Regulatory actions and programs

AICPA CEO Barry Melancon and other accounting profession luminaries have been appointed to the Treasury Department's new Advisory Committee on the Auditing Profession.

The trend toward convergence of accounting standards seems to be picking up speed after a bumpy start, but there are still plenty of hurdles ahead.

Robert Herz, chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, has said he is in favor of a single set of global accounting standards.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued a new set of allowable living expense standards that it will use to determine the ability of a taxpayer to pay a delinquent tax liability.

Deloitte Consulting, Cisco Systems, SAP and the Open Compliance and Ethics Group have released a study indicating the dangers of fragmented approaches to governance, risk and compliance.

Internal auditors should begin adopting more of a risk management mindset, recommends a new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, or Freddie Mac, agreed to pay a $50 million penalty after the Securities and Exchange Commission charged it with securities fraud.

After the delivery truck pulled up, a guy got out and yelled, “Buddy. We have your copy of Office 2007 here. Should we leave it in the driveway? I don’t think it will fit in the door. Watch it. That thing weighs a ton.”

The Internal Revenue Service has issued proposed regulations governing patents on tax strategies and advice as a bill works its way through Congress outlawing such patents.

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox said that data tags had been developed for the entire system of U.S. generally accepted accounting principles, advancing the use of the Extensible Business Reporting Language for automating financial reporting information.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued regulations governing practice before the agency.

SEC Chairman Christopher Cox is making a serious push to get more public companies and their accountants to start using Extensible Business Reporting Language, or XBRL, to publish their financial statements, and the day may soon be at hand when it's going to be required.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Dwight Sean Jones, a former NFL player turned investment advisor, with failing to allow commission staff to examine his business records.

New proposed Internal Revenue Service regulations to determine the value of a taxable estate may create a series of traps for unwary executors and tax preparers, according to the American Institute of CPAs.Moreover, the regulations lead to the situation where an estate must be held open for a number of years to determine the amount of the deduction for a contingent obligation.

Things change. Even assumptions. When assumptions change - assumptions about interest rates, discount rates, actuarial projections, and the like - other things change as a result.It was the war in Iraq that indirectly brought the issue to light. To the surprise of the U.S. Treasury, the extent of the U.S. military's costs for pensions, other post-employment benefits, and health care costs associated with the Veterans Administration appeared to be lower in 2006 than in 2005, despite an ongoing war.

Japanese electronics giant NEC said it was unable to file its annual report from last year and would not be able to restate prior financial results going back to 2000 because of difficulties reconciling Japanese GAAP standards with U.S. GAAP standards.

Accountants are garnering more power and seats on corporate board audit committees, but their numbers still remain relatively low, according to a newly released report.

The Securities and Exchange Commission voted with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System to implement the bank broker provisions of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999.

Bradley B. Rush, former CFO of Sunrise Senior Living, has sued the company for breach of contract and defamation for terminating him in May and claiming he destroyed documents.

Kayla Gillan, one of the founding board members of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, plans to leave the PCAOB by the end of January 2008 when her five-year term expires.