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SEC VOTES FOR MANDATORY XBRL FILINGWashington, D.C. — The Securities and Exchange Commission voted at an open meeting to propose that companies begin filing financial statements in an interactive tagged format as early as next year. The requirement for companies to begin filing in Extensible Business Reporting Language would initially apply to about 500 companies with a worldwide public float of over $5 billion. They would make financial disclosures in XBRL for fiscal periods ending in late 2008.

With summer on the proverbial doorstep, there’s always a certain nostalgia that accompanies the onset of warmer climes. For me, it’s for a childhood spent in a red 1962 Bel Air station wagon as it ambled to various vacation spots in the Northeast. Back then, a gallon of gas hovered around a quarter, and the only concern my parents had during those annual excursions was breaking up the backseat fights that erupted between my brother and me about every 100 miles. I can still envision my father’s free hand reaching back in an effort to slap any body part within reach.This year, trips like those will be a whole lot more expensive, since it now nearly requires a home equity loan to fill up. But lately, I’m not the only one dusting off the scrapbook.

Article II, Section 3, of the United States Constitution, on the presidency, provides, “He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union.”President George Washington delivered the first State of the Union address on Jan. 8, 1790, at the U.S. Capitol, then situated at the corner of Wall and Broad Streets in New York City.

Thank you for the fact that Accounting Today continues to provide an independent voice for the CPA profession.Bill Carlino’s editorials are important because, as my following comments on one of his recent editorials indicates, I believe this profession is not just at a crossroads, or critical juncture, but teetering on the brink of complicity, and therefore irrelevance.

With the 2008 presidential election looming, proposals that could turn the most sanguine tax accountants into habitual nailbiters came under serious discussion on both sides of Capitol Hill.In the Senate, congressional leaders called together a panel of top economists to help plot a course for tax reform next year, but the discussion produced more conflict than consensus.

One of the consequences of the credit crisis that began in the summer of 2007 was the deterioration in the U.S. housing market, rendering the valuations of securitized or structured mortgage-backed assets volatile.The contracting demand for these assets — which had been dramatically overvalued by brokers who earned substantial commissions by pushing over 600 varieties of these assets to hedge fund managers through repos that were leveraged without regulatory bounds — precipitated the tightening of unsecured term funding. That led to credit downgrades, massive write-downs of MBS assets by financial institutions according to mark-to-market accounting rules, and illiquidity.

IRS PLANS TAX SHELTER CRACKDOWNWashington, D.C. — Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman promised to continue enforcement efforts against tax shelters.

SEC’S ATKINS TO STEP DOWNWashington, D.C. — Securities and Exchange Commissioner Paul Atkins said that he plans to leave the SEC at the end of his term, the latest in a string of departures for the commission.

IPRO ONE ACQUIRES OWNERSHIP IN HBK SORCE FINANCIALiPro One has reached an agreement to purchase an ownership interest in HbK Sorce Financial, an investment advisory and wealth management firm with more than $1 billion in assets under management.

Education, collaboration and innovation were the central themes swirling around Insights 2008 — the sixth annual reseller conference of business management software provider Sage Software.More than 3,000 attendees, including 1,800 resellers, flocked to the four-day confab held here last month to learn more about the products, to network, to glean new ideas and strategies, and to meet Sue Swenson, the new president and chief executive of the software conglomerate’s North America unit.