Audit & Accounting

One of the many things that make investors sweat is the state of corporate pensions and other post-retirement benefit plans. How well are they funded? Are there enough assets available in the plan, or must the employer satisfy obligations?Investors aren't the only ones who sweat. Employees and retirees are also concerned. Their futures hang on the numbers, and the numbers can get pretty big, especially the red ones - possibly $600 billion in all, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Blaming a computer for accounting errors, mortgage financier Freddie Mac announced that it has cut about $220 million in profits from its statements for the first half of 2005. Freddie said that it earned $1.4 billion in the first six months of 2005, not the $1.6 billion it reported on Aug. 31.The company said that the difference "reflects the correction of interest accruals recorded for certain mortgage-related securities stemming from miscalculations since 2001 in a legacy computer system." The company also pointed out that the amended profit represents less than 1 percent of its core capital as of June 30.

Diane M. Rubin, a partner at San Francisco-based Novogradac & Co. LLP, was recently installed as chairwoman of the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy for 2005-06.The election was held on Nov. 1 at NASBA's 98th Annual Meeting in Tucson, Ariz.

A vast majority of American investors are lacking the "investor survival skills" needed to build their savings into a retirement nest egg, according to the Securities Investor Protection Corporation /Investor Protection Trust survey conducted by Opinion Research Corp.

The Securities and Exchange Commission unanimously voted to propose rules to make it easier for foreign companies to stop listing their securities for trading in the country in order to avoid the expense of complying with U.S. securities laws.

Taser International Inc. said that the Securities and Exchange Commission has ended an investigation into the stun gun maker's accounting and recommended that no action be taken against the company.

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox delivered an easier-said-than-done speech earlier this month on the need to simplify accounting rules.

The market for mergers and acquisitions is expected to remain strong into 2006, according to a new study released by the corporate financial advising arm of KPMG International.

Nearly half of all organizations worldwide have been victims of fraud in the past two years, according to the 2005 PricewaterhouseCoopers' Global Economic Crime Survey released in late November.

An advisory panel to the Securities and Exchange Commission may officially asked the agency to exempt businesses with less than $125 million in revenues from the internal control provisions laid out in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.