Audit

Two auditing standards boards and an association of accounting academics are moving forward with a research project that could lead to significant changes in the content and phrasing of audit reports, perhaps even in the procedure of the audit itself.Concerned that investors and others may be misinterpreting the typical three-paragraph audit report, the boards are seeking a better understanding of what people think they're reading. In many cases, according to the American Institute of CPAs' director of auditing and attestation, Chuck Landes, some readers of audit reports are apparently seeing things that aren't there.

Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell vetoed a bill passed by the state legislature that would have allowed Connecticut to set its own accounting standards to balance the budget.

Here’s something that may be of interest to you.As you know, there are all sorts of lists out there ranging from Accounting Today’s most influential people in accounting to Practical Accountant’s regional survey of accounting firms to CPA Wealth Provider’s financial planning annual awards of excellence.

The Center for Audit Quality, a group affiliated with the American Institute of CPAs, will host a panel discussion featuring former Sen. Paul Sarbanes and former Rep. Michael Oxley to mark the fifth anniversary of signing Sarbanes-Oxley into law. Scheduled for July 30 at the National Press Club, additional speakers include SEC Chair Christopher Cox, former SEC Chairs William Donaldson and Harvey Pitt, Mark Olson, Chairman of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and former PCAOB Chairman William McDonough. For further information, call (202) 609-8291 or e-mail info@thecaq.org.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has reappointed Daniel Goelzer to a second five-year term at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. Prior to joining the PCAOB in 2002, Goelzer spent seven years as general counsel at the SEC. He is also a CPA and was an auditor at Touche Ross, the predecessor firm to Deloitte & Touche. SEC chairman Christopher Cox said that Goelzer "brings broad perspective to the board through his substantial experience as a regulator and practitioner. We are fortunate that he is willing to serve the nation, investors, and our markets in this capacity."

I have always found regional accounting firms fascinating. Just take three recent developments regarding the regional firm of Virchow, Krause & Company. One was that Wells Fargo Insurance Services of Minnesota, a subsidiary of Wells Fargo & Company, acquired Virchow, Krause & Company's Twin Cities employee benefits operations, including the head of the employee benefits practice in Minneapolis and his team. It is a good example of how regional firms view these very specialized practice areas. The acquire them and spin them off reminding me of many businesses that view the acquisition and the selling of a portion of their business as a regular means for increasing profitability.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has faulted eight audits performed by global audit firm Grant Thornton, citing departures from generally accepted accounting principals as well as problems with evaluating financing costs and rental income. During the eight-month process, the PCAOB said it conducted the inspection at the firm's national office in Chicago as well as 13 of its field offices. As with all PCAOB inspection reports, the audit clients remained anonymous. However, in a letter to PCAOB director of inspections, George Diacont, Grant Thornton took umbrage to the board's use of descriptions such as "failed to identify" and "failed to perform" appearing in the reports. It also stated that it has enhanced its training programs and developed additional guidance to address problems in previous inspection reports. Meanwhile, a Grant Thornton spokesperson said, "While we disagree with the some of the terminology used by the PCAOB and disagree with some of the conclusions that were reached, we support the PCAOB's mission to better protect investors through the reports. We think it is an excellent time for the PCAOB to develop recommendations culled from three years of major accounting firm inspections to establish the most effective approaches to auditing, with the investor being the ultimate beneficiary." Earlier this year the audit overseer released its inspection reports on Big Four firms Ernst & Young and Deloitte, both of whom were cited for audit deficiencies in eight of their clients' audits. The report can be viewed at: http://www.pcaobus.org/Inspections/Public_Reports/index.aspx.

The nation's technology companies continue to struggle with the challenges of accounting for stock options, in particular, the guidelines of Financial Accounting Statement 123(R), Share-Based Payment, according to a survey conducted by Grant Thornton of tech company executives. Some 85 percent of those participating in the GT poll said that the overall process of option valuation is significantly more complex than it was before Statement 123(R), while 76 percent indicated that they are outsourcing option valuation as a result of the accounting rule. Roughly 60 percent of those surveyed said their company's compensation committee have become more involved in designing comp programs as a result of 123(R). Grant Thornton surveyed more than 100 technology company executives in the poll.

Two interesting pieces of information have popped up by two highly reputable sources, one dealing with tips on choosing a financial planner and the other showing survey results of the five most frequent mistakes made when selecting such an advisor.

