Audit & Accounting

It's the biggest item in a financial statement, and the most frequent cause of restatements. Elements of its generally accepted accounting principles appear in over 200 pronouncements from half a dozen standard-setters. It causes confusion. It shakes the market. It tempts fraud.It's the perpetual and dizzying headache called revenue recognition - and even the Conceptual Framework of the Financial Accounting Standards Board can't agree with itself on the nature of the beast.

Ernst & Young Global Ltd. announced that Mitchell & Titus LLP, the country's largest minority-owned accounting firm, is expected to join as a member firm this October.

After a six-month vacancy, the Securities and Exchange Commission is zeroing in on a new chairman for the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, according to published reports.

Deloitte Tax LLP announced an agreement to sell its Corptax software unit to MLM Information Services LLC. About 1,000 corporations and partnerships use the tax software.

The new risk assessment standards are all about getting back to basics, said expert Hiriam Hasty while speaking at the New York State Society of CPAs' annual Accounting and Auditing in the Nonpublic Environment Conference.

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a status report with the U.S. Court of Appeals, saying that it will again ask for public comment on its independence proposal for the boards of most mutual funds.

For the first time, Securities and Exchange Commission information about companies and mutual funds is now fully searchable online.

Intuit Inc. is among the latest companies receiving an informal inquiry from the Securities and Exchange Commission regarding its stock option granting practices.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board's top auditor offered some suggestions for the third year of life under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, while speaking at the 25th Annual Securities and Exchange Commission and Financial Reporting Institute Conference on June 8.

Victor Hugo once wrote that the one thing more powerful than all the armies on earth was an idea whose time has come.