The Securities and Exchange Commission's Office of the Chief Accountant has selected two professional accounting fellows for two-year terms beginning in June 2005.

Despite dire predictions by critics of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that the accounting reform law would freeze smaller CPA firms out of the audit business, just the opposite appears to be happening, Public Company Accounting Oversight Board Chairman William J. McDonough told Congress.

Officials from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the European Union Commission have reached an agreement on a "roadmap" toward equivalence between international and U.S. accounting rules.

A district court judge reportedly dismissed one of three counts accusing former HealthSouth chief executive Richard Scrushy of violating the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, but rejected defense requests to throw out key charges against Scrushy that would have brought an early end to his corporate fraud trial.

The Government Accountability Office's quality assurance system has received a clean audit opinion from an international peer review team.

The New York State Society of CPAs has launched "CPAs on Boards," a state-wide program that links CPAs with nonprofit organizations looking for financial experts to add to their boards of directors.

The American Institute of CPAs, the AICPA Foundation, the National Endowment for Financial Education and the American Red Cross have launched a new, broad-based disaster preparedness and planning guide for consumers.

Grant Thornton executives this week urged regulators, public company boards and executives, and auditors to move to protect capital markets and investors by taking steps to increase choice and competition for public companies and auditors.

Companies that limit Sarbanes-Oxley reviews to a small group of senior management have worse performance records compared with those that involve much of the organization in their review process, according to a report by research firm AberdeenGroup.

The Coca-Cola Co. announced a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission related to allegations that the company used a channel-stuffing practice known as "gallon pushing" to meet earnings expectations.

The Professional Ethics Executive Committee of the American Institute of CPAs has proposed in an exposure draft a new ethics interpretation of rules to determine whether financial interests held by a company's external auditor impair independence.

Big Four firm KPMG LLP has agreed to pay more than $22 million to settle charges brought against it by the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with its audits of Xerox Corp. from 1997 through 2000.

The American College, based here, and the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors have partnered to create the Financial Services Specialist designation, a new financial planning credential.

President Bush has signed into law H.R. 1134, exempting qualified disaster mitigation payments from tax.

Employers and their advisors are still trying to puzzle through the creation of health savings accounts.

Sherman Hanna is a professor of consumer sciences at Ohio State University. He is also the co-author of a new measure that he says is a better way to calculate how much risk people are willing to take in their investments. It has an interesting twist.

CPAs advertising their services used to be against the rules, until regulators began loosening those restrictions about 25 years ago.

In a resounding salvo aimed at pending proposals on business combinations and consolidated financial statements from the Financial Accounting Standards Board, two major financial associations - Financial Executives International and the Institute of Management Accountants - have roundly criticized not only the board's approach to those proposals, but also a broad spectrum of related issues.

London - The trustees of the International Accounting Standards Committee Foundation have begun deliberations on an increasingly political review of its constitution.

Audits have gotten more complicated, and that means more auditors will be using more specialists. But what qualifications does a specialist need to be entrusted with a role in an audit?