FASB Moves Closer to Intangible Assets Exception

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has taken another step toward exempting private companies from separately recognizing and measuring non-competition agreements and customer-related intangible assets that are not capable of being sold or licensed independently in a business combination.The...

By Matthew Heller • Sept. 17, 2014

CFOs Have a Pay Party

While pay for American workers overall continues to stagnate, as it has throughout the past five years of economic expansion, median CFO compensation shot up in 2013 by 7%, according to a Mercer analysis. That followed a mere 2% gain the prior year (see chart below).The study focused on the 491 S...

By David McCann • Sept. 17, 2014

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Top 5 stories from CFO.com

From CPA licensure changes to undergoing a digital transformation, these are the most popular stories CFOs are reading. 

By CFO.com staff

Emerging Markets Boost U.S. Trade Prospects

Emerging markets such as China and India offer the best trade prospects for U.S. businesses, with U.S. export growth to those countries expected to average 9% a year through 2030, according to a new report from HSBC.Additionally, 30% percent of U.S. business leaders who participated in the HSBC T...

By Matthew Heller • Sept. 16, 2014

OECD Unveils Plan to Rein in Profit Shifters

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development today unveiled its first proposals for changing corporate tax rules as part of an international effort to crack down on tax avoidance by multinationals.The recommendations of the OECD’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting project will be a ke...

By Matthew Heller • Sept. 16, 2014

How to Botch an Interview for a CFO Job

As we get back into hiring mode after what I hope was a relaxing August for all of us, I thought it might make sense to offer some pointers to my financial-officer friends on where I have seen things go wrong in CFO interviews over the past 20 years. Here are some of the most common problems I ha...

By John Touey • Sept. 16, 2014

On the IPO On-Ramp

It’s been a little more than two years since Congress passed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, a law intended to make it easier for smaller companies to obtain access to capital.Title 1 of the act created the so-called IPO on-ramp, consisting of provisions that make it simpler and less cos...

By Edward Teach • Sept. 15, 2014

Companies Get Stingier on Dependent Health Coverage

Amid growing public concern that an unintended result of the Affordable Care Act might be a broad elimination of corporate-sponsored health benefits, it appears that, at the least, the value of coverage for spouses and dependents is beginning a slow fade.In a recent survey by consulting firm Aon ...

By David McCann • Sept. 12, 2014

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending Sept. 12

Michael Kaufmann One of the 25 largest companies in the United States with more than $100 billion in annual revenue, Cardinal Health has promoted 25-year company veteran Michael Kaufmann to the top finance seat, effective Nov. 11. He will replace Jeffrey Henderson, 49, who will be retiring next A...

By David McCann • Sept. 12, 2014

IT Budgets Move Away from Outsourcing

Organizations are continuing to keep more of their IT operations in-house as the economic recovery “reaches a more mature and sustainable phase,” according to a new survey by IT research firm Computer Economics.IT outsourcing budgets averaged 10.2% of total IT spending so far this year, a slight ...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Sept. 10, 2014

Economic Crime on the Rise Globally: Survey

Thirty-seven percent of more than 5,000 respondents reported economic crime in their organizations, with the categories of bribery and corruption and cybercrime experiencing notable growth, according to PwC in its latest Global Economic Crime Survey.Those reporting economic crimes represented a 3...

By Matthew Heller • Sept. 8, 2014

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending Sept. 5

Michael Newman has been named to lead the finance function at Novatel Wireless, succeeding interim CFO Tom Allen. Newman is a former CFO of Websense.Finance chief David Tacka plans to retire from The Hershey Co. at the end of the year. A search is under way for a replacement for Tacka, who has be...

By Joan Urdang • Sept. 5, 2014

Executive Pay: The Final Reckoning

In his book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” Thomas Piketty argues that it is impossible to find an “objective basis” for the high salaries of senior executives in terms of their individual productivity: they pay themselves such exorbitant sums simply because they can.However, in a forthco...

By Economist Staff • Sept. 4, 2014

Amazon CFO Szkutak to Retire Next Year

Amazon CFO Thomas Szkutak will retire in June 2015, the online retailing giant said in a statement on Wednesday, ending a 12-year stint in the position. He will be succeeded by Brian Olsavsky, who joined the Seattle-based company in 2002.The shuffling of Amazon’s financial guard comes at a critic...

