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August20: NATP Practice Management: Multiplying Your Income, National Association of Tax Professionals. Naperville, Ill. Contact: (800) 558-3402 ext. 3 or www.natptax.com.

MOORE STEPHENS FROST BUYS NORTH CAROLINA FIRMLITTLE ROCK, ARK. - Arkansas accounting giant Moore Stephens Frost has acquired a North Carolina firm, Lynch and Howard.

After more than 25 years of consulting with large and small accounting firms, I feel comfortable in sharing with you my observations about great partnerships and how they got that way.Most new firms, and some long-time firms, unfortunately don't give a lot of thought to this question. Their main concern is surviving. But the sooner a firm can start focusing on what makes a great partnership, the better off it will be. Think about this: If you don't address this question, how will you know if you are admitting the right types of partners? What technical and personal skills would you want? What personal values (character) would you look for?

The other day I received the annual report from a large insurance concern on their variable universal life products.

Computer maker Dell said its audit committee has finished its investigation into the company's accounting and financial reporting issues and has identified significant errors and irregularities.

Pope Benedict XVI plans to issue an encyclical denouncing tax evasion and the use of offshore tax shelters as Italy embarks upon a campaign to crack down on tax avoidance.

The United States Tax Court has ruled on a case involving a taxpayer, David Billings, who asked to be relieved from liability for the tax owed on money his wife embezzled from his employer without his knowledge, and has decided in his favor.

Sage Software released Sage Master Builder V. 13, adding the ability to drill down multiple levels from reports.

On a muggy July day five years ago, President George W. Bush put his pen to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, an expansive piece of corporate reform legislation designed to help restore investor confidence in a nation scarred by an apparently unending series of accounting scandals.The 11-section measure, which essentially changed the way public companies do business, ushered in a cascade of new reforms, service prohibitions and standards for public issuers, their boards and the CPA firms that audit them. It was the most deliberately invasive regulatory reform passed since the Roosevelt administration, touching nearly every aspect of the financial reporting process.

Is the Governmental Accounting Standards Board in trouble? "Trouble" may be too strong a word, but it's been a bumpy couple of months for the state and local government standard-setter.In December, the Government Financial Officers Association voted to "re-assess GASB's role as the authoritative accounting standard-setting body for state and local governments."