Audit

The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board has released for public comment proposed changes to the International Standards on Auditing to clarify the expectations of auditors when auditing financial statement disclosures.

The Center for Audit Quality and the Institute for Corporate Responsibility at the George Washington University School of Business are teaming on a new initiative on rethinking financial disclosures in response to recent comments from Securities and Exchange Commission chair Mary Jo White to streamline the existing Form 10-K disclosure requirements.

A majority of accounting and finance executives in the U.S. and Canada are anticipating that their companies’ compliance burden will increase in the years ahead, though less than half expect the cost of compliance to grow.

The quantity of financial restatements from public companies has leveled off in the past four years and the severity of those restatements has remained low, according to a new report from the research firm Audit Analytics, but restatements have increased from accelerated filers for the third straight year.

The Center for Audit Quality and the American Institute of CPAs have issued a member alert discussing regulatory changes for audits and attestation engagements of brokers and dealers and futures commission merchants, including entities that are dually registered.

Paid-for stock research has generally elicited widespread skepticism, but a new scholarly paper by three accounting professors suggests that paid-for analysts are more like auditors and credit-rating firms than is generally believed.

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The Financial Accounting Foundation has issued its 2013 Annual Report, entitled “The Road Ahead,” outlining the future direction of the FAF and the standard-setting boards it oversees, the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the Governmental Accounting Standards Board.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has issued a proposed accounting standards update on “pushdown accounting” from FASB’s Emerging Issues Task Force.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has issued a supplemental request for comments on its proposal to reorganize the existing PCAOB auditing standards, while also providing an online demonstration of the proposed reorganization, presenting the existing auditing standards as they would look if reorganized according to the proposed framework.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has announced settled disciplinary orders against two audit firms and four individuals for violating federal securities laws, including one case of fraud, and violating PCAOB rules and auditing standards relating to auditor independence, quality control and audit documentation.

The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy and the International Integrated Reporting Council said Wednesday they are creating a public sector pioneer network to promote the implementation of integrated reporting in the public sector.

Ever since the earliest spreadsheet software, people have been relinquishing many tasks and responsibilities to this ubiquitous tool, and for good reason: spreadsheets are easy to set up, perform all but the most complex functions, and are available everywhere.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has issued an order staying the effective date for compliance with the some of the conflict minerals rules the agency had drawn up after an appeals court ruled that they violated the First Amendment.

The American Institute of CPAs’ Auditing Standards Board has issued three auditing interpretations in response to the new Governmental Accounting Standards Board pension standards.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Mary Schapiro have joined the board of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, serving as chair and vice-chair, respectively, of the fledgling organization.

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The chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board said Thursday that the FASB staff expects to issue the long-awaited converged standard on revenue recognition that it has developed with the International Accounting Standards Board this month, calling it “a grand achievement for both boards.”

Public Company Accounting Oversight Board chairman James Doty said in a speech Thursday that he is concerned about cuts in audit fees having an impact on the quality of audits as the auditing practice becomes a declining part of the revenue at accounting firms.

Professors Miller & Bahnson argue that it's time to finally reject IFRS and the IASB for the U.S.