Audit & Accounting

Question: Are the Big Four and national audit firms better off with regard to reputation and public trust than they were eight years ago at the height of the Enron and WorldCom debacles?

The Miller and Bahnson article "Duh-preciation: Why is this elephant still in the room?" (Accounting Today, Dec. 13-Jan. 10, 2011, page 17) is a great example of the damage sitting in an ivory tower without anything useful to do but play with your ankus does to one's brain cells.

GASB UPDATES 'BLENDED' ENTITIES STANDARDS

Like others, we're watching the trumpeted "Blue Ribbon Panel" on accounting standards for private companies. Unlike others, our expectations are very low because we aren't confident this group understands what reforms are needed.

IMGCAP(1)]Because of challenging economic times and confusion in the audit review process, impairment testing has become a hot topic.

The Obama administration proposed permanently eliminating capital gains taxes on some types of small business investments held for over five years.

CFA Institute has released the Compensation Discussion and Analysis Template, a report that provides guidance for public companies wishing to improve the CD&A portion of their proxy statement.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board have published a joint set of proposals to account for the impairment of financial assets such as loans managed in an open portfolio.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board have published a proposal to establish a common approach to offsetting financial assets and liabilities on the balance sheet.

Sherron Watkins, the former vice president at Enron who tried to blow the whistle on the accounting violations at the scandal-plagued Houston energy-trading giant, told an audience at a seminar Friday on the new whistleblower provisions in the Dodd-Frank Act that she and other whistleblower employees would probably take their concerns to WikiLeaks rather than the Securities and Exchange Commission now.