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Williams & Webster PS, a CPA and business advisory firm with offices in Seattle and Spokane, has been censured by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board for violations stemming from a 2004 client audit.

The chief financial officer of a public company has come under fire for claiming to be a CPA, even though he let his license lapse years ago, according to published reports. Gil Fuller, the CFO of Utah-based vitamin maker and multi-level marketing company Usana Health Sciences Inc., let his CPA license lapse in 1986, according to state records, but continued to identify himself as such, even though state regulations don't allow that. Responding to a story originally published in The New York Post, Fuller told the Associated Press, "I say 'Gil Fuller is a CPA.' That is, in my view, an accurate statement. I should have gone on to say I let my license to practice public accounting expire." A Utah Department of Commerce spokesman said that the department was looking into the matter. A number of other Usana executives have recently been forced to revise their resumes, including a medical advisory board member who called himself a licensed doctor, but acknowledged that his medical license had been suspended; and a vice president whose Yale degree was in forestry, not biology, as he claimed.

A new Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration audit has found that changes in the Internal Revenue Service's Questionable Refund Program, along with a significant technological failure, dramatically decreased the effectiveness of the program for the 2006 filing season. The IRS relies on the Questionable Refund Program to identify and prevent fraudulent refund claims from being paid. Since its inception in 1977, this program has identified more than $4.3 billion in fraudulent refunds and prevented the issuance of over $3.6 billion in refunds. However, over the past several years, TIGTA has reported that the QRP was becoming increasingly unmanageable due to the growing number of fraudulent claims and the IRS's lack of resources to combat the fraud. "The IRS reacted to legitimate congressional concerns that taxpayers were not being notified when their refunds were delayed, sometimes for years," said Inspector General J. Russell George. "Unfortunately, the IRS overreacted, and it is costing taxpayers millions of dollars." Last tax season, the IRS appropriately began notifying taxpayers when their accounts were temporarily frozen as a result of a suspicious return. However, the agency limited the length of these freezes, which also limited its ability to properly scrutinize many of these returns. "This decision had a direct cost to taxpayers," George said. "Our audit identified nearly $15.9 million in potentially fraudulent refunds that were allowed to be issued."

Looking to effectively manage your next information technology project? Just ask those in your firm to segregate business activities into two areas: those that differentiate you from the market, and those where you're at parity. At Tech+, the American Institute of CPAs' annual technology and information conference, Niel Nickolaisen, chief information officer and director of internal audit at Headwaters Inc., an energy and building products firm in South Jordan, Utah, gave away his secret to making IT projects work: Invest in what differentiates your firm from others in your market, but don't re-invent the wheel on those "mission-critical" parities. Nickolaisen believes that just because you're good at something doesn't mean it differentiates you from your competitor. The challenge for businesses is to distinguish what you're good at and what makes you special in your market, he advised. Once you discover that, invest resources into nurturing that source. He described his strategy as "a model I developed after managing large failed IT projects," he said. "We do not design parity activities. We mimic best practices and are creative in differentiating activities." In other words, ask tough questions of your staff about what sets your firm apart and gains you market share, as opposed to those elements in your business that you are good at by best practice standards. Teasing out these answers can help a business create a decision filter that helps build a strategy, Nickolaisen said. When a parity is discovered, it's a primary opportunity for streamlining within a firm or company, he said, adding that most workflow automation is an example of parity, According to Nickolaisen, 40 percent of software licenses are never deployed, with a current success rate of roughly 35 percent. IT has changed, he said. Customers previously had static needs, and personnel was out of sight, out of mind. "Not anymore," he explained. "IT can and does support every known business process, and IT personnel are highly visible. We're involved now."

