Audit & Accounting

The Financial Accounting Standards Board will add a new project to its agenda and reconsider its accounting guidance for pensions and other retirement benefits.

The upcoming International Standards Organization's 22222 standard is now in a final ballot, with the objective of achieving and promoting a globally accepted benchmark for individuals who provide the professional service of personal financial planning.

Big Four firm PricewaterhouseCoopers and technology and electronics concern Hitachi America have partnered on a program integrating Hitachi's proprietary XBRL product with PwC's audit management software.

Bond insurer MBIA Inc. will restate its earnings for the past seven years, as well as set aside $75 million in anticipation of settling with regulators over an accounting probe into defaulted bonds.

The U.K. government proposed legislation last week that could limit the liability accounting firms face when auditing publicly traded companies.

PricewaterhouseCoopers will pay about $28 million to shareholders of Telxon Corp., finally putting an end to legislation concerning the high-tech manufacturer.

Securities and Exchange Commission deputy chief accountant Andrew D. Bailey Jr. will leave the commission in December.

CPAs are under increasing pressure to provide long-term care insurance to firm members, as well as to advise clients on appropriate LTC coverage. The triple-whammy of increasing medical costs, longer life expectancies, and the aging Baby Boomer workforce approaching retirement is moving the concept of long-term care to the front burner.It's not unusual to see LTC insurance as a benefit option at accounting firms, even though, so far, it has few takers. Grant Thornton has offered it as a voluntary benefit choice since 1991, but even after nearly 15 years, only 3 percent of eligible members choose to purchase the insurance.

Bonds are leaning into the double headwinds of rising interest rates and rising inflation. The high-yield end of the market is also struggling with mega-downgrades and troubling bankruptcies. Those events have prompted advisors to begin searching for replacements.Junk bonds for one, looked pretty good as the year began. However, the bonus over treasuries was not enough to cushion the fall. "Early in the year, high-yield bonds were priced to perfection," said Scott Berry, CFA, high-yield bond fund analyst at Morningstar. "That's why the drops in high-yield prices have come down as much as the treasuries."

In a former life covering sports, I was once assigned to a late-season game between the New York Mets and the Chicago Cubs. It seemed back then that most every season for the Cubs was eerily similar to Groundhog Day, where a cynical weatherman played by Bill Murray is forced to relive the worst day of his life over and over.Entering that season, the Cubbies once again were optimistic - as were the weary faithful at Wrigley Field - that they could seriously contend for a pennant, as they had miraculously done just two years before. But the team finished with roughly 70 wins versus 90 losses, which was good enough to earn them fifth place in the standings.