Audit

The Securities and Exchange Commission unanimously voted to propose rules to make it easier for foreign companies to stop listing their securities for trading in the country in order to avoid the expense of complying with U.S. securities laws.

Taser International Inc. said that the Securities and Exchange Commission has ended an investigation into the stun gun maker's accounting and recommended that no action be taken against the company.

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox delivered an easier-said-than-done speech earlier this month on the need to simplify accounting rules.

The market for mergers and acquisitions is expected to remain strong into 2006, according to a new study released by the corporate financial advising arm of KPMG International.

Nearly half of all organizations worldwide have been victims of fraud in the past two years, according to the 2005 PricewaterhouseCoopers' Global Economic Crime Survey released in late November.

An advisory panel to the Securities and Exchange Commission may officially asked the agency to exempt businesses with less than $125 million in revenues from the internal control provisions laid out in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

ISO 22222, the Standard on Personal Financial Planning, has been approved as an international standard. All ISO members (Standardization Institutes in approximately 150 countries) around the world can now adopt ISO 22222 as a national standard.

A former KPMG partner involved in the audit of Xerox Corp. has accepted a one-year ban on auditing public companies.

Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP announced that litigator Robert Axelrod has joined as a director in the company's anti-money laundering group, part of Deloitte's national forensic & dispute services practice.

Speaking to an American Institute of CPAs conference, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox suggested that accounting rules need to be simplified in order to ensure that financial irregularities aren't hidden.

Foundation Software, a national developer of construction accounting systems, will unveil a new CPA Audit/Review Module at the AICPA Construction Conference next week.

AMR Research estimates that companies will spend $6 billion on complying with Sarbanes-Oxley Act requirements in 2006, close to the $6.1 billion they will spend in 2005.

The U.S. Treasury and Internal Revenue Service have issued guidance relating to provisions of the Katrina Emergency Tax Relief Act of 2005 that allow Hurricane Katrina victims to access employer-sponsored retirement plans and IRAs.

Former Congressman Bill Gradison has been named acting chairman of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board issued a report saying that while the initial implementation of Sarbanes-Oxley and, specifically, Section 404, has not been without its challenges, the board is confident the process will be easier in the future.

Investors punish firms that disclose internal control weakness as required by Sarbanes-Oxley provisions, but having a Big Four auditor mitigates the negative price hit, according to new research out of Indiana University.

The Securities and Exchange Commission unanimously voted to request public comment on rules that will allow companies to use the Internet to satisfy proxy material delivery requirements.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers has requested the dismissal of a mult-million-dollar claim filed following the bankruptcy of Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities.

Diane M. Rubin, a partner at San Francisco-based Novogradac & Co. LLP, was recently installed as chairwoman of the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy for 2005-06.

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc. has again put off filing financial statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission.