Regulatory actions and programs

A new report from the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board found that firms that audit 100 or fewer public companies showed a reduced rate of reported deficiencies in their 2007 through 2010 inspections, but in 2011, the rate of deficiencies showed little sign of declining.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has added three new implementation guides to its series on using Extensible Business Reporting Language, or XBRL, interactive data tags in financial statements.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board is mulling the possibility of reorganizing its auditing standards into a topical structure.

The Government Accountability Office has expressed its support for giving auditors more responsibility for the information in documents accompanying audited financial statements.

A trade group representing credit unions is asking the Financial Accounting Standards Board to delay its proposals for changes in the accounting for credit losses and loan impairments.

The trustees of the IFRS Foundation have included the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board among the national and regional standard-setters in the new Accounting Standards Advisory Forum, the new group that will advise the International Accounting Standards Board on development of International Financial Reporting Standards.

The long-standing communication impasse between accounting software used by businesses and business software used by accountants is finally beginning to dissolve, thanks to the emergence of new cloud-based business intelligence solutions.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is asking for public comments on a proposal from Nasdaq to require Nasdaq-listed companies to establish an internal audit function no later than Dec. 31.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Corporate Finance has issued new guidance allowing public companies to provide equity-based financing to employees through a program involving loans without violating Sarbanes-Oxley, with some help from former Congressman Michael Oxley himself.

A top official at the U.S. Small Business Administration prodded lawmakers at a congressional hearing to extend a debt refinancing program that provided a lifeline to thousands of struggling small businesses before expiring last year.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has introduced an online version of its Governmental Accounting Research System, GARS Online, providing online access to accounting standards and related literature for state and local governments.

The chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, Dave Camp R-Mich., released a set of proposals Tuesday discussion draft aimed at reforming the tax laws for small businesses.

ADP has introduced ADP SmartCompliance, a set of outsourced services to assist organizations with tax, employment and payroll compliance.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board released previously nonpublic portions of two of its inspections of PricewaterhouseCoopers on Thursday, saying the firm had failed to address the PCAOB’s quality control criticisms.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has reappointed Public Company Accounting Oversight Board members Steven B. Harris and Jay D. Hanson for five-year terms.

The Monitoring Board of international regulators overseeing the IFRS Foundation has chosen Japanese regulator Masamichi Kono as its chairman, while also choosing a new way to assess the membership criteria.

Muddy Waters LLC, whose analyst reports triggered $7 billion in losses for Chinese stocks, used an unlikely secret weapon for its research: the public website of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

A new report from the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board found that firms that audit 100 or fewer public companies and are inspected every three years showed a reduced rate of reported “significant audit performance deficiencies” in their 2007 through 2010 inspections, compared to when they were inspected from 2004 through 2006, but in 2011, the rate of deficiencies showed little sign of declining.

An eagerly anticipated report on the auditing market from the United Kingdom’s Competition Commission found that the audit market is not serving shareholders and suggested as a possible remedy the mandatory rotation of auditing firms.

Legislation has been introduced in Georgia to give the Georgia State Board of Accountancy its own executive director and staff, along with greater financial and operational autonomy, to bring it in line with other state boards of accountancy.