Audit & Accounting

After much criticism and debate over the best approach to regulating business, in December the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board proposed a new audit standard for Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 implementation.Concurrently, the Securities and Exchange Commission introduced interpretive guidance for management's assessment of internal control. Both exposure drafts, which solicited feedback through February, promise change through a risk-based approach.

A federal appeals court ruled that the Securities and Exchange Commission overstepped its authority in updating rules governing brokers who offer financial advice.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has scheduled an open meeting on April 3 to consider proposing an auditing standard, “Evaluating Consistency of Financial Statements.”

The International Accounting Standards Board has issued a revised standard on borrowing costs.

I was raised in a medical family, meaning I was exposed to doctors and hospitals from the get go. It was a nice, comfortable atmosphere where none of the three sons was ever concerned about money. My mother never worked and my father did quite well except for stock investments.But in all those years living at home, I wouldn’t think of asking my father how much money he had or what kind of estate he was considering leaving to us kids, or even my mother. It just wasn’t the topic of any dinnertime conversation and my mother certainly never raised it. Actually, she was smart enough to take a portion of her weekly allowance and put it aside in stocks and bonds, and did quite well. Talk about a self-made woman. Without any formal education, she was just street smart about making sure she had her own protection in the event my father’s latest foray in investments went awry. It did once when he was a principal investor in Tucker automobiles but that’s a story for another time.

Dallas-based law firm Jenkens & Gilchrist Corp. will pay $76 million to the Internal Revenue Service to settle charges over its aggressive marketing of questionably legal tax shelters to wealthy individuals.

A prominent southern Illinois automobile dealer and three promoters of a tax fraud scheme in the U.S. Virgin Islands were indicted on a variety of tax and wire fraud-related charges, the Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service recently announced.A federal grand jury in East St. Louis, Ill., returned the 21-count indictment, which charges James A. Auffenberg Jr. of Swansea, Ill., Peter G. Fagan of De Leon, Texas, James W. Ferguson III of Amarillo, Texas, and J. David Jackson of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as a number of alleged business fronts held by the men. They face conspiracy, income tax evasion, wire fraud and aiding in the filing of false individual and corporate income tax returns charges.

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced it will hold an open meeting on April 4, to discuss the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s proposed auditing standard for Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the coordination of the proposed changes with the SEC’s own guidance concerning implementation.

In a recent interview with Practical Accountant, Judith O’Dell, the recently-appointed chairwoman of the Private Company Financial Reporting Committee, explained the mandate that the committee will be following as it explores the need for different reporting standards for public and private companies in the following months.

Group Names Top Firms for Accounting, Governance Excellence