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox has established an advisory committee to help make financial reporting more "user-friendly." The SEC Advisory Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting will examine the U.S. financial reporting system in an effort to reduce complexity, make financial reports clearer to investors reduce costs for preparers and determine how to better capitalize on the use of technology. "Our current system of financial reporting has become unnecessarily complex for investors, companies, and the markets generally," Cox said. "The time is ripe to review how that system can be made less complex and more useful to investors." Robert C. Pozen, chairman of MFS Investment Management in Boston and former vice chairman of Fidelity Investments, was appointed the committee chair. Cox said he expects between 13 and 17 additional members with varied backgrounds to be named to the advisory committee within the next few weeks.Some of the areas the committee will focus on include: * The current approach to setting financial accounting and reporting standards; * The current process of regulating compliance by registrants and financial professionals with accounting and reporting standards; and * The current systems for delivering financial information to investors and accessing that information. Both the Financial Accounting Standards Board and Financial Executives International lauded the development. "This advisory committee represents an important step toward addressing the institutional, structural, cultural, and behavioral issues that create complexity, reduce transparency, and impede usefulness of reported information to investors," said FASB chairman Robert Herz. Meanwhile the 15,000-member FEI said that it "applauds the SEC's announcement today regarding the formation of an SEC Advisory Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting. We reiterate our belief that the current complexity in accounting and reporting harms the ability of users of financial statements to understand the information provided and impairs the ability of preparers to explain their financial results in a meaningful way."

The Internal Revenue Service ruled that a partial termination of a qualified plan occurred where 23 percent of a plan's participants were no longer active due to the closing of one of the employer's four locations. Therefore, all plan participants were fully vested. Under Code Section 411(d)(3), a plan is required to provide that, upon its partial termination, the rights of all affected employees to benefits up to the date of the termination must be non-forfeitable. Under the regs, the IRS uses a facts and circumstances test to determine whether a partial termination has occurred. The IRS ruled that if the turnover rate is 20 percent or more, there is a presumption that a partial termination of the plan has occurred. The IRS determined the turnover rate by dividing the number of participating employees who had an employer-initiated severance from employment during the applicable period - in this case, the plan year - by the sum of all of the participating employees at the start of the applicable period and the employees who became participants during the applicable period. The 20 percent threshold merely creates a presumption, according to the IRS. Facts and circumstances indicating that the turnover rate for an applicable period is routine, and not the result of a shutdown as in this instance, favor a finding that there is no partial termination. The IRS also noted that a partial termination of a qualified plan can also occur for reasons other than turnover. For instance, a partial termination can occur due to plan amendments that adversely affect the rights of employees to vest in benefits under the plan, plan amendments that exclude a group of employees who have previously been covered by the plan, or the reduction or cessation of future benefit accruals resulting in a potential reversion to the employer.

Broker/dealer H.D. Vest Financial Services said that its assets under management in advisory accounts recently passed the $5 billion mark. The company said that figure helped propel its total assets under management to roughly $25 billion. The company began offering advisory solutions in 1987, and currently supports over 1,900 independent advisory consultants in its system of 5,500 advisors.

Florida A&M University has been given a six-month window to straighten out its accounting problem or risk losing its accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The school has come under fire after a state auditor revealed that the school's inspector general's office had gone 40 months without any formal reports on internal investigations, and that $39 million in transactions and budget amendments were made without approval of the school's board of trustees. In addition the school has some $1.8 million in missing receipts for athletic-event tickets and $11,000 in bad checks were written by the administration. Students attending an unaccredited school are typically not eligible for financial aid.

Prosecutors are urging a U.S. district Judge to dismiss indictments against 13 of executives of Big Four firm KPMG on charges of marketing illegal tax shelters. According to The Wall Street Journal U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan had previously ruled that the government had overreached in its years-long investigation, violating the defendants' constitutional rights to counsel and due process. In a June 22 filing in federal court in Manhattan, prosecutors said that Kaplan's decision showed that there was a fundamental flaw in the proceedings and that he must dismiss the indictments. As a result, 13 of the 18 defendants may now never stand trial, including the accounting giant's former vice chairman, Jeffrey Stein, the highest-ranking executive named in the indictment. However, legal experts opined the petition was a strategy to allow allowing prosecutors to appeal Kaplan's ruling, a maneuver that may yet allow prosecutors to resume the proceedings against all 18 of the defendants. The indictments were initially handed down in 2005 accusing the defendants of selling fraudulent tax shelters from 1996 through 2002, that cost the government some $2.5 billion in revenues. In striking an agreement to escape a potentially fatal criminal indictment that could have shuttered the firm, KPMG agreed to pay a $456 million fine to the federal government and spend the next 16 months on probation overseen by a federal monitor. The firm also agreed to close its tax business for high-net-worth individuals. Kaplan has scheduled a hearing July 2. A decision regarding the government's argument, as well as the motions to dismiss the indictments, could be issued this summer.

