork burden for small businesses, the Internal Revenue Service said it would boost the number of small businesses eligible to file a simplified expense form.

The regulator charged with overseeing mortgage concern Fannie Mae appears to be considering a shake-up of its top management to clean up the beleaguered firm.

Fund research provider Morningstar Inc. said it is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission related to incorrect total return data that Morningstar published earlier this year for a single mutual fund.

On the heels of a pair of settlements to resolve the company's $2.2 billion accounting scandal, two former top executives of software maker Computer Associates International Inc. pleaded not guilty to criminal charges.

The New Mexico Public Accountancy Board has joined the Securities and Exchange Commission and the California Board of Accountancy in disciplining Ernst & Young over the firm's audits of former client PeopleSoft.

Flexibility and programs aimed at easing the burden on working parents, such as longer parental leave periods, earned all of the Big Four accounting firms spots on Working Mother Magazine's 2004 "100 Best Companies for Working Mothers."

Almost half of fast-growth chief executives surveyed expect a major increase in their company's business taxes over the next two years, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

A study commissioned by the board of the International Federation of Accountants has issued a series of recommendations to the financial reporting "supply chain" in order to achieve convergence on global accounting and auditing standards.

Sanjay Kumar, the former chief executive of Computer Associates International Inc., was indicted on charges of securities fraud, conspiracy and obstruction of justice just as the company announced that it had reached agreements with the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with an accounting scandal that caused it to restate $2.2 billion in revenue.