Audit & Accounting

Deloitte & Touche debuted a Deloitte Film Festival featuring short films submitted by teams of Deloitte employees from around the U.S.

David Amir Makov, one of the remaining defendants in the KPMG tax shelter case, pleaded guilty in Federal District Court in Manhattan to one count of conspiracy to commit tax fraud and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved a rule from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority that would crack down on abusive sales of deferred variable annuities, particularly to senior citizens.

Computer Sciences Corp. said it would restate its fiscal 2007 results after examining the impact of FASB Interpretation No. 48, or FIN 48, and discovering accounting errors for fiscal 1997 through 2007.

Reznick Group said it has signed a letter of intent to acquire another accounting firm, Tidwell DeWitt, building its presence in the Southeast and adding more services.

Influential accounting profession veteran Mark Tibergien has been named chief executive officer of Pershing Advisor Solutions LLC, an affiliate of Bank of New York Mellon subsidiary Pershing LLC.

Although U.S. taxpayers contribute billions of dollars annually to support charitable causes, many of those very same charities are dipping deeper into the pockets of Americans by chiseling on their own taxes, government investigators charged.Auditors at the Government Accountability Office told lawmakers that charities and other tax-exempt organizations are shortchanging the Treasury to the tune of nearly $1 billion by neglecting to make payroll tax payments or pay other taxes required by the government.

DELOITTE DECLINES ATARI RE-ELECTIONBig Four firm Deloitte declined to stand for re-election as auditor to video game manufacturer Atari Inc. A regulatory filing did not give a reason for the decision. New York-based Atari said that its audit committee had received several proposals from other accounting firms. At press time a successor had not been named.

Big changes are coming for financial statements, if the Financial Accounting Standards Board's recent discussion with its advisory board is any indication.This spring, at a meeting of its Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Council, the board and staff discussed their working ideas on what statements could and should look like in the future if they are going to be useful. The discussion took place in the context of the board's joint project with the International Accounting Standards Board on financial statement presentation. It was held in anticipation of releasing a preliminary views document sometime this fall.

In order to be a member of the Philanthropic Advisors Network, I pay my dues to the National Committee on Planned Giving.Accountants reading this article may also be members of this group, which provides both educational programming and ethical standards for those who work in this field. Those who belong to the NCPG know that one of its major themes is "Leave a Legacy."