Audit & Accounting

Question: What do tax season and the family scrapbook both have in common?Answer: They are both keys to growing your firm's financial planning practice.

The American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 provides that the amount of a deduction for charitable donations after 2004 of qualified vehicles where the claimed value is more than $500 depends on the charity's use of the donated vehicle.Qualified vehicles include motor vehicles, boats and planes that aren't inventory or held for sale in the ordinary course of business. The Internal Revenue Service has issued Notice 2005-44 to provide detailed guidance on the charitable contribution rules that apply to qualified vehicles that are donated after 2004.

If corporate accountants got the chance to blow out the candles on the Sarbanes-Oxley birthday cake, they'd probably wish the birthday boy would go away.

Big Four firm Deloitte & Touche and international firm Grant Thornton lost their bid to dismiss a class-action suit brought against them by investors of now-bankrupt Italian dairy conglomerate Parmalat.A federal judge in New York recently ruled that the accounting umbrella organizations couldn't insulate themselves from the actions of local affiliates in Italy that audited the company before its collapse from financial mismanagement and fraud in 2003.

Internal auditors have always had a problem expressing an opinion - or rather, expressing an opinion that others take the right way, with a proper understanding of its scope and type and the criteria used to produce it.The issue has come to the forefront recently as more corporate officers and audit committees respond to the demands of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, especially Section 404, which requires officers to certify that their internal controls are sound and effective.

Barely a week after a federal jury found HealthSouth founder Richard Scrushy not guilty of participating in a massive accounting fraud, the Securities and Exchange Commission was preparing civil charges against the former chief executive.

In a divisive 3-2 vote, the Securities and Exchange Commission amended and re-approved a proposed rule requiring the directors of mutual funds to be independent that had been ruled against by a federal court in a lawsuit a little more than a week before.

President Bush nominated Roel Campos and Annette Nazareth as members of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the White House said in a statement Friday.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has scheduled a meeting for Tuesday and will vote on finalizing two rules proposed in December and March. One rule deals with auditor independence and tax shelters, while the second concerns weak internal controls.

Already with a lengthy to-do list before adjourning for its August recess, reports have Congress moving to address the future of the estate tax soon.