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If you think the U.S. is the only country grappling with a shortage of accounting professionals, think again.A recent survey released by staffing concern Robert Half International revealed that the drought of human capital in accounting and finance isn’t improving — both here and abroad.

IRS OFFERS RELIEF TO CALIFORNIA FIRE VICTIMS

I’ve always subscribed to the belief that you lose your edge in the absence of competition. In my humble opinion, the more heated the competition, the better.Coming from the New York area, I witnessed such now-defunct retailers as Herman’s World of Sporting Goods and Pergament Home Centers inexplicably remain in business for years — powered solely by a disastrous tandem of high prices and poor service. Normally, that one-two recipe for disaster would result in soaped-up windows. They managed to survive only because they were relatively competition-free in their respective channels. However, once national powerhouses such as Sports Authority, Home Depot and, later, Lowe’s arrived on the scene, they disappeared faster than Tony Soprano at an FBI convention.

As lawmakers and regulators continue to tinker with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for U.S. public companies, they could do worse than look to the 14th century, when the budding capitalists of Southern France developed corporate governance institutions for the ages.As detailed in a treatise published some 50 years ago, the well-heeled citizens of Toulouse invented a way to pool their capital, spread their risks and provide a healthy return on their investment. In the process, they created the first public companies, along with pragmatic yet ingenious mechanisms for controlling the greedy impulses of shareholders, employees, suppliers and customers, while keeping the government at bay and enduring for some 600 years.

I take considerable issue with your view (“I volunteer — not,” Accounting Today, Sept. 10-23, 2007, page 6) that voluntary compliance is not part of “the equation.” Certainly more and improved enforcement has been lacking and is much needed. However, the voluntary aspect of our tax system has always been a key element of the United States’ approach to its system of finance. I also strongly feel that it is a key element of citizenship.It has become more and more frustrating to see the rationalization by much of the taxpayer community that non-compliance is not breaking the law, or unethical. Taxpayers are always very willing to avail themselves of aspects of the tax laws that benefit them, yet many routinely flout the simple and common-sense tax laws (this is not an issue of too much complexity of the tax laws), i.e., reporting of all income and deducting only proper expenses, as if just a little bit of non-reporting or a little bit of deduction “fluff” is okay. Apparently, to these taxpayers, “under penalties of perjury” — under which they sign their names — is just a meaningless string of words.

IRS EASES LATE S CORP ELECTIONS

CVS CAREMARK DISMISSES KPMGCVS Caremark Corp., a prescription drug provider, has jettisoned Big Four firm KPMG as its independent accountant and named Ernst & Young as its successor.

Our column in the previous issue considered the Securities and Exchange Commission’s recently appointed Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting, which has been charged with finding ways to strengthen the system. As our readers might expect, we found flaws among the premises in a discussion paper by the chair, Robert Pozen (available at www.sec.gov/about/offices/oca/acifr/acifr_discussion.htm).In this column, we look at the first five of 10 specific points in Pozen’s paper that deserve exposure and that will demand additional attention from the committee. Our next column will address the remaining five.

As college costs increase with no end in sight, more and more of your clients are struggling to find ways to lighten the tuition load. Luckily, there exist several beneficial tax deductions, credits and scholarships that can help.ABOVE-THE-LINE DEDUCTIONS

CALVERT GIVING FUND DIVESTS DARFUR INTERESTSIn a break with donor-advised funds sponsored by other national financial services firms, the Calvert Foundation said that its Calvert Giving Fund is now fully divested from companies affiliated with the Sudanese government. The Calvert Giving Fund is administered by the Calvert Foundation.