Audit & Accounting

The American Institute of CPAs has released a second exposure draft of a proposed statement on standards for valuation services.

VALENCE HIRES HELIN DONOVAN: Valence Technology Inc., an Austin, Texas-based developer of rechargeable battery technology, has hired the firm of Helin Donovan Trubee & Wilkinson as its independent accountant.Helin Donovan succeeds Big Four firm Deloitte & Touche as Valence's auditor.

In a significant move toward accounting clarity and better financial management, the General Assembly of the United Nations has resolved to adopt International Public Sector Accounting Standards and shift from partial accrual to full accrual accounting.The effects of the change will ripple around the globe, as governments recognize the authority of the international standards.

Our previous column reviewed the improvements in financial reporting that will follow from a new standard requiring capitalization of all material leases. When that reform is implemented, it will replace a 30-year-old standard with practices that should have been put in place, well, 30 years ago.As we described, moving to capitalization will have many effects, the most obvious being the introduction of a new liability to the lessee's balance sheet. It will also put a new asset into the base of the reported return on assets ratio at an amount that currently cannot be estimated from the footnote.

AMERITAS DIRECT ROLLS OUT NO-LOAD ANNUITY: Ameritas Life Insurance Corp. has unveiled its Genesis No-Load Variable Annuity, distributed via its Ameritas Direct unit, which markets the No-Load series of insurance and annuity products to self-directed consumers.Ameritas Direct designed the Genesis Variable Annuity, which features no commission, no sales charge, no withdrawal charge and no policy fee. (Gains are taxed as ordinary income and additional penalties may apply to withdrawals made prior to age 59-1/2.)

Do you have clients who complain that their life insurance was supposed to be paid up by now, but it isn't? Notices from their insurance companies may even indicate that their suggested premium payment has increased, or that their policies are about to lapse.Do you have clients whose investment-type life insurance policy is not performing as projected? Ever have clients cancel their life insurance and get a taxable statement of gain? This can even happen if their policy lapses and they get nothing back (they had a paper gain).

"The individual investor should act consistently as an investor and not as a speculator. This means that he should be able to justify every purchase he makes and each price he pays by impersonal, objective reasoning that satisfies him that he is getting more than his money's worth for his purchase."These are the words of Benjamin Graham, a stock market investor and economist who was famous for remarkable returns from investing in stocks, value investing and influencing Warren Buffet.

When my oldest daughter was about to celebrate her second birthday, I had heard and read ad infinitum about the woes that awaited me upon the arrival of the “terrible twos.”

Moss Adams LLP announced plans to acquire Phoenix-area firm Epstein Weber & Conover PLC, in a deal that will be effective Jan. 1, 2007. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Clifton Gunderson LLP has acquired the Colorado firm of Levine, Hughes & Mithuen in a merger effective Nov. 1.