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The Securities and Exchange Commission announced it will hold an open meeting on April 4, to discuss the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s proposed auditing standard for Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the coordination of the proposed changes with the SEC’s own guidance concerning implementation.

In a recent interview with Practical Accountant, Judith O’Dell, the recently-appointed chairwoman of the Private Company Financial Reporting Committee, explained the mandate that the committee will be following as it explores the need for different reporting standards for public and private companies in the following months.

And so, there won’t be the era of Satya Nadella at Microsoft Dynamics, as the product line is called, or Microsoft Business Solutions, the fading name of the business unit built around the former Great Plains is called.Just before Microsoft Convergence, the company’s giant business software user show was being held in San Diego from March 11 through 14, Microsoft’s top management approached Nadella about leading the search engine and ad group. That is the group responsible for fending off the likes of Google.

After seven years of prosecutorial pursuit, telecommunications mogul Walter C. Anderson was sentenced to serve nine years in prison for failing to pay more than $200 million in taxes. He will receive credit for the two years he has already served.Anderson, 53, was also ordered to pay about $23 million to District of Columbia tax collectors, but a federal judge ruled that he won’t have to pay the Internal Revenue Service restitution ranging from $100 million to $175 million, because prosecutors listed the wrong statute in Anderson’s plea agreement. Judge Paul Friedman said he could have ordered Anderson to repay the money as part of his probation, but prosecutors has also omitted any discussion of probation from Anderson's paperwork.

Group Names Top Firms for Accounting, Governance Excellence

Integrated business technology solutions provider Net@Work has acquired Westchester, N.Y.-based Spitz Consulting Systems, an ACT! by Sage Software reseller and consultant.Previously, Net@Work did not offer ACT!, which offers small companies contact management services such as needs analysis, data discovery, database design, software installation, data importing, training and follow-up support, through its customer relationship management practice.

The Financial Accounting Foundation said that it will give the Securities and Exchange Commission the opportunity to propose and review candidates for open positions at either the foundation, or the board the foundation oversees, the Financial Accounting Standards Board.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged two former in-house lawyers at Enron Corp. with securities fraud over a Brazilian scheme to move losses off the company’s balance sheet.

The Government Accountability Office says that the Taxpayer Advocate Service needs to be collecting better data on the type of cases it handles, as well as how those cases are actually being handled.The office was originally asked to examine why the advocate service has experienced an increased caseload since 2004, how well the service has conducted its activities in terms of measures such as customer satisfaction and quality, and finally, how well the service measures and reports its advocacy efforts.

The Internal Revenue Service is alerting taxpayers about common mistakes made by individuals while preparing their federal income tax returns.