Audit & Accounting

KPMG says that a lack of controls and ineffective oversight are to blame for the problems that have haunted San Diego’s financial statements.

A new survey from Deloitte says that there is a strong relationship between work-life balance and positive ethical behaviors at work.

As expected, H&R Block Inc. announced that it has signed an agreement to sell its struggling Option One Mortgage Corp. lending arm, though unit subsidiary H&R Block Mortgage Corp. is not part of the deal.

As an aspiring writer, my mother was once approached by a huckster-in-training in her Brooklyn neighborhood of Sheepshead Bay, who assured the-then impressionable 10-year old he could get her an “almost new” typewriter for the grand total of two cents.

I come from a family of pretty good athletes. Well, let me amend that. Of the four males in the household, my youngest brother was terrible -- always falling over his feet, my middle brother and I were pretty decent athletes, having played in high school and college. My father was a duffer and even though he had the most expensive golf clubs on the market, his handicap practically equaled the national debt.

During conference calls with auditors this week, Securities and Exchange Commission staff said that accountants should be on the lookout for improper selling strategies designed to take advantage of FAS 159, “Fair Value Option.”

A year after the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 became law, government statistics show that the number of bankruptcy filings nationwide dropped nearly 70 percent last year.The total number of filings last year dropped to 618,000, down from a record of 2.1 million in 2005, when people were rushing to file before the new laws were enacted, according to statistics from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. The American Bankruptcy Institute said that the 2006 number was the lowest level since 1988.

A new report from the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board looks to draw some conclusions out of its inspections of approximately 275 audits of internal controls over financial reporting performed by registered public accounting firms.The report specifically looks at the second year implementation of the board’s Auditing Standard No. 2, “An Audit of Internal Control over Financial Reporting Performed in Conjunction with an Audit of Financial Statements.” Nearly a year ago, the PCAOB announced that during 2006 it would conduct inspections to determine whether auditors were achieving the objectives of the standard with the least expenditure of resources.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board issued a proposal to improve the accounting for financial guarantee insurance contracts.The proposal, “Accounting and Reporting by Insurance Enterprises: An Interpretation of FASB Statement No. 60,” is aimed at reducing diversity in accounting treatment and providing financial statement users with clearer, more comparable information and expanded disclosures. The proposal has also been written in a new format intended to improve its understandability.

Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Mark Everson will leave the agency to become president and chief executive of the American Red Cross next month.Everson, 52, has served as IRS commissioner since May 2003. During his time with the agency, he has publicly focused his attention on efforts to better serve taxpayers, continue the agency’s modernization of its systems and enhance its enforcement activities. In recent months, Everson has heard increased clamoring from Congress over how the agency and the Treasury Department should best work to address the nation’s growing tax gap -- estimated at $345 billion for the 2001 tax year.