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Plans by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to overhaul the organization's standards for internal control audits don't go far enough to correct the problems of the PCAOB's original ground rules - or they go too far in watering down the original Sarbanes-Oxley Act protections for investors by yielding to powerful business groups.Or they muddy the waters for accountants who are already swimming upstream to interpret and implement Auditing Standard No. 2, which governs audits of internal controls.

The controversial use of private debt collectors by the Internal Revenue Service may be little more than a stopgap to make up for the service's lack of funding to hire its own personnel - while opponents charge that the initiative is expensive and risks exposing taxpayer's privacy.In a recent report to Congress, National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson, a fierce critic of the strategy, said that contrary to the government's rationale, use of private collectors is not cost-effective, the cases assigned are not the promised "easy" cases, and the IRS is substantially different from other federal agencies that use private collectors.

Boston-based Vitale Caturano & Co. is facing a malpractice suit for allegedly failing to properly investigate a number of red flags that could have tipped a prominent New England family off to the looting of some $57 million from its trust funds.The Ayer Family Trusts hold several hundred million dollars for about 100 descendents of industrialist Frederick Ayer. Those trusts had been largely overseen by the corporation's former chief operating officer, and employee of more than 30 years, John Doorly.

Online business applications provider NetSuite has bolstered its e-commerce operations with a variety of new features designed to target larger, midsized companies and complement a recently sealed partnership with online auction site eBay.With a continued integration push between NetSuite's customer relationship management and enterprise resource planning platforms, the new e-commerce features would build on the company's more than 1,500 e-commerce client sites, which brought in a combined $290 million in revenue last year for customers using NetSuite's e-commerce solution.

The heads of the major accounting regulators in the U.S. and the European Union agree that they are on the same page in heading towards convergence of standards.Speaking at a meeting in Washington, Public Company Accounting Oversight Board Chairman Mark Olson and EU Commissioner Charlie McCreevy said that the profession's regulators on both sides of the Atlantic should be on the same page for 2009. Olson said that the PCAOB will consider issuing further policy guidance regarding its reliance on non-U.S. regulators and will consult with key jurisdictions worldwide, including the European Commission and the EU member states, as part of developing such potential guidance. Both sides will take stock and review their progress in October.

Grant Thornton LLP, the U.S. member firm of Grant Thornton International, reported that its revenues for the 2006 calendar year were up 18.2 percent, to $940 million. The total number of Grant Thornton employees increased 14 percent, to 5,454, while the number of partners increased 15 percent, to 489. The firm also increased its number of global clients, adding nearly 200 new clients with global operations and bringing its international client total to nearly 2,000.Separately, Roseland, N.J.-based J.H. Cohn LLP has announced firm revenues of $175.2 million for its 2007 fiscal year, up 22 percent from the same period a year ago. The firm added 16 partners and principals to its leadership team last year, for a total of 107. The firm's total headcount grew by more than 9 percent, to 741 employees.

In 1982 I received a letter that, incredibly, bore a seven-year-old postmark. It was sent by my parents in New York and was intended to reach me at college in Colorado. The mailing had apparently taken a wrong turn somewhere near the Rockies, but somehow - through six subsequent changes of address spanning three presidential administrations - it miraculously tracked me down to my then-residence in Tempe, Ariz.Inside was the modest monthly stipend my parents sent me while in school, but the check had been drawn on a bank that had long since been swallowed by a giant competitor. So the letter had basically been reduced to a conversation piece.

Call me an eternal optimist, but I subscribe to a theory put forth by Jim Collins, author of the best-selling book Built to Last, which is to celebrate the beauty of "and" thinking and fight the tyranny of "or" thinking.As I read the commentary by my esteemed colleague Lou Grumet ("Interstate commerce versus public protection," Feb. 12-25, 2007, page 6), it occurred to me that the "and" was missing with regard to this mobility issue.

An outdated concern?I read your First Look e-mail (for the Feb. 26-March 18, 2007, issue) and I am shocked. The article on diversity ("The profession changes - but is it enough?" page 1) should have been pulled and the author blacklisted from your publication.

By now, tax practitioners know that e-filing is here to stay. Every year, changing mandates increase the number of businesses required to file their federal tax returns electronically, and the Internal Revenue Service offers more and better ways for tax pros to interact electronically with the service.Even if the e-file mandate hasn't affected your clientele, do yourself and your clients a big favor: Prepare for electronic filing early and take advantage of all of the electronic services now available from the Internal Revenue Service.