ATM and voting machine maker Diebold said that the Justice Department, in addition to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of the Chief Accountant, has been investigating its accounting practices.

Sunrise Senior Living fired three top executives after the company completed its accounting investigation.

The Securities and Exchange Commission's Office of the Chief Accountant and Division of Corporation Finance have released a staff accounting bulletin intended to help public companies value stock option grants to employees on their income statements.

Hey, all you single, married, and divorced women out there. Guess who the model investor is? Nope. Guess again! It’s not any of you. Can you believe that widows make model investors? How’s that again? Well, based upon a recent national survey from OppenheimerFunds, it was found that widowed women had more confidence when it came to managing their money with some 65 percent of the respondents giving themselves a rating of 8 or better on a scale of 100 when asked how good of a job they were doing. You can compare this number with 40 percent of married and co-habitants, and 52 percent of divorced respondents. Lauren Coulston, Assistant Vice President, Advocacy and Training Manager at OppenheimerFunds, says “It makes sense that women who are responsible for their own finances through a major life event such as widowhood or divorce have more confidence in their money management skills.” She notes that one possible reason for this confidence is that more widows work with financial advisors. In other words, widowed women are often forced to deal with their own finances. Seems to make a lot of sense in that widowed women appear to do more financial planning and on a more methodical basis. Incidentally, according to the survey, widowed respondents were also more likely to list retirement as their primary investment goal followed by divorced, married/co-habitants, and single women. Moreover, they are least likely to cite a lack of money as the reason they are not participating in a retirement savings vehicle or plan. I was especially interested in who widows relied on for investing advice. You got it! The financial advisor. “The fact is, eighty to ninety percent of women will be solely responsible for managing their own finances at some point of their life due to longer life expectancies and higher divorce rates,” adds Coulston. “Regardless of marital status, financial advisors should bring women into financial conversations as early as possible.” I couldn’t agree more. By the way, consider too the fact that more than 60 percent of the women surveyed here had over $5,000 in household debt and more than 30 percent maintained over $20,000 of debt. Number one source of debt? The credit card, of course. And to put a topper on all this, consider this salient fact. Widowed respondents were the least likely to carry any debt. Bottom line? You don’t have to be in a widowed state to work with a financial advisor. All marital demographics could benefit. And the earlier you get started, obviously, the better off you will be.

The Center for Audit Quality has advice for smaller public companies that will soon have to implement Section 404(a) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued an updated version of Form 990, which charities are required to file annually to retain their tax-exempt status, and is giving small tax-exempt organizations time to adjust.

Financial Executives International, a 15,000-member trade group headquartered here, has compiled what it considers to be the top financial challenges for 2008.

The American Institute of CPAs received 24 marketing awards, mostly for its "Feed the Pig" campaign aimed at encouraging Americans to prepare better for long-term financial security.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Joseph P. Collins, a partner with the law firm Mayer Brown, with aiding and abetting fraud at his client Refco. He is the fourth person accused in the case.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has proposed an overhaul of the board's structure that would cut the number of members of the board from seven to five and allow the chairman to put items on the agenda.

'Tis the season for holiday cheer and especially gifts, so herewith are some presents that accountants might like to find coming down the chimney this year in the company of a chubby bearded man.

Serious material weaknesses continue to plague the U.S. government's financial systems, recordkeeping and reporting, according to a newly released report.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has disciplined two former auditors at BDO Seidman for failing to review the audit work of a junior member of the firm and then trying to cover up by backdating documents.

IRS is driven in its desire to close the tax gap and views tax practitioners as being an obstacle in the middle, according to Charles Rettig with the law firm of Hochman, Salkin, Toscher & Perez, P.C.,in Beverly Hills, Calif.

GRANT THORNTON DISMISSED AS MANNATECH AUDITORDietary supplement developer Mannatech has fired Grant Thornton as its auditor and appointed BDO Seidman in its place after a dispute over the company's chairman.

Financial planning isn't magic, but it is an art as much as it is a science. Different planning practices deal with different kinds of investment vehicles. But regardless of the vehicle, financial plans are rarely static.That's because clients' investment goals and resources change over time. What was right for last year's goals may not be right today, and will almost certainly change tomorrow.

FIDELITY LAUNCHES WEB-BASED FP TOOLFidelity Investments has introduced the Fidelity Retirement Income Evaluator, a Web-based planning tool designed to help advisors create and manage retirement income plans for their clients, as well as build a more efficient and profitable retirement business model.

In the last year or two, the fog surrounding Sarbanes-Oxley software was finally starting to clear, with a number of vendor offerings focused specifically on compliance, primarily with Sections 302 and 404, on management's responsibility for certifying financial results and internal controls, and with the documentation and testing of internal controls.That split software applications into several basic groups - those that help to document processes and internal controls, software that tests the effectiveness of internal controls, and applications used in the audit test process.

Shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, America's financial institution auditors - internal and external - were called to the trenches of the war against terrorism.Under Section 352 of the USA Patriot Act, they have been required to verify that their institutions have adequate risk assessment and prevention systems in place.

While friends and family are more concerned with the holidays at hand, tax practitioners are taking last-minute steps to ensure that they and their clients have a successful tax season.Training people to be able to staff the offices properly is key for Peoples Income Tax Inc., said chief executive Charles McCabe. "There just isn't a supply of qualified preparers out there who are willing to work for three months. And if someone is available, you have to ask why they are available - you don't want to hire someone else's problem."