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Now that summer is here, tax preparers have time for trial runs of different software to see if there's a program that might be a better fit for their practices.Vendors, meanwhile, see this time as an opportunity to get a head start on the next filing season by offering special discounts and promotional pricing.

Small business concerns over Sarbanes-Oxley Act compliance resurfaced on Capitol Hill as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board came under new pressure to delay costly and cumbersome internal control audit requirements on small companies for at least another year.At the beginning of a new round of congressional hearings, House Small Business Committee chair Nydia M. Velázquez, D-N.Y., called on both the SEC and the PCAOB to scuttle plans to implement a freshly revised set of SOX rules.

As a result of an editing error, "When SOX meets ERM" (June 4-17, 2007, page 14) incorrectly attributed a quote to Michelle Scott, of the Institute of Internal Auditors Research Foundation. In fact, the quote came from a book, Four Approaches to Enterprise Risk Management and Opportunities in Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance.

J.H. COHN ADDS CONNECTICUT FIRM

Someone far more experienced in the art of negotiation once told me that if you go into a meeting asking for 10 concessions, be prepared to receive about half of them. I once employed a similar strategy with my parents - with less-than-stellar results.I proposed that if I kept my room clean and did my own laundry for six months, they would subsidize a trip to Los Angeles to visit my cousins. My father promptly made a counteroffer: If I kept helping out around the house, I could continue living there for free.

In February, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed a lower court decision and held a closely held corporation's auditor primarily liable under Sec. 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Securities and Exchange Commission Rule 10b-5.Specifically, in Overton v. Todman & Co. CPAs PC, the court held that an auditor may incur primary liability when the auditor makes a statement in its certified opinion that is false or misleading when made, subsequently learns or was reckless in not learning that the earlier statement was false or misleading, knows or should know that potential investors are relying on the opinion, and yet fails to take reasonable steps to correct or withdraw its opinion and/or the financial statements.

CONGRESS EYES INTERNET TAXESWASHINGTON, D.C. - Two bills circulating on Capitol Hill are looking at different ways to generate tax revenue from the Internet.

E&Y DISMISSED AS CYGNE AUDITORCygne Designs, a New York-based clothier, dismissed its auditor, Big Four firm Ernst & Young, and named Mahoney Cohen & Co. as its new independent accountant.

This column is approximately the 250th that has appeared under the title of "The Spirit of Accounting." Paul Miller has been around for all of them, and Paul Bahnson for the latest 150. As we were looking ahead to what to write about next, we looked back to the first few columns we published to see whether their messages might still be relevant for today.It turns out that they were, and we thought it would be insightful to reprint this one that first appeared in September 2000. One of the issues being debated at that time was the question of whether non-audit fees could compromise auditor independence. In those days, Enron was considered to be an amazing company, instead of the economic disaster that we now know was going to happen in 2001.

Donor-advised funds have captured headlines since the millennium changed, often for their meteoric rise in popularity. There was an estimated $5.5 billion in donor-advised funds nationwide in 1995, while the current estimate is nearly $20 billion.These giving vehicles have existed for more than 70 years. Despite their longevity and impressive growth, numerous misperceptions about donor-advised funds persist. These common "myths" underplay the real value that a DAF can have in helping you meet your clients' philanthropic needs.