Audit & Accounting

By a wide majority, the Senate passed legislation to hopefully strengthen corporate pension programs and provide aid to pension insurance agencies already in debt. A similar bill rewriting pension rules has received approval from two House committees.

There is a clear link between Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 compliance work and dramatically higher profiles for senior tax executives, particularly with audit committees and boards of directors, according to a survey of senior tax executives conducted by KPMG.

The Securities and Exchange Commission's 2005 financial statements got a clean bill of health from the Government Accountability Office, after the SEC accelerated its financial reporting schedule to issue the documents.

Louisiana has chosen Deloitte & Touche to provide oversight of the state's receipt and delivery of federal aid recovery funds.

Bail was denied to one of the former KPMG partners charged by the federal government in connection with the sale of allegedly fraudulent tax shelters.

More than two-thirds of all small businesses favor setting different Sarbanes-Oxley compliance standards for small and large companies, according to a recent study commissioned by SAP America Inc.

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox named Scott Taub as the agency's acting chief accountant.

While the Internal Revenue Service has made "great strides" in addressing financial management challenges and internal control deficiencies, a report from the Government Accountability Office stated that the service still faces substantial hurdles in that area.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued Notice 2005-88, which explains steps that large corporations and tax-exempt organizations can take to seek waivers from electronic filing requirements.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board announced new appointments and re-appointments to its Standing Advisory Group for 2006.