Audit

Securities and Exchange Commission chief accountant Donald Nicolaisen is scheduled to testify this week before a House subcommittee about the commission's decision that Fannie Mae violated accounting rules.

In his State of the Union address this week, President Bush pushed his plan to overhaul Social Security and add optional private accounts for younger workers, as the White House unveiled some new details of how that plan would work.

Holtz Rubenstein Reminick LLP, based here, has expanded its litigation and valuation services group via a merger with Long Island-based Rand Consulting Group Inc., a boutique firm specializing in litigation support, forensic accounting and valuation services.

Thomas Wilson, former Large and Mid-Size Business Division industry director for the telecommunications, media, high technology, publishing, entertainment, sports and gaming industries at the Internal Revenue Service, has joined PricewaterhouseCoopers as a managing director in the Washington National Tax Service's IRS Service Team, the Big Four firm said.

American Express Co. said that it will spin-off its American Express Financial Advisors unit to shareholders to focus on its credit cards, charge cards and travel services businesses.

The U.S. occupation authority in Iraq tasked with overseeing the use of money appropriated by Congress for relief and reconstruction there didn't have proper accounting controls for $8.8 billion in funds, a report released this week alleged.

Most chief executives of America's fastest-growing private companies say that they're likely to step down within the next 10 years, but almost half have put little to no thought into succession planning, according to a survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Fannie Mae has reportedly recruited former Securities and Exchange Commission chair Richard C. Breeden to help it deal with a potential $9 billion restatement, while its former chief executive has relinquished two board seats.

A former partner at Big Four firm Ernst & Young was sentenced to a year in federal prison and a $5,000 fine after pleading guilty to tampering with audit records for NextCard Inc., an issuer of online credit cards, the AP reported. As part of the sentence, Thomas Trauger, 42, must also undergo two years of supervised release. He is scheduled to be taken into custody March 30. He initially faced up to five years in prison. In October, Trauger confessed to tampering with the now-bankrupt NextCard's audit records after regulators had raised doubts about NextCard's accounting practices. He was charged with subsequently destroying key documents in an effort to mask the fraudulent changes.

A critic from Washington-based think tank the American Enterprise Institute has called on Congress to terminate the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board within five years and fold the oversight body into the Securities and Exchange Commission.

With the audit implosion at the Roslyn, N.Y., school district still reverberating in the profession's ears, American Institute of CPAs president and chief executive Barry Melancon warned some 400 attendees at a conference here that the resulting backlash of a nonprofit scandal could be as devastating to the profession as the ruins left by Enron and WorldCom.

The American Institute of CPAs' Auditing Standards Board is poised to issue an exposure draft of five proposed statements and amendments to statements relating to auditors' risk assessment.

Big Four firm KPMG LLP recorded its 10th consecutive year of revenue growth, with reported revenue of $4.1 billion for fiscal 2004, up 8 percent over the prior year's revenue of $3.8 billion.

Turnaround specialist firm Alvarez & Marsal has expanded its tax advisory unit, adding eight managing directors in several of its regional locations, as well as unveiling an office here.

The CPA firm under fire for its audit of a Long Island school district that is mired in an accounting fraud is reportedly shutting its doors.

One plank in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is Section 302, a provision that chief executive officers as well as chief financial officers make certain certifications regarding financial and other information contained in companies' annual and quarterly reports.

Accounting firm consolidator Century Business Services Inc. has acquired the San Diego-based CPA and consulting firm Nation Smith Hermes Diamond.

A significant increase in sales prices for CPA firms in 2005 was one of several predictions made by a panel of experts at a recent accounting conference here.

U.S. Chief District Judge Sven Erik Holmes is leaving the federal bench to join Big Four firm KPMG LLP in the newly created position of vice chair of legal affairs.

Last month, the Financial Accounting Standards Board issued its long-awaited final statement on share-based compensation or "stock comp." But many wonder if that's the last that we'll hear of it.