Regulatory actions and programs

The International Accounting Standards Board issued a revised version of its standard for the presentation of financial statements aimed at improving users' ability to analyze and compare the information in them.

Robert DeSantis, a top executive with the parent organization of the Financial Accounting Standards Board and Governmental Accounting Standards Board, has resigned.

CEOs of Fortune 100 companies are receiving increasingly valuable financial planning perks, according to a new study.

Financial holding company International Bancshares Corp. said that its audit committee has dismissed KPMG as its auditor and replaced the Big Four firm with McGladrey & Pullen.

Sage Software named an Accountants' Advisory Board for its Accountants' Network to provide the company with advice and feedback on its products.

Sarbanes-Oxley compliance paid off big time for audit firms in the past five years, with median fees shooting up 345 percent, according to a study by the Corporate Library.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., has written letters to the Big Four accounting firms asking what they are doing to let their financial institution clients know about waivers on mortgage accounting standards that could let borrowers refinance their loans.

The American Institute of CPAs is asking the Internal Revenue Service to reconsider some of its proposed monetary penalties for misbehaving practitioners and firms.

If you didn’t see the WebCPA news item last week or the write-up in the 08/17/07 AICPA News Update e-mail newsletter, I’m telling you about the subject of those two pieces now. It is the AICPA’s Professional Ethics Executive Committee’s exposure draft that proposes a new Interpretation 101-17, Networks and Network Firms, under Rule 101, Independence, of the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct. I suggest you read the exposure draft.

The Institute of Internal Auditors Research Foundation has introduced an internal auditing textbook that promises to unite theory with practical knowledge to give students a more realistic look at the profession.

A U.S. bankruptcy judge has approved a $167.5 million settlement that Deloitte & Touche has agreed to pay to a trust set up by litigants for defunct cable television company Adelphia Communications.

The Office of the Chief Accountant at the Securities and Exchange Commission has chosen three professional accounting fellows who will be working with the office for two-year terms starting this fall.

Charles “Chuck” Allen has worked for the accounting firm Crowe Chizek for his entire career. Fresh out of college as a campus recruit, he joined the firm in 1975. In April of this year, the 53-year-old became CEO of Crowe Group, the Oak Brook, Ill.-based firm’s parent company, succeeding two-term CEO Mark Hildebrand. Before becoming CEO, Allen served as managing executive of Crowe’s commercial services group. During his career, he has concentrated on assisting private investors with acquiring and financing companies and establishing a private equity group client base. He talked with WebCPA about his plans for broadening the Midwestern firm’s national footprint, the recent challenges facing the accounting and private equity industries, and his firm’s efforts at recruitment and retention.

British firm Bentley Jennison has joined the RSM International network of audit, tax and consulting firms, expanding RSM’s reach abroad.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has begun asking for comments on a document that outlines a variety of proposed changes in the way companies do their financial reporting.

The American Institute of CPAs’ professional ethics division has issued a proposal that would outline the independence requirements of CPA firm networks and associations.

The International Federation of Accountants has released a paper describing the experiences of 10 senior-level accountants with establishing effective internal control systems inside businesses.

The American Institute of CPAs presented awards to 10 budding CPAs who achieved the highest cumulative scores last year on the four sections of the Uniform CPA Examination.

If forensic accounting is sexy, litigation support is hot - and CPAs who offer these specialty services are finding their firms' business boiling over into new areas.Being retained by legal counsel to give an expert opinion is at the core of litigation support, a subset of forensic accounting. The two fast-growing niches are very much related, but experts say that forensic accounting is more of an umbrella term that encompasses litigation support.

According to those more experienced in such matters, I'm told the proper gift for a fifth anniversary is wood. To mark my five years of wedded bliss, I asked for a new wood driver. My wife, astutely predicting that such a gift would provide an entrée to spending weekends on the golf course in lieu of sharing domestic duties, instead bought me a hand-carved in/out box.The financial community recently marked a five-year anniversary, although not everyone was rushing out to locate the gift register. It's been five years since the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was signed into law, and exactly what type of wood gift one would purchase to celebrate that milestone depends largely, I would assume, on the giver.