After collating some 80 comment letters on valuation guidance for financial reporting, the Financial Accounting Standards Board unveiled plans to form a resource group on the subject. Specifically, the cadre will provide the standard-setter with input on potential clarifying guidance on issues relating to the application FASB Statement No. 157 on Fair Value Measurements. FASB said the composition of the group will comprise of a cross section of constituents and added that its initial meeting will be sometime during the third quarter of 2007.

The Joint Committee on Taxation has issued a report on the individual alternative minimum tax in advance of a Senate Finance Committee hearing scheduled for Wed., June 27. The JCT report listed several selected reform options, which include: indexing or increasing the exemption amounts; allowing the deduction for personal exemptions and standard deductions to be used when computing the AMT; permitting state and local taxes against the AMT; reducing the minimum tax rates; eliminating the phase-out of the minimum tax exemption; allowing nonrefundable personal credits to offset the minimum tax after 2006; and repealing the AMT. The report is available at: http://www.house.gov/jct/x-38-07.pdf.

The LexisNexis Tax Center platform will now include exclusive content from Ernst & Young's International GAAP Online. Written by the International Financial Reporting Group of Ernst & Young, International GAAP Online includes the full text of every International Financial Reporting Standard and a set of model IFRS financial statements. LexisNexis has also paired with Danielle Rolfes, tax attorney and CPA with Ivins, Phillips & Barker, to present information on FIN 48. "There's a sea change that's less about the mechanics of FIN 48 and more abut rigorous accounting to give investors enhanced insight into companies' overall income tax positions and the consequent ability to scrutinize and compare," said Rolfes. LexisNexis launched its Tax Center last year to help streamline analysis of tax strategies across the broadest array of tax publishers available on a single platform, including LexisNexis, CCH, BNA, Tax Analysts, the ABA Section of Taxation and Matthew Bender.

Many of my friends are already retired, whether they have money or not. And, I keep hearing all the time the same question: When will I pack it in? After all, I’ve been at this for the past 45 years and you know something, I still love it. I may be one of the few people who on a Sunday night has trouble sleeping because I can’t wait to get to the office Monday morning.

Though financial reporting and Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 oversight remain a top priority for audit committees, other areas such as IT are fast rising as high-risk concerns, according to a survey sponsored by Big Four firm KPMG. According to the 2006-2007 Public Company Audit Committee Member Survey, conducted by KPMG's Audit Committee Institute and the National Association of Corporate Directors, just 15 percent of 282 audit committee members participating the survey indicated that they were "very satisfied" with their company's oversight of IT, while 20 percent admitted that their IT risk oversight needed improvement. Some 90 percent of respondents said the audit committee should devote more agenda time to upgrading IT risk oversight. Despite ongoing challenges posed by complex accounting standards and Section 404 compliance, most audit committee respondents were confident of their oversight in that area. About 80 percent of audit committees were "very satisfied" with their oversight of management's accounting judgments and estimates and some 60 percent said they were "very satisfied" with the amount of time the audit committee spends discussing the issue. For more information on the survey, visit: www.kpmg.com/aci.

The Internal Revenue Service is expanding an outreach effort to ensure that public schools throughout the United States are complying with the universal availability requirement for retirement annuities they may offer.Some schools and school districts may be overlooking offering employees the opportunity to participate in these retirement plans. To assess the level of compliance, the IRS's Employee Plans Compliance Unit has started sending questionnaires to public school districts in all 50 states under the 403(b) Universal Availability project. A 403(b) plan is a retirement plan for certain employees of public schools, employees of certain tax-exempt organizations, and certain ministers. "Our pilot project in three states showed fairly widespread noncompliance by schools with the universal availability requirement for 403(b) plans," said Joseph Grant, director of the IRS Employee Plans Division. "But we believe most of it was due to a lack of understanding about what the law requires, not a deliberate failure to comply." "We know from our pilot project and from talking to representatives from schools and districts across the country that most of the problems stem from either misunderstanding the law or from confusion because of differing rules in various states," said Grant. "The project will give schools the chance to identify problems with their plans and to correct them on their own."