Audit & Accounting

When I was a kid, sometime around the Battle of Gettysburg, I had run up a pretty good comic book collection. I was addicted to comic books and had first editions, first issues of Batman, Superman, Joe Palooka, Little Lulu, and The Katzenjammer Kids, to name a few. The dimes I got from my grandparents went a long way then.But, alas, you know exactly what happened to them, don’t you? I left for four years of college, plus a couple of years in the service (it was mandatory at that time), and by the time I came home (along with many of my neighborhood friends), those cartons in the garage? Well, where they are, I’m unsure but it could have been income in retirement.

Resolutions relating to improving personal finances in the New Year will likely hold steady year-over-year, according to an unscientific survey.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. has hired Stephen Cutler, the former chief of enforcement at the Securities and Exchange Commission, as its top legal officer.Cutler, 45, left the SEC last year after playing a central role in the agency's investigations into historic corporate fraud and trading abuses. Since leaving the SEC, Cutler has been working at Washington-based Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, where he is a partner and co-chairs the securities practice. Cutler will begin working at the bank in February as its executive vice president and general counsel.

Fannie Mae has filed a lawsuit against former auditor KPMG, accusing the Big Four firm of 17 counts of negligence and breach of contract.

U.S. Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty has authored a memo revising the Department of Justice’s guidelines for federal prosecutors looking to press charges against white-collar criminals.

After a federal judge denied a request from Jeffrey Skilling to remain free on bond pending an appeal, the former Enron chief executive reported to a low-security federal prison in Minnesota Wednesday.

The Securities and Exchange Commission stopped well short of proposing exemptions from the Sarbanes-Oxley Act’s internal control provisions that many small companies had loudly lobbied for at the panel’s Wednesday meeting.Under the guidance proposed by the SEC, executives would evaluate the design of only those financial controls that might carry the risk of having a material impact on financial statements.

Aside from identifying a number of nuances in last year’s tax law changes and interpreting the effects of congressional leadership turnover, a new tax guide should help midsized business owners monitor a series of federal tax trends for 2007.Published by national CPA firm RSM McGladrey, the “2006 Tax Planning Guide” includes a Top 10 list of tax-planning strategies for midsized companies and issues owners should watch for on the horizon.

Grant Thornton International announced that revenues for its worldwide member firms were up 12 percent, to $2.8 billion, for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans has given a reprieve to Enron’s former chief executive, who was due to report to prison yesterday and begin serving a 24-year sentence.The court’s stay of the order will keep Jeffrey Skilling, 53, out of the low-security Federal Correctional Institution in Waseca, Minn., for a while longer. He was convicted in May on securities fraud and conspiracy charges, related to his role in the accounting fraud that led to the company’s historic collapse.