By Iris Dorbian • Sept. 4, 2014

SEC Dishing Out $300,000 Whistleblower Award to Internal Auditor

For the first time, the Securities and Exchange Commission is rewarding a corporate whistleblower whose actual job it is to blow the whistle on a company’s internal missteps.Today, the SEC announced that it would provide a whistleblower award of more than $300,000 to a company employee who perfor...

By David Katz • Sept. 2, 2014

Magic, Science and Art: Should Finance Take Over HR?

John Boudreau Are you thinking about absorbing the HR function into your finance function? The Harvard Business Review recently published a high-profile recommendation to CEOs and organization leaders, written by a leading organizational consultant, Ram Charan. He suggests that the best leaders o...

By John Boudreau • Aug. 28, 2014

Why Are the World’s Biggest Employers So Darned Big?

How desirable is it for a company to be big? In the case of Wal-Mart Stores, the world’s largest publicly traded employer, with about 2.2 million employees, the answer — on at least the strength of the retailing behemoth’s ability to negotiate rock-bottom prices from its smaller suppliers — is: p...

By Iris Dorbian • Aug. 27, 2014

Special Report: Corporate Tax Roundup

Jerry L. Mills defines the issue clearly. “A delicate way to describe aggressive tax methods by business owners is to say they are ‘working in the gray area,’” he writes in an article in CFO’s Corporate Tax Roundup Special Report. “Tax evasion is the correct way, since such approaches amount to i...

By David Katz • Aug. 25, 2014

What To Do When the Boss Is a Tax Evader

Most privately held U.S. companies are formed as pass-through entities, such as S Corporations, limited liability companies (LLCs), and partnerships etc. This means that the income from such entities is passed to the owners, who are taxed at personal income tax rates.Effective personal income rat...

By Jerry L. Mills • Aug. 25, 2014

Bringing Discipline to Your Sustainability Initiatives

Sustainability has become a part of life for many companies. For some, it’s a matter of meeting demands from customers seeking socially responsible goods and services. For others, it’s about addressing pressure from stakeholders—including investors—or pursuing their own corporate values. For stil...

By Sheila Bonini and Steven Swartz • Aug. 22, 2014

What to Do When ‘Best’ Practices Aren’t

It’s a fundamental tenet of the “governance, risk and compliance” (GRC) set of enterprise-wide processes that a well-governed organization operates within an appropriately defined and structured framework of controls, policies and practices.John Parkinson 2017 TechPlenty of published governance f...

By John Parkinson • Aug. 22, 2014

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending Aug. 22

Douglas Martin Consumer-products firm Spectrum Brands Holdings has named Douglas Martin to the top finance spot, effective Sept. 1. He takes over from Tony Genito, who announced in April that he was leaving the company. Most recently, Martin headed finance at Newell Rubbermaid.Allergan has promot...

By Joan Urdang • Aug. 22, 2014

The Economy: How Long Will the Expansion Last?

News that America’s economy grew at a brisk annualized rate of 4% in the second quarter was greeted with relief. After a puzzling first-quarter contraction, growth has returned, though the recovery remains the weakest since the second world war. As of June, the expansion is now five years old, lo...

By Economist Staff • Aug. 18, 2014

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending Aug. 15

Doug Martin has resigned as finance chief at Newell Rubbermaid, effective Aug. 31. John Stipancich, general counsel and corporate secretary, will become interim CFO while a search for a permanent successor to Martin is under way.CFO Dick Hobbs will retire from Sensient Technologies in February. H...

By Joan Urdang • Aug. 15, 2014

IASB Goes Its Own Way on Lease Accounting

In yet another blow to global accounting convergence, the International Accounting Standards Board has decided to jettison a proposed dual model for lease accounting.IASB released a project update document on its web site that said the global standards setter had “tentatively” decided to adopt a ...

By Vincent Ryan • Aug. 14, 2014

A Carbon Tax Could Eliminate Tax Inversions

Two environmental experts are suggesting an unusual remedy to the lost tax receipts from U.S. companies moving their tax domiciles overseas: a carbon tax. And yes, they’re being serious.According to Lawrence Goulder, an environment and economics professor at Stanford University, and Marc Hafstead...

By Iris Dorbian • Aug. 13, 2014