Online Retailers Feel the Heat

Thanks to a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court decision, online retailers have been exempt from collecting sales taxes in states where they have no physical presence. But times are changing. Starved for revenue, a number of states have passed new laws or are using existing statutes to redefine physical pres...

By Marielle Segarra • April 15, 2012

JOBS Act Filings Depend on Snail Mail, DVD

The Securities and Exchange Commission has had to scramble to enable small companies on the verge of going public to enjoy some of the regulatory breaks under the week-old Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act.On short notice, the SEC had to create a way to accept drafts of registration stat...

By Sarah Johnson • April 12, 2012

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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

Proposed Standard Calls for Human Capital Disclosure

A proposed standard for what information public companies should disclose about their human capital, issued late yesterday for public review, could ultimately have a profound impact on investors’ understanding of why companies succeed or fail.Or it could have no effect at all.It all depends on ho...

By David McCann • April 10, 2012

Private Pharmacos Out-sell Drug Stores

Private pharmaceutical manufacturers seem to be bouncing back from the recession faster than the private drugstores that sell their drugs, according to research from Sageworks, a financial-information company. In 2006 the annual revenue growth for private pharmaceutical manufacturers was about 15...

By Marielle Segarra • April 6, 2012

Free Cash Profiles: The Pharmacos

When it comes to pharmaceutical companies’ ability to spawn free cash flow as they grow, the key is in the R&D.But maybe not in the way you think. True, smaller companies’ larger proportions of research and development spending surely lead to steeper long-term growth trends. But a snapshot of...

By David Katz • April 6, 2012

JOBS Act Turns Spotlight on Crowdfunding

President Obama signed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, also known as the JOBS Act, into law today. Introduced December 8 in the House, the bill sped through Congress this year, garnering bipartisan support and raising the eyebrows of investor advocates.Investors have expressed concern th...

By Sarah Johnson • April 5, 2012

Groupon Shareholder Cries Foul

Criticism of Groupon and CFO Jason Child is coming from every direction following the company’s admission last week that it messed up its accounting for refund reserves. In the latest development, Child and CEO Andrew Mason have been named in the first shareholder lawsuit filed against the compan...

By Sarah Johnson • April 4, 2012

Groupon Restatement Raises Reserving Questions

Late last Friday, Groupon, the online discount-coupon distributor that splits the price consumers pay for coupons with retailers, announced it would slash its fourth-quarter revenue outlook and incur deeper losses as a result of higher-than-expected customer refunds. It blamed those losses on the...

By David Rosenbaum • April 2, 2012

Should CFOs Automate Financial Reporting?

When Derek Yung was hired as vice president of finance and strategic planning at NexTag a little more than a year ago, the privately held online price-comparison company had no strategic-planning processes to speak of. NexTag’s owners reported to the board quarterly, and kept most of the informat...

By David Rosenbaum • April 2, 2012

Does Danger Loom for Multiemployer Pension Plans?

Underfunding of multiemployer pension plans may spell trouble for some employers this year, according to a new report by Credit Suisse.Under fair-value calculations, multiemployer plans — collectively bargained plans maintained jointly by groups of employers and labor unions whose members work fo...

By Marielle Segarra • March 30, 2012

Fraud Tips Hit All-Time High

Reflecting an all-time high, internal tip lines collected a higher proportion of fraud-related tips during the most recent quarter, according to a new report.The Network Inc. and BDO Consulting said that 21.6% of incidents reported during the fourth quarter in organizations’ hotlines and other re...

By Sarah Johnson • March 29, 2012

JOBS Act Would Ease Sarbox Standard, but Might Pave Way for Fraud

Proponents of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act argue the law could be a game-changer for smaller companies by relaxing disclosure requirements and making it easier for them to go public and attract financing. But critics warn the act could grind investment activity to a halt.The JOBS Act e...

By Justin P. Grant • March 26, 2012

CFOs Shout Down Idea of Mandatory Auditor Rotation

Senior finance executives are loudly urging the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to abandon thoughts of requiring corporations to switch their accounting firms every few years.As of today, more than 625 comment letters have poured in since the PCAOB issued a concept release last August m...