By 2010, there will be 10 million more jobs than there are people in the U.S., and the process of attracting, retaining, and keeping key employees motivated begins with a strategic plan that includes a formal hiring process, a commitment to building a learning culture, and competitive compensation and work/life balance policies, according to a panel at the American Institute of CPAs' Tech+ Information Technology Conference, here."You make your worst hiring decisions when you need someone now," Sage Software director of channel development Ed Kless told attendees. "You need to put a hiring process in place, and even if you work with a search firm, make them go through your hiring process as well.""Remember, if you hire the right people, you don't have to motivate them," Kless said. Angie Martin, of Dallas-based CPA firm Lane Gorman Trubitt, said that firms must develop an environment that "encourages knowledge sharing" and provides learning opportunities both internally and externally."Not all learning is CPE," she said. "Learning happens in all directions and at all levels in an organization. Ideally, 12 percent of an employee's salary should be spent on training and learning." Sandra Wiley of Boomer Consulting said that key employees aren't always forthcoming at exit interviews as to why they're leaving. "They'll say, 'It was a great opportunity' or 'I'm getting more money,' but the real reason many of them are leaving is they're not being challenged."She outlined a 10-point checklist that included such areas as mapping out career development, offering highly competitive salaries and benefits packages, and allowing employees to tailor their individual work/life balance plans. "Remember, it's not the number of hours they work, it's what they get done," she said.Taylor Macdonald, chief strategy officer at Sage, told conference-goers that there has to be some flexibility with regard to compensation. Firms have to consider things like arbitrary bonuses, employee stock ownership plans and employee recognition programs."You can't always treat everyone the same, because everyone isn't the same," he said.

The Educational Foundation of the American Society of Women Accountants has issued a call for nominees for its 6th annual Balance Awards program. The Individual Achievement Balance Awards honor women in accounting and related fields who have "demonstrated leadership and mentoring, are committed and involved in their community, all while managing work/life balance within their career." This year, for the first time, the ASWA Educational Foundation will be recognizing individuals from each of ASWA's six regions, one of whom will be selected as Woman of the Year. The Industry Balance Awards recognize companies that demonstrate sensitivity to women, provide them leadership and mentoring opportunities, and have implemented work/life balance programs. The Balance Awards are sponsored by Accountemps and Robert Half Finance & Accounting. The nomination form and more information can be found on the ASWA's Web site. Multiple nominations and self-nominations are accepted, but forms must be faxed or postmarked by June 30.

Intuit has cast its lot with open source. Intuit? The guys with millions of small businesses that use its tax and accounting products? Intuit’s mid-market product, QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions, is going to be supported on Linux servers.

Senators Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman and ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, respectively, have introduced legislation to give more than $550 million in tax relief for veterans, soldiers and their employers.

Regional accounting and consulting firm WithumSmith+Brown has merged in the Iselin and Cherry Hill, N.J., and Philadelphia offices of M.D. Oppenheim & Co. PC. The merger was effective May 1, 2007. WS+B gained approximately 50 professional and support staff and two new office locations in the greater Philadelphia area. The MDO Iselin staff will join WS+B's New Brunswick staff in the coming months at a new location currently under construction, while MDO's Cherry Hill and Philadelphia locations will continue as new WS+B offices. "The decision to join WS+B was based on the belief that the union would prove beneficial to all parties involved -- especially our clients," said Richard Cohen, former managing partner of MDO. "Assimilating into a well-respected regional firm with eight offices, including an additional international affiliation, allows our clients access to considerably more resources, receiving the same superior quality services they have come to expect and more." Founded in 1974, WS+B has 375 employees, and ranked No. 37 on Accounting Today's 2007 Top 100 Firms list, with 2006 revenues of $53.1 million.

Technology will have to evolve more efficiently to integrate with firms' tax practices, and not just help practitioners perform arithmetic, said tax industry and Internal Revenue Service veteran Lenny Holt at the American Institute of CPAs' information technology conference, Tech+, here.Holt, now with CCH's Firm Services Unit, said that while technology has made quantum leaps since 1986 -- when just 25,000 1040s were e-filed, as opposed to the 76 million in 2007 -- the distinction between tax accounting and other financial services is blurring, and the facility to consolidate that integration is technology."Clients using tax professionals for more than just taxes and technology is a big part," Holt told attendees during a session titled "Technology and Your Tax Practice."Tim Shortlseeve, a partner at the Rochester, N.Y.-based CPA firm of Bonn, Shortsleeve & Ray, told attendees that to hone best technology practices for tax preparation, firms must create an in-house project team and appoint a project champion -- one person with both decision-making and budget-approval powers.The project team's to-do list includes such items as evaluating workflow options, documenting new policies and procedures, and identifying changes to software. A firm must also have an IT technician, even if they have to outsource one."You have to ask yourself, are you using your current technology to your best advantage?" asked Shortsleeve. "And don't overlook training. The dollars you spend on training will come back tenfold."Other checklist items include installing multiple monitors and establishing remote access."You have to communicate the plans and expectations to everyone in the firm," he said. The session included product demonstrations from tax software publishers CCH, Intuit and Thomson.