Are Deficiencies More Common? Or is it Simply that PCAOB Now Successfully Targets Audit Areas Prone to Problems? Emily Chasan at the Wall Street Jurnal’s CFO Report delivers the news that The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has been catching an increased number of audit errors around fair value measurement this year, says PCAOB member Lewis Ferguson. He notes that audit regulators around the world have been finding issues with fair value measurement as well as auditor independence and going concern opinions.
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The New York Times’ Dealbook reports that after putting banks on watch four months ago, Moody’s Investors Service on Thursday cut the credit ratings of 15 large financial firms, in a move that could do lasting damage to their bottom lines and weigh on the markets.
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Emily Chasan at the Wall Street Journal’s CFO Journal reports that the chairman of the International Accounting Standards Board said Wednesday that he expects the board, which sets accounting rules for over 100 countries, will focus on clarifying some of its most confusing accounting standards once it completes its key convergence projects with U.S. accounting rule makers.
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Jon Hilsenrath at the WSJ’s Real Time Economics blog captures some interesting tidbits from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke‘s testimony which go beyond the big question of whether the Fed will try to ease financial conditions again:
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Terri Eyden at AccountingWeb analyzes new research from the American Accounting Association and finds that M&A restatements are common. Excerpt:
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The Journal of Accountancy reports the IRS is offering more flexible terms under which it will accept offers in compromise (IR-2012-53):
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Jennifer Smith at the WSJ Law Blog reports that A U.S. district court ruling on who can claim profits from a defunct law firm’s unfinished cases could mean trouble for firms who take on partners from the ailing New York firm Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP:
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This is increasingly a point of concern, writes Molly Williams at the Wall Street Journal’s Small Business Blog. Business owners can eliminate the possibility legal chaos on this front by ensuring Web accounts are in their business’ name, rather than their own. And it’s probably not a good idea to include account numbers and passwords in wills and trusts because those can become public documents. A few states have passed specific estate laws addressing the issue: As small businesses move more operations online, there’s an unpleasant question they need to ask: What happens if the one person who has…
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This is the question addressed by Richard T. Hurt, Jeffrey M. Gad, Drew LaGrande, and Megan Costa Devault in a paper you’ll find posted in PDF form at JD Supra legal intelligence web site. The authors write for Akerman Senterfit, a law firm with expertise and focus in middle market M&A. Here’s the way things stand now: For the past several years, the federal estate tax law has provided elevated exemptions and lower tax rates. The key provisions of the current federal estate tax law, which sunsets on December 31, 2012, are as follows: • $5.12 million gift and estate…
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Tracy L. Coenan published a succinct guide to fraud analysis last year in the Wisconsin Law Journal that’s very much worth reading. Excerpt:
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Metropolitan Corporate Counsel interviews Monte I. Dube, Partner, and Elizabeth M. Mills, Senior Counsel, of Proskauer’s Health Care Department in Chicago. Excerpts: What are the current trends in M&A within the healthcare industry? Dube: Increasingly and for multiple reasons, U.S. hospitals and healthcare systems of all types are looking for potential partnerships or affiliations. Financially distressed organizations are seeking capital and expertise to help them weather the storm, and governmental hospitals are looking to privatize, often for the purpose of monetizing assets or balancing the budget. We’re also seeing strong and vibrant hospitals and healthcare systems conclude that they need…
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Charles Green has posted an interesting thought-piece over at the Trusted Advisor site: When clients don’t buy what a CPA firm is selling, it’s unlikely that they don’t want what you’re selling. More likely it’s that they’re not buying how the service is being sold. For example, a potential client is talking with several accounting firms about a significant assignment. One firm has expertise in that area and understands the client’s issues, and the meeting goes well. The firm bids competitively, recognizing the value of potential future work. The final presentation is a hit, but another firm gets the engagement.…
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Roger Russell recaps the decision at Accounting Today. The Tax Court, in a recent summary opinion, ruled that an individual did not have cancellation of debt income in the year that a collection agency issued him a Form 1099-C and stopped its automated collection efforts. The IRS determined a deficiency in David Stewart’s 2008 income tax of $2,138, based on a Form 1099-C issued by the collection agency. The underlying debt was incurred on a credit card obligation in 1994, and was defaulted on in 1996. Maryland Bank National Association (MBNA) charged off the debt that same year. Find out case specifics…
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Corporate investigation may lack the glamour of Bond and Bourne, but the two worlds aren’t so far removed. Former Kroll analyst Chris Morgan Jones tells The Independent’s Tim Walker why. Due diligence and forensic accounting don’t set the pulse racing like, say, the trailer for the latest 007 movie, so it’s quite a feat for Morgan Jones to have conceived a thriller about business intelligence that is genuinely thrilling. His debut novel, An Agent of Deceit, sees corporate investigator Ben Webster sent to explore the dealings of a shady Russian oligarch. Like vintage Le Carré, it takes the reader on…
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Emily Chasan is on the spot with the latest news: U.S. and international accounting rule makers finally may be ready next month to resolve a debate over corporate lease accounting, that would bring $2 trillion worth of lease obligations onto corporate balance sheets. Members of the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board said Thursday they were ready to vote on a method for how new lease accounting rules will impact corporate earnings in June, which means a new draft of the rules could be finished by the end of this year. The lease…
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U.S. banks are awash with money from depositors, reports David Reilly in Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street, while demand for loans lags behind. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s banking profile shows that net loans amounted to 70% of deposits in the first quarter, the lowest figure since 1984. As far as problems go, this isn’t the worst to have. Deposit money is still washing over U.S. banks even as loan growth continues to prove elusive. The result: Net loans equaled just 70% of total deposits in the first quarter, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s quarterly banking…
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PE firms have recently begun to negotiate smaller equity contributions as borrowings increase, reports Matthew Sheahan at Mergers & Acquisitions. LBO activity came to a screeching halt last summer; there were $19.7 billion issued via 34 deals to back buyouts for all of 2011, but so far this year, nine high-yield bond deals totaling $8.3 billion have been issued to back LBOs. Banks and other creditors are sticking more of their necks out when funding private-equity players’ leveraged buyouts. Equity contributions to leveraged buyouts have generally remained in the 30 percent to 40 percent area for a couple of…
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The June issue of Investment Advisor includes a story on practice management that features an interesting graphic:
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The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board found 123 audit deficiencies related to fair-value estimates and asset impairments in 2010, making asset valuation the most common audit problem. Market volatility always makes it tough to value assets fairly based on market prices. But that doesn’t mean management forecasts—and the assumptions and methodologies of financial modeling used in corporate pricing—couldn’t benefit from additional scrutiny. Emily Chasan reports at the Wall Street Journal’s CFO Report blog: The Big Number: 123 That’s the number of audit deficiencies related to asset-valuation problems found among clients of the Big Four accounting firms in 2010. Market volatility…
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Ace Accounting Today reporter Danielle Lee may well have feared decadence, aggressive and overly-medicated groupies, atonal experimentation, psychedelics, and really bad rhyme. But she braved the challenges and took on the story in any case, and it turned out to be pretty cool: An all-CPA band rocked tax day, performing a long set of classic rock during their annual End of Season Tax Bash in a Connecticut restaurant. The Connecticut-based Accounting Crows are: vocalist/bassist Reed Risteen, partner with BlumShapiro in West Hartford.; lead guitarist Alan Friedman, partner of Farmington-based Friedman, Kannenberg & Company; drummer Michael Fortunato, vice president of…