Audit

The American Institute of CPAs has released an alert warning about audit risks from the economic crisis.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board said the financial statements of non-public broker-dealers now need to be certified by PCAOB-registered auditing firms.

College students attending an Ernst & Young tax career event acknowledged they are seeing more interest on campus in accounting as jobs in the financial industry dry up.

Accounting Today is in the midst of compiling its annual list of the Top 100 Firms.

Nearly two-thirds of executives anticipate an increase in accounting fraud in the next two years, according to a recent poll by Deloitte.

Patty Duke and her look-alike cousin from her old TV series are back, this time helping seniors apply for Social Security benefits online.

The Center for Audit Quality has named Mary Moore Hamrick as director of external relations and strategic planning.

Accounting firm Parente Randolph has merged with two other firms: Altenburger, Uris, Caglioti & Heyman, and William R. Hoffman Ltd.

The Internal Revenue Service recently gave 403(b) plan sponsors an extra year to comply with new requirements.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has released a staff position officially deferring the effective date of FASB Interpretation 48, "Accounting for Uncertainty in Income Taxes," for nonpublic pass-through entities and nonprofit organizations, and released guidance on accounting for the assets in postretirement plans.

The Center for Audit Quality has released a paper to provide guidance on applying accounting standards to residential mortgage modifications.

The court-appointed trustee for the liquidation of Bernard Madoff's investment securities firm has received $29 million from the disgraced asset manager's bank account that he plans to distribute to defrauded investors.

The International Accounting Standards Board and the Financial Accounting Standards Board have attracted a set of high-profile members from around the world to form an advisory group on the financial crisis.

Once again it’s the time of year for me to make resolutions that I probably won’t keep for five minutes.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has released its eagerly anticipated report on mark-to-market accounting calling for improvements in fair value accounting standards, but not suspension of them.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has modernized its oil and gas company reporting requirements for the first time in more than 25 years.

The majority of banks and financial services companies bailed out by the Troubled Asset Relief Program are probably in worse condition than publicly disclosed, according to an new study.

Hopefully there will be many lessons learned from the Bernard Madoff scandal once there is a better understanding of exactly what happened. I am sure there will be a number of in-depth books written on the subject. There will be chapters on asset allocation, due diligence, risk management, the SEC, internal operations of investment companies, compliance officers, investment advisors, fund of funds, hedge funds, auditors, peer review, whistleblowers, independent custodians, lawsuits, transparency, and regulatory change. All of the above are very interesting, but the chapter that I am most interested in is the one on human nature.

CEOs at many companies are earning a greater proportion of their compensation in the form of stock, but they're still getting more cash than ever, according to a new study.

PricewaterhouseCoopers believes that M&A activity will be dominated in 2009 by "mergers of necessity" as distressed companies seek the protection of more stable parents.