Audit

UBIQUITEL RETAINS KPMG: UbiquiTel, a subsidiary and provider of Sprint communications services throughout midsized markets in the Western and Midwestern U.S., named Big Four firm KPMG as its new independent accountant.KPMG replaces PricewaterhouseCoopers as auditor to the Conshohocken, Pa.-based company. According to a filing, PwC's reports on UbiquiTel's financials for the years ended Dec. 31, 2004 and 2005, did not contain any adverse opinion or disclaimer of opinion, and were not qualified or modified as to uncertainty, audit scope or accounting principle.

Sometimes things become so commonplace that people stop giving them a second thought, even though they deserve one, or even more than one.Like a great many others, recent events have caused us to realize that we may have become complacent about the magnitude of executive compensation. Those at the top rung of corporate America make what seems to everyone but them to be truly staggering amounts of money each year.

Ernst & Young has launched two new podcasts, one focusing on international taxes, and the other focusing on measuring the success of business transactions.The International Tax Podcast Channel is aimed at U.S. multinationals and non-U.S. multinationals with stateside operations. Besides the "Washington Dispatch," the channel will also offer the "Global Dispatch" every other month.

A 2004 e-mail could come back to haunt the Internal Revenue Service in its case against 16 former KPMG executives accused of selling questionably legal tax shelters.

A previous article discussed several of the new terms that the new risk assessment standards have introduced to the audit process (Sept. 4-17, 2006, page 36). The following discussion expands on that by addressing in more detail some of the more significant differences between the requirements of the new risk assessment standards and past audit practice.* Audit plans and programs. The audit program is now called the audit plan, but it is still required. The auditor must develop an audit plan in which the auditor documents the audit procedures to be used. The audit plan is more detailed than the audit strategy, and includes the nature, timing and extent of audit procedures to be performed, including risk assessment procedures and planned further audit procedures.

In another lifetime, I lived and worked in Rome. It was quite an adventure and last week I returned to the city after an absence of some 30 years. Unfortunately for me, Thomas Wolfe is definitely right.

Accume Partners, a provider of internal auditing, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, and risk management services, has named former UHY Advisors chief executive James B. McGuire as its president and chief operating officer.

The man who oversaw Freddie Mac's earnings restatement, as well as its financial reporting improvements, has joined the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

A new accounting bulletin from the Securities and Exchange Commission addresses how prior year misstatements should be considered when quantifying a current year's misstatement.

The AFL-CIO wants to know more about the role that the major accounting firms might have played in the handling of stock options grants the government is now investigating.

It isn't the acts of a single executive, or the misses of a particular audit team, that most concern Public Company Accounting Oversight Board member Charles Niemeier when he reflects back on the corporate scandals that resulted in the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

It's not every accounting conference that the attendees have a chance to come away with a bit of horticulture knowledge.

In a move to keep the United States ensconced as the financial capital of the world, a newly formed commission will recommend changes to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other regulatory mandates it judges to encumber domestic capital markets from remaining competitive.

The Employee Benefits Security Administration, part of the Labor Department, is seeking comment on its plans to update guidance on the independence of accountants who audit employee benefit plans.

The estate of Enron Corp's late founder has agreed to pay $12 million to settle claims brought by participants in the failed energy company's pension plans.

Elaborating on his company's plans to enter the banking business, H&R Block chief executive Mark Ernst said that both the rates and fees the company charges customers for its refund-anticipations loans will be dramatically reduced by the time the 2007 tax season arrives.

H&R Block Inc., best known for its tax-preparation services, is expanding into banking.

A federal judge will hear evidence next month to help him decide whether KPMG should be ordered to pick up the legal fees for 16 former employees indicted in connection with the firm's sale of questionably-legal tax shelters.

Larry Swedroe is a first-rate analyst. He is the director of research and a principal of both Buckingham Asset Management and BAM Advisor Services in St. Louis. He is also a prolific writer of many, many books and articles on investment strategies and although he adds a disclaimer to everything he writes that his opinions and comments are his own and not of his two companies, his work is so well received that hardly anybody can find fault with it.

After a five-year effort, the American Society of Appraisers is taking credit for some of the provisions contained in the Pension Protection Act of 2006.