The American Institute of CPAs’ Auditing Standards Board is proposing changes in subject-matter specific attestation standards.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board voted Wednesday to reorganize its future agenda to focus more closely on the issues most important to FASB stakeholders, as it anticipates completion of its remaining four convergence projects for harmonizing U.S. GAAP with International Financial Reporting Standards.

Nearly 80 percent of business executives surveyed last year by Deloitte anticipate that complying with the lease accounting standards that the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board have been collaborating on will be difficult, with concerns especially high about data quality and information technology systems.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department have brought civil and criminal charges against a Chicago accountant who used his wife’s trading account to short-sell shares in the health care information company where he was director of internal audit ahead of the public release of the company’s financial results, earning more than a quarter-million dollars in profits.

The Financial Accounting Foundation said Tuesday that it will contribute up to $3 million to the International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation to help complete some of their joint accounting standards convergence projects.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a joint motion with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu CPA Ltd. to dismiss without prejudice a subpoena enforcement action that the SEC had filed in 2011 after Deloitte’s Chinese affiliate failed to produce audit work papers for one of its clients in China, Longtop Financial Technologies, whose securities trade in the U.S.

With eight overall new Securities and Exchange Commission clients and a net gain of five, Top 20 Firm Marcum topped the charts among large and national firms in the fourth quarter — bringing in over a million dollars in audit fees.

Grant Thornton Brazil bulks up, firm relocations and more…

KPMG has agreed to pay $8.2 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges that the firm violated rules requiring auditors to remain independent from the public companies they’re auditing to ensure they maintain their objectivity and impartiality.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has launched the FASB Outlook, a new quarterly e-newsletter designed to keep people informed about FASB’s current projects and activities.

Chinese affiliates of the four largest accounting firms were barred for six months from leading audits for U.S.-listed companies after failing to comply with Securities and Exchange Commission orders for documents at the heart of a series of accounting fraud probes.

The European Commission has appointed the French accounting firm Mazars and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales to team up on a report assessing the effects of using International Financial Reporting Standards in the European Union.

The Financial Accounting Foundation has released an updated print edition of the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s FASB Accounting Standards Codification, the authoritative source of U.S. GAAP for public and private companies and not-for-profit organizations.

Despite a wave of accounting scandals at Chinese companies, a 58 percent majority of capital markets executives at investment banks believe the number of U.S. IPOs from China-based businesses will increase in 2014, according to a new survey by the accounting and consulting firm BDO USA LLP.

Payroll giant ADP has introduced additional tools to enable small businesses to comply with the complicated provisions of the Affordable Care Act.

The International Federation of Accountants, a global organization for the accounting profession with 179 members in 130 countries, has issued a Call for Nominations for the IFAC Board and Committees in 2015.

Keeping an eye on all of the legislative and regulatory changes that occur throughout the course of the year is no easy task.

3PAO Accreditation, rebranding and more...

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has been making progress on reducing its backlog of remediation submissions dating back to 2010 from auditing firms that have been addressing the problems found by PCAOB inspectors, according to a new report.

The International Accounting Education Standards Board has published three new International Education Standards, adjusting the suggested content of educational programs for initial professional development of aspiring accountants.