By Sarah Johnson • March 14, 2012

A Private-Company Foothold Could Strengthen FASB

As the extent of its future role in standard-setting for all U.S. companies remains in question, the Financial Accounting Standards Board is jockeying for control over privately held companies.In a webcast today about FASB’s 2012 agenda, chairman Leslie Seidman talked first about the board’s rene...

By Sarah Johnson • March 12, 2012

Standard Setters Strain to Avert More Revenue-Recognition Angst

The U.S. and international accounting standards-setters are sending project leaders around the world to calm any leftover qualms about proposed changes to revenue-recognition rules.Change was deemed necessary because the existing rules were confusing and caused many unintentional errors in financ...

By Sarah Johnson • March 2, 2012

IRS Kills Tax Reg

Responding to an outcry from small-business concerns, the Internal Revenue Service has eliminated what the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) called an “onerous and unnecessary extra step” regarding how credit- and debit-card payments are accounted for on tax returns.The Housing a...

By Marielle Segarra • March 1, 2012

FASB Change Targets Intangibles Tests

A new proposal from the Financial Accounting Standards Board may save companies some third-party costs involved with measuring the fair value of intangible assets.The change would give companies more flexibility in how they determine whether certain assets need to be tested for impairment. Simila...

By Sarah Johnson • March 1, 2012

Will Corporate Tax Reform Squeeze Small Companies?

The Treasury Department today released a framework for corporate tax reform that would lower the corporate rate to 28% and remove many tax incentives, including subsidies for oil and gas companies. Treasury also proposed simplifying and making permanent the research-and-development tax credit and...

By Marielle Segarra • Feb. 22, 2012

SEC Seen Mulling Weaker Role for FASB

A subtle shift in word usage yesterday by James Kroeker, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s chief accountant, may signal the SEC’s acceptance of the possibility of an end to the “special relationship” between the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Sta...

By Sarah Johnson • Feb. 21, 2012

Mark-to-Market Pensions Show Brutal Year

Like deciding whether to pull a bandage from a newly healed wound, CFOs are trying to figure out the best way to disclose the havoc done to their corporate pension plans by yet another brutal investing year. As with pulling the bandage, they seem to have two reporting options: fast and painful or...

By Tommy Fernandez • Feb. 17, 2012

States Grab Taxes from Online Retailers

Businesses that operate across state lines have long been responsible for complying with hundreds, even thousands, of diverging state and local tax laws. And for a long time, online retailers have not. But times are changing. With coffers dwindling, a number of states have passed new laws or used...

By Marielle Segarra • Feb. 16, 2012

IRS Defangs Credit Card Reporting Rule

Responding to an outcry from small-business concerns, the Internal Revenue Service has taken  some of the teeth out of a tax reporting regulation that the National Federation of Independent Business has called an “onerous and unnecessary” step for companies filing tax returns to comply with laws ...

By Marielle Segarra • Feb. 14, 2012

Censuring E&Y, PCAOB Hits Firm’s Lack of Skepticism

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has censured and penalized Ernst & Young $2 million, its largest penalty against an accounting firm, for violating the audit firm watchdog’s rules. The accounting industry regulator said the firm “failed to properly evaluate” how a pharmaceutical ...

By Sarah Johnson • Feb. 9, 2012

Tax Reform: You Can’t Have It All

What tax breaks would you be willing to trade for a lower statutory corporate tax rate? Would you be open to giving up 100% expensing of capital investments, a temporary tax break that lets companies make up-front write-offs on new investments?The answer, of course, is that it depends on your bus...

By Sarah Johnson • Feb. 8, 2012

Free Cash Profiles: Consumer Products

For quite a while now, consumer spending has been flagging. In December, despite the holiday season, personal consumption expenditures decreased by $2 billion, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. That followed tepid increases in October and November.While lukewarm demand is putting a choke...

By David Katz • Feb. 3, 2012