Audit & Accounting

India plans to bring its accounting standards in line with International Financial Reporting Standards by April 1, 2011.

DREAMS INC. ENGAGES FRIEDMAN COHENSports memorabilia and licensing concern Dreams Inc. has named Friedman, Cohen, Taubman & Co. as its auditor.

With the exploding interest in and acceptance for market-value-based information in financial statements, we thought we would rerun a couple of columns from several years back as part of our summer tradition.This one was published in spring 2001, and talks about the hole in generally accepted accounting principles, even value-based GAAP, that continues to insist that there is a difference between unrealized and realized gains and losses. At the heart of this anachronistic practice is confusion between income and cash flows, which are two different things best described in two different financial statements.

Put a dozen managers and executives from financial planning firms in the same room, and before too long the conversation is likely to turn to the business issue that concerns them all: profitability. Whether they represent a one-person shop or are part of a large corporate structure, planners are almost universally challenged to serve the needs of their clients at a profit.To achieve that profitability, you must first address two other challenges - those presented by staffing and compensation. Getting the right people in place, giving them the tools to excel, and rewarding them for performance are all critical steps in achieving profitable growth.

PRUDENTIAL FINANCIAL TO SHUTTER STOCK RESEARCH UNITLife insurance and money management conglomerate Prudential Financial Inc. said that it would shut down its institutional stock research and trading business - Prudential Equity Group - after 26 years of operation. Prudential will close its offices and trading operations in nine U.S. cities, as well as in London, Zurich, Paris and Tokyo. Some 400 employees will be terminated.

In a major step toward an eventual convergence of accounting standards, the Securities and Exchange Commission put out a proposal to allow non-U.S. companies that list on U.S. exchanges to reconcile their financials using International Financial Reporting Standards, instead of U.S. generally accepted accounting principles.The measure, according to SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, is a movement to have all companies "speak the same language," while serving to attract more international companies to U.S. markets. Business leaders have complained that investors are bypassing the U.S. in favor of London and Hong Kong as a result of over-regulation and the costs of having to file in two sets of accounting rules.

The new discussion draft Form 990, dubbed "the biggest thing the Exempt Organizations Division at the IRS has done in the last quarter century," by division director Lois Lerner, could be both a boon and a burden for preparers.The Internal Revenue Service hopes that the form, already released for comment, will be ready for use for tax year 2008.

Have you heard the joke about the sales tax audit? No one has.There is nothing funny about a sales tax audit.

Summertime brings with it the "high season" for clients who are seriously considering purchasing vacation homes, or switching from one vacation home to another.The majority are looking to take advantage of certain tax breaks to help them carry the property. For others, tax savings are an added bonus to validate their decision. In either case, tax advisors often get a hurried call to explain the options.

At the request of Connecticut State Comptroller Nancy S. Wyman, the state's General Assembly has voted to allow the comptroller to set generally accepted accounting principles for the state, starting in 2009.Wyman, however, said that she has no intention of modifying GAAP, as set by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, for external reporting.