Audit

Pay to corporate directors grew at a slower rate in 2005, compared to the previous year, according to a study by Mercer Human Resource Consulting.

As expected, the Securities and Exchange Commission will likely grant smaller public companies and most foreign private issuers an extension on having to comply with the internal controls provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

Fannie Mae said that it believes its internal accounting review is finally over, and that its anticipated restatement will be much less than its previous $2.4 billion estimates.

The Internal Revenue Service needs to do a better job on its partnership examinations, according to a new report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

While audits of high-income taxpayers have increased, the actual impact on compliance may be limited, according to a new report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

The Institute of Internal Auditors has established a Canadian Council, a group of 18 members from throughout the country, to address issues specific to the region's internal auditors.

Agents won't be allowed to challenge whether casino comps to high-rolling patrons qualify for treatment as promotional expenses, according to a memo released by the Large and Mid-Size Business Division of the Internal Revenue Service.

It's summer vacation time, and we're following our tradition of digging into the files and reprinting columns from the past. This one from June 2003 deals mostly with the accounting for stock options.In those days, of course, there was a lot of Chicken Little shouting that the mandatory expensing of stock options would destroy free enterprise and the rest of Western civilization. Everyone jumped on the bandwagon to save options and to keep financial statements from being polluted by bad numbers.

The American Institute of CPAs praised a new law that will prevent states from taxing the retirement income of non-resident partners last week.

In a significant move toward unifying a number of related standards and harmonizing them with a new international standard, the Auditing Standards Board has voted out a proposed statement on quality control.It was one of three exposure drafts issued for comment by summer's end.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board named Kyra Armstrong, Ray Hamm and Jerry Decker as deputy directors in the Division of Enforcement and Investigations unit.

The Securities and Exchange Commission will commission a study to compare how the different regulatory systems that apply to broker-dealers and investment advisers affect investors.

From inside the profession, or even working closely besides it, it's sometimes hard to imagine that there's anyone who doesn't have at least a cursory understanding of what Sarbanes-Oxley meant for the profession, or why the debate over Section 404 continues years after its implementation.

A Senate report estimates that tax cheating now equals about 7 cents out of each dollar paid by honest taxpayers, or as much as $70 billion annually.

It's time for public companies to begin disclosing the reasons behind an auditor change, a new report from Glass Lewis & Co. argues.

The American Institute of CPAs has released two exposure drafts, one tackling standards for attestation engagements, another amendments to auditing standards.

Grant Thornton will not be held liable for an unqualified opinion it issued on the 1999 financial statements of Daw Technologies.

Lately, the costs of placing help-wanted ads have waned considerably at the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board issued its first-ever audit practice alert, warning auditors to be on the watch for problems in the timing and accounting of stock-option grants."Auditors planning or performing an audit should be alert to the risk that the issuer may not have properly accounted for stock option grants and ... may have materially misstated its financial statements," the alert said, alluding to recent investigations by both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Internal Revenue Service into whether companies routinely backdate, spring load, or otherwise manipulate, stock options grants to top executives.

Federal prosecutors received yet another slap on the wrist from Manhattan Judge Lewis Kaplan, as the judge ruled they inappropriately used economic pressure to coerce testimony from two partners at KPMG.