Audit & Accounting

Four months after offering new incentives for companies to furnish their financial information in computer-readable interactive data format, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that another trio of firms has joined the fun.

The International Federation of Accountants has issued its 2005 annual report, highlighting the update of its code of ethics, as well as the formal establishment of the Public Interest Oversight Board.

President Bush has nominated Republican Kathleen Casey, currently serving as staff director for the Senate Banking Committee, to replace Cynthia Glassman at the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The former chief accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission said that the accounting profession must stand strong in advocating for more transparent financial disclosure and serve as a model for the rest of the world

Less than six months into the job, t he International Accounting Standards Board chairman has stepped down to take the position of Italian finance minister.

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced a series of actions to improve implementation of the Section 404 internal control requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board announced a four-point plan to improve auditors' implementation of the internal control reporting provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

Thomas J. Linsmeier, the chairman of the accounting department at Michigan State University, was named a member of the Financial Accounting Standards Board this week.

I have dealt with many tax acts in the 30-plus years that I have been in professional publishing. When I worked at a tax publisher, I know tax legislation meant an awful lot of work. In one way or another, I would be involved in assembling the Code-as-amended, analyzing the effective dates, excerpting legislative committee reports, and writing or reviewing analyses. Besides the work, the legislation would almost always seemed to come down at a bad time, usually at the end of the year as Congress was about to adjourn. It was a real pain.

The American Cancer Society has awarded KPMG LLP with the inaugural Eugene D. O'Kelly Award, named after the firm's former chairman who passed away in September 2005, only months after being diagnosed with brain cancer.