The Financial Planning Association, Moss Adams LLP and SEI Advisor Network are seeking financial planners to participate in their biennial compensation and staffing benchmark study.

TIAA-CREF's handling of an auditor independence issue that led to the resignations of two company trustees last December was "ultimately successful, although there were substantial missteps" along the way, according to a report released Thursday.

Reporting standards -- despite their complexity -- should be an exercise in honest communication, not merely an exercise in compliance, regulators and standard-setters told attendees at a financial reporting conference here.

Super-regional firm Plante & Moran has expanded its services and presence in the Chicagoland area with the addition of Wetmore & Associates, a boutique firm specializing in benefit plan audits.

The Securities and Exchange Commission this week filed fraud charges against Richmond, Va.-based paperboard and plastic packaging supplier Chesapeake Corp. and four of its former executives in connection with the company's 2000 restatements.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has published an exposure draft to rank generally accepted accounting principles.

Driven in part by costs associated with Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, Fortune 1000 firms have paid more than $3.6 billion for their 2004 audits, up from $2.2 billion in 2003, according to a report by accounting professors at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.

Shifts by the Internal Revenue Service from a focus on taxpayer service to enforcement, and of the management of the Business Systems Modernization program from contractors to staff entail risks, according to the Government Accountability Office.

As founding partner of Milberg Weiss Bershad & Schulman LLP, Melvyn I. Weiss is generally considered one of the country's premier class-action litigators, particularly in the areas of accounting and securities fraud.

Washington - The cost of compliance with Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley should drop significantly for some companies, according to a report commissioned by the Big Four firms.

With returns on both bonds and stocks dwindling, investors are seeking higher ground. Increasingly, that means that their money finds its way into alternative investments like hedge funds.

Washington - Nearly three-fourths of workers participating in a retirement savings poll said that employers' matching contributions of up to 5 percent of their salaries would greatly influence their decision to join a savings plan at work.

New York - Private securities class-action lawsuits spiked 16 percent from 2003 to 2004, with aggregate settlements topping $5 billion - the largest amount on record, according to a securities litigation study by Big Four firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

It is common to parody accountants as tightly wrapped number-crunchers oriented more toward dollars than human emotions, religious beliefs, moral debates and political controversies.

A majority of Californians believe that they can do a better job of investing a portion of their Social Security payments than the government can -- even though 80 percent admit that they have little or no investing experience, according to a recent poll.

Norwalk, Conn. Insurance and reinsurance have recently made headline news, and it has not been pretty.

As of this writing, bankruptcy reform legislation had passed the Senate and was expected to move quickly through the House and be signed by President Bush. The Bankruptcy Abuse and Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 may already be law as you read this column.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was supposed to help investors, not sink companies.

Washington - The Securities and Exchange Commission in early April named agency veteran Meyer Eisenberg to the post of acting director of the commission's Division of Investment Management.

Noting that the impact of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act on companies, auditors and investors has been huge, one Big Four chief executive says that the changes "all are positive."