The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service said that they would waive the tax-credit regulations that prohibit owners of low-income housing providing housing to victims of Hurricane Katrina who don't qualify as "low income."

The Securities and Exchange Commission has joined the growing list of companies and agencies mobilizing to provide relief to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

I read a little blurb a few weeks back about publishing house John Wiley & Sons' plans to print a "Sarbanes-Oxley for Dummies," the latest edition to its best-selling series.

The chief accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Donald T. Nicolaisen, will leave the commission in October to return to the private sector.

As if investors and public companies didn't have enough to worry about, a recent "trend alert" from Glass Lewis & Co., an investment research and proxy advisory firm in San Francisco, reported that control deficiencies reported by large companies are at an all-time high, with an increase of 87 percent between 2003 and late 2004 and early 2005.

U.S. TO REISSUE 30-YEAR BOND IN Q1 2006: The Bush administration said that it would resurrect the 30-year Treasury bond, a move that it said would help to finance the national debt and, at that same time, appeal to conservative investors looking for long-term options.

When CPAs add financial services to their practices, the overwhelming method of entry is to affiliate with a broker/dealer and receive commissions. For many, there is a next stage: transitioning to a model of full financial advisory with compensation from fees based on assets under management. Careful management of the rebranding can ease clients into the new way of doing business.

D&T RESIGNS BRITESMILE: Big Four firm Deloitte & Touche has resigned as auditor for teeth-whitening products manufacturer and marketer BriteSmile Inc.

Plans by Internal Revenue Service officials and federal lawmakers to establish new national certification and testing requirements for unlicensed tax return preparers are drawing cautious support from mainstream tax professionals.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board's new statements on "other post-employment benefits" won't go into effect until the end of the year, but the questions are already coming in. Some queries are simply asking for a definition of "benefit," while others ask, "Do we really have to do this?"

The Energy Tax Incentives Act of 2005, passed as part of the 2005 Energy Act and signed by President Bush on Aug. 8, 2005, includes a series of new credits aimed at encouraging the purchase of various types of new alternative fuel vehicles.

Accounting for financial instruments with characteristics of liabilities and equities has never been easy, and the Financial Accounting Standards Board has had a hard time hammering out the difference.

Broker/dealers who are not registered as investment advisors must now give brokerage customers a disclosure stating that their interests may not always be the same as their customers.

Cardinal Health Inc., a maker of medical supplies, said it has set aside $25 million to cover the costs of a potential settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Premier Financial Bancorp Inc. announced a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission concerning concealed loan losses at a bank subsidiary.

The American Institute of CPAs has won a 2005 Clarion Award from the Association for Women in Communications for its national "360 Degrees of Financial Literacy" program.

Morgan Stanley may face a fine of more than $10 million for failing to archive a number of e-mails needed in connection with Securities and Exchange Commission investigations. Published reports said that a final decision on any penalty is likely still months away.

The International Federation of Accountants has issued new guidance on environmental management accounting.

Looking to avoid the publicity of a trial, the country's largest trash hauler will pay $26.8 million to cover most of the costs of a settlement between former executives and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A survey by Fidelity Investments recently found that one-third of working adults are delaying their retirement plans due to financial reasons.