Accounting standards

Three months after restating its 2004 earnings, stun gun manufacturer Taser International Inc. said it had fired its accounting firm.

Interpublic Group of Companies Inc., which includes several of the world's largest advertising agencies, said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it will correct four years of earnings spanning 2000 to 2004.

Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. announced a new options expensing policy for all U.S. equity research analysts that will be implemented as of the first reporting date after Sept. 30.

The International Federation of Accountants is seeking input for the development of a how-to guide on implementing International Standards on Auditing for small and midsized businesses.

Two technical committees from Financial Executives International have sent a letter making suggestions to the Financial Accounting Standards Board's proposed interpretation, "Accounting for Uncertain Tax Positions."

The Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to give small public companies another extension to comply with the internal control rule outlined in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, according to published reports.

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc. will delay the earnings report for its most recent fiscal quarter while continuing to evaluate its accounting practices, the company announced in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

New guidance from Securities and Exchange Commission regulators sets limits on ways to determine the cost of stock options, though the new SEC chairman said that the report was "tentative."

A federal judge dismissed a Securities and Exchange Commission complaint accusing the former chief financial officer at Halliburton Co.

The Securities and Exchange Commission will soon give companies more guidance on how to value stock options, according to published reports.

New accounting rules from the Financial Accounting Standards Board will require companies to treat stock options and grants as expenses after Jan. 1, although some companies ending their fiscal year in June will start expensing options against income in this quarter.

The effects of Hurricane Katrina will be considered "ordinary events" for financial-reporting purposes, according to published reports of a statement by the Financial Accounting Standards Board.

BearingPoint Inc., a spinoff from KPMG's former consulting business, said that the Securities and Exchange Commission has launched a formal investigation of the company.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has joined the growing list of companies and agencies mobilizing to provide relief to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

I read a little blurb a few weeks back about publishing house John Wiley & Sons' plans to print a "Sarbanes-Oxley for Dummies," the latest edition to its best-selling series.

The chief accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Donald T. Nicolaisen, will leave the commission in October to return to the private sector.

Plans by Internal Revenue Service officials and federal lawmakers to establish new national certification and testing requirements for unlicensed tax return preparers are drawing cautious support from mainstream tax professionals.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board's new statements on "other post-employment benefits" won't go into effect until the end of the year, but the questions are already coming in. Some queries are simply asking for a definition of "benefit," while others ask, "Do we really have to do this?"

The Energy Tax Incentives Act of 2005, passed as part of the 2005 Energy Act and signed by President Bush on Aug. 8, 2005, includes a series of new credits aimed at encouraging the purchase of various types of new alternative fuel vehicles.

Accounting for financial instruments with characteristics of liabilities and equities has never been easy, and the Financial Accounting Standards Board has had a hard time hammering out the difference.