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The Financial Accounting Standards Board has issued FASB Statement No. 162, "The Hierarchy of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles," intended as a replacement for the American Institute of CPAs' GAAP hierarchy.

If you haven’t heard by now, there’s a big conference coming up in July. It’s being billed as “How CPAs Can Make Money in Financial Planning” and it’s being held on July 20-22 at the Chicago Fairmont. Why this conference? Because the Baby Boomers, as we all know, are hitting retirement age with the Barely Boomers right behind, and they are certainly looking for financial planners to advise them. In the interests of full disclosure, the conference is being offered by the premier publications in this field: CPA Wealth Provider, Accounting Today, and Practical Accountant. The conference will detail exactly what it takes to be really successful in such a practice area, which includes estate, tax, retirement, insurance, and succession planning and, of course, wealth management. This breakthrough conference is also targeted at those firms not yet in financial planning as well as those who have not been successful. In fact, the conference will allow you to determine how deeply your firm should be in this growth area and in what capacity. You will also learn how to select the right strategic partner and how to get financial planning up-to-speed quickly. Moreover, you will hear success stories from financial planners and learn the challenges of those CPAs who entered the business without the proper training, analysis, and understanding and therefore, failed or had a number of false starts. Incidentally, the conference will offer 16-18 CPE credits. Most importantly, a number of the preeminent people in the field will be conducting sessions at this conference including the keynote speaker, Stuart Kessler, considered by many as the “Godfather” of financial planning and including, as of this date, Garrett D'Alessandro, Sidney Blum, Mitchell Freedman, Peter Jaworski, Rebecca Pomering, Larry Swedroe, Enrique Vasquez, Troy Waugh, and Clare Wherley. For more information, contact Julie.Dienes@sourcemedia.com.

Much of the excess tax collected by the Internal Revenue Service from businesses for telephone excise taxes is not being claimed or refunded, according to a new report.

Sage Software's U.K.-based parent company, the Sage Group, reported revenue of $1.29 billion for the half-year ended March 31, 2008, a 9 percent increase over the same period last year.

The New York State Senate has agreed to suspend the gasoline tax for the summer, as the topic continues to be the talk of presidential candidates.

The future of your firm shouldn’t be left up to fate. Being armed with a practical plan can prepare you and your firm with how next to succeed. This webinar will explain why you need a strategy in place and what the essentials are to getting there.

Standard & Poor's plans to host a forum on the merits of fair value accounting later this month.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged semiconductor maker Marvell Technology Group and its co-founder with backdating employee stock option grants.

The temptation to take a camera to the event marking the opening of the Sports Museum of America was just too great. The event was held on Tuesday between our publications’ offices and the Wall Street bull. The institution, just across Broadway, is the result of a nearly seven-year effort of CEO Philip Schwalb, who once worked with two accounting software VARs, and whose former boss, Doug Weintraub of Socius (when reselling operation was part of Centerprise Information Solutions), based in Cleveland, not surprisingly sold Dynamics GP as the accounting package for the new Wall Street area institution, which is expected to draw 1 million visitors a year.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board found problems with four audits conducted by Ernst & Young in its latest inspection report.