Audit

SEC Chief Accountant Jim Kroeker said the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board should proceed with their efforts to converge U.S. and international accounting standards, even though the SEC commissioners have not yet formally approved the proposed roadmap to International Financial Reporting Standards.

IMGCAP(1)]The creation of a super agency to regulate banks is a beguilinglysimple idea. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., chairman of the SenateBanking Committee, recently sent up a trial balloon, giving the ideanew life.

The International Accounting Standards Board and its U.S. counterpart, the Financial Accounting Standards Board, plan to meet on a monthly basis in order to achieve the goal of converging accounting standards by June 2011.

Seventy-one percent of U.S. CFOs and senior comptrollers surveyed by Grant Thornton believe that the Financial Accounting Standards Board should set U.S. accounting standards, instead of the International Accounting Standards Board, the Securities and Exchange Commission or Congress.

Forty percent of U.S. CFOs and senior comptrollers polled by Grant Thornton said they do not believe U.S. companies should be required to use International Financial Reporting Standards.

Despite growth in its Asia-Pacific region, as well as in its consulting unit, wobbly economic conditions both domestic and abroad resulted in Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu reporting a 4.9 percent decline in fiscal 2009 global revenues in U.S. dollars, to $26.1 billion, and just 1 percent growth in local currency terms.

The Private Company Financial Reporting Committee met to discuss the impact of recent changes in accounting standards on private companies, including some confusion in the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s new Codification updates.

Worried that corporate auditors are being duped by widespread related-party transaction frauds, officials at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board are considering new standards establishing stiffer and more specific requirements for accountants who encounter these arrangements.

The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board has published a consultation paper seeking views on a new assurance standard it is developing for greenhouse gas emission reporting.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has established a Not-for-Profit Advisory Committee to offer input to the board on guidance, current and future technical projects, and longer-term issues affecting nonprofits.

President Barack Obama has announced a set of initiatives aimed at kick-starting the market for small-business loans.

Accounting firms are managing overall to maintain their rates, client services and staff even as the economy continues to challenge them and their clients, according to a new survey.

International Accounting Standards Board chairman Sir David Tweedie said he won’t wait for the board’s U.S. counterpart to finalize its own revisions to fair value accounting for financial instruments.

As the SEC resurrects its focus on the roadmap to adopt International Financial Reporting Standards, the 30-plus year debate over a GAAP for private companies has progressed somewhat but remains on the back burner amidst legislative and standard-setters’ priorities for global convergence

The House Financial Services Committee has approved legislation that would require regulation of the over-the-counter derivatives market.

The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board is seeking views on developing fair value auditing guidance for a new consultation paper.

A trade group representing insurance and reinsurance companies has taken exception to a proposed standard on fair value accounting and said it will make financial statements harder to understand.

Current Grant Thornton CEO Ed Nusbaum and incoming CEO Stephen Chipman talked about the Supreme Court’s upcoming hearing of a challenge to the constitutionality of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

Just who is Rebecca Ryan?

The Securities and Exchange Commission has released a draft of a five-year strategic plan that calls for “a single set of high-quality global accounting standards.”