Audit & Accounting

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson expressed their support for the convergence of International Financial Reporting Standards with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles.

CPA Wealth Provider's second ranking of firms by AUM has now been published and it’s bigger and better than ever. As you know, AUM is a term originally employed by financial services companies in the mutual fund and money management or investment management business to gauge how much money they were managing. Many financial services companies used this as both a measure of success and comparison against their competitors; in lieu of revenue, they had total assets under management. For readers of the publication, last October it presented the first-ever ranking of such firms by AUM. The initial response was staggering. It had 89 responses so it tried again and now the responses are no longer staggering—they are stupendous! CPA Wealth Provider more than doubled last year’s count and reached the 200 mark which included a batch of firms who unfortunately couldn’t get their survey forms completed in time for this closing. Because of this response, the publication decided to break the numbers down into sections and to specifically indicate each section. There are now 18 firms in the Billion Dollar Club (termed Wealth Magnet Elite), 87 in the $100+ Billion Club (termed Wealth Magnet Select), and another 37 in the $50+ Million Club plus a whole host of Rising Stars and Ones to Watch. But most importantly of all, take a look at the firms on the charts. They practically mirror the entire CPA/financial planning industry—from geographic location to size to AUM numbers to affiliations to recommended financial planning products. What does this show? Exactly what we felt all along—the financial planning industry is a tiger by the tail. We see this at various conferences and trade shows where copies of this publication literally fly off the racks. We are also getting tons of communiqués from readers as to how well they like the magazine and leading experts in the field constantly inquire about contributing articles. You can see this by the varied mix of authors and subjects. I firmly believe that CPA Wealth Provider remains the leading national publication for CPAs involved in financial planning.

Katz, Sapper & Miller plans to merge in another Indianapolis accounting firm, Heaton and Eddie, to build its healthcare and employee benefits consulting capabilities.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, provided an update this week on his correspondence with several media-based ministries about issues related to their tax-exempt status, indicating that some ministries have not been answering his questions.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has referred questions to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in a case involving PricewaterhouseCoopers that could set a precedent for accountant liability.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Sycamore Networks and three of its former executives with stock options backdating charges.

Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance has introduced SignatureCare 500, a long-term care insurance product that lets consumers customize a policy to meet their needs.

The Securities and Exchange Commission convened a roundtable of experts to discuss the controversial topic of fair value measurements in accounting.

As the final event in its year-long, 10-city dialogue tour on financial reporting issues, the Center for Audit Quality will stage its final town hall session July 22 at the National Press Club.

Three professional accounting organizations have jointly released new guidelines for combating fraud.