Audit

Everyone can agree that better financial analysis is a good thing for business leaders.

The Center for Audit Quality issued a new report Tuesday describing some of the feedback it has received on the audit quality indicators it has been pilot testing with auditors and audit committees.

The number of going concern opinions declined in 2014, but mainly because many of the companies identified as being in trouble by their auditors in previous years actually did go out of business.

The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board has finalized the changes in its standard for auditor reporting on special purpose financial statements.

A filmmaker is suggesting a new way to avoid skirmishes over notoriously dubious Hollywood accounting.

Dec. 22, 2015, marked the 20th anniversary of the enactment of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Enacted at the behest of accounting firms, the PSLRA was crafted to immunize accountants from securities fraud liability. The result over the last two decades has been a substantial erosion in the ability of investors to hold accounting firms accountable.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has endorsed a consensus recommendation from the Private Company Council to remove the effective dates for four standards.

The Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board has released an exposure draft of a proposed Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards on insurance programs for the federal government.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board issued Tuesday a long-awaited accounting standards update for the recognition and measurement of financial instruments that it has been developing for over a decade with the International Accounting Standards Board.

Check out the digital edition of the January 2016 issue of Accounting Today.

(Bloomberg) Michael Oxley, the former U.S. congressman who co-sponsored the landmark Sarbanes-Oxley Act has died, age 71.

A video preview of the January issue of Accounting Today from editor-in-chief Dan Hood.

The Service has updated HealthCare Tax Tip 2015-85 to clarify the revised reporting dates and make the dates in this tip consistent with the dates in Notice 2016-4.

Atlanta’s Habif, Arogeti & Wynne creates a new attest service

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s first 2016 webinar will cover the latest findings in the board’s interim inspection program for auditors of brokers and dealers.

GASB has issued guidance on how certain state and local government external investment pools and participants in external investment pools may measure and report their investments.

(Bloomberg) It’s too early to tell whether Star Wars: The Force Awakens will become the biggest grossing film of all time, but the really interesting question is whether the movie will ever go into profit.

Leaders of the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board are bracing for the release of the leasing standard and other standards that have been under development and generating debate for over a decade.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has issued three exposure drafts with reporting guidance related to fiduciary activities, certain asset retirement obligations, and pension issues.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board announced that it plans to issue a final standard on the recognition and measurement of financial instruments in the first week of 2016.