Apple’s Message: No Discounts

Go ahead, shop around — you’re not going to find a bargain on Apple products. That’s because Apple executives keep a tight rein on pricing, allowing for little to no discounting. The $65 billion electronics innovator is so concerned about maintaining prices, in fact, that it has reportedly fought...

By Alix Stuart • Nov. 1, 2011

On the Road Again

While it’s a truism that any economic trauma has winners as well as losers, the recent recession had a devastating effect on a wide swath of companies. Still, some well-situated businesses have managed to extract an upturn from the collective downturn. Take Ryder System, a commercial truck leasin...

By David Katz • Nov. 1, 2011

Explore the Trendline➔

Tax policy shifts: What CFOs need to know to stay ahead

Discover how evolving tax policies are creating new opportunities and challenges for CFOs.

By CFO.com staff

New Leasing Proposals Continue to Draw Heat

The lease accounting debate rages on as the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) pore over nearly 800 public comment letters that question proposed new leasing standards. Board officials hit the conference circuit last month to answer...

By Marielle Segarra • Nov. 1, 2011

What a Corporate Tax Cut Might Mean

Consider this: if Japan reduces its corporate tax rate as planned, the United States will have the dubious honor of having the highest statutory corporate rate in the world. While the topic of taxes is always top-of-mind for CFOs, in recent months it has climbed higher on the national agenda as w...

By Mark E. Haskins and Paul J. Simko • Nov. 1, 2011

Finance Execs Cheer Goodwill Shortcut

Offered the chance to enable their company to avoid the currently complex calculations of goodwill-impairment testing, corporate finance executives will seize the opportunity in droves, a soon-to-be-released survey suggests.Last summer Duff & Phelps and the Financial Executives Research Found...

By David Katz • Oct. 28, 2011

CPAs Give Way to MBAs

The mix of talent in corporate finance departments is shifting toward fewer accounting staffers and more hands in financial planning and analysis, finance recruiters tell CFO. The change has been picking up steam as CFOs take on increasingly strategic roles, and as the once nearly single-minded f...

By David McCann • Oct. 26, 2011

Taxing the Cloud

Rackspace, a cloud hosting company headquartered in San Antonio, has been racking up sales at a torrid pace. Net revenue for the second quarter of 2011 was $247 million, a 32% increase over the previous quarter, beating analyst expectations and propelling the company to $1 billion in annualized r...

By David Rosenbaum • Oct. 25, 2011

Is Fear Dampening Corporate Performance?

“I’m more concerned about the lack of confidence than about market fundamentals,” said Alcoa’s chairman and CEO, Klaus Kleinfeld, on an October 11 earnings call. “It almost looks like the world is worrying itself into another recession, and that should not be allowed to happen.”Kleinfeld suggeste...

By Gregory V. Milano • Oct. 21, 2011

New Labor Law Could Cast Harsh Light on Companies

Union organizing is always a contentious topic, and proposed changes to corporate labor law have heated up the debate. The proposal, issued by the Department of Labor, would require attorneys to publicly disclose more information about the union-related advice they have given corporate clients – ...

By Marielle Segarra • Oct. 21, 2011

Searching for Missing Supply-Chain Links

Irma Villarreal, chief securities counsel and assistant corporate secretary for Kraft Foods, thought she could ignore a new disclosure rule that, at first glance, seemed to apply only to companies that deal with electronics products and jewelers. “We had no idea that this legislation was going to...

By Sarah Johnson • Oct. 19, 2011

How CFOs, COOs Can Bury the Hatchet

Supply chain and finance are usually seen as separate and conflicting disciplines. In a retailing or manufacturing company, key performance indicators are typically set by the chief operating officer to maintain high customer-service levels by keeping inventories high. At the same time, the CFO p...

By Alejandro Serrano • Oct. 19, 2011

IRS Shortchanges Company on Hedge Gains

In a private letter ruling issued by the office of the chief counsel of the Internal Revenue Service in September, the IRS turned down a corporate taxpayer’s assertion of the right to defer hedging gains. The chief counsel’s office turned the company down even though the service allowed the cance...

By Robert Willens • Oct. 17, 2011

PCAOB: Deloitte Trusted Management Too Much

In a 2008 inspection report, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board questioned the level of skepticism that Deloitte & Touche auditors brought to their corporate audits. The board made that information public today, by releasing a section of the report that is usually hidden from publi...

By Sarah Johnson • Oct. 17, 2011

Herman Cain’s No-Growth Formula

Simplicity, as Steve Jobs taught us, is beautiful. Simple-mindedness, as Herman Cain is currently teaching us, is, well, simple-minded. It seems that Cain, looking for a catchy campaign slogan for his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, reportedly procured one from an accountant frien...

By David Katz • Oct. 14, 2011

Who Really Does Your Audit?

The audit opinions tucked into public companies’ financial reports usually carry one name, that of an accounting firm. For large companies, it tends to be a Big Four firm headquartered in the United States. Behind the scenes, however, the reviews, tests, and assurances could have been handled by ...

By Sarah Johnson • Oct. 12, 2011

10 Keystrokes to Navigate Scads of Excel Data

Editor’s Note: If you would like bill Jelen to answer your Excel question in an upcoming column, post a question at the Community Center on the right or send an e-mail note to [email protected]. If Bill selects your question to use in a column, you’ll win one of his Excel books as a thank you.Ir...

By Bill Jelen • Oct. 10, 2011

Fears of Double-Dip Recession May Be “Overblown”: Report

Rather than reflecting concerns about a return to an economic recession, corporations sported a sales surge of 15% and a rise in median cash flow of 4% between the first and second quarters of this year, according to a new quarterly report on cash-flow trends issued by the Georgia Tech Financial ...

By David Katz • Oct. 10, 2011

Free Cash Profiles: The Software Makers

In almost every respect, the computer software industry is a model for how even the nation’s fastest-growing companies can yield huge amounts of free cash flow as they expand. True, their up-front and research and development costs can be high. But once the software is created, it costs virtually...

By David Katz • Oct. 7, 2011

Pharmacos, Health Insurers: The Bad Boys of Health Reform?

In July the Financial Accounting Standards Board issued an accounting-standards update (ASU No. 2011-06) that provides guidance on how to account for certain fees that must be remitted to the U.S. Treasury by pharmaceutical manufacturers and health insurers under the Patient Protection and Afford...

By Robert Willens • Oct. 3, 2011

It’s Still Not Easy Being Green

“Going for the Other Green” (September) was a great article. I have a financial background, so the substance of the piece truly resonated with me. In my current business, we’ve developed a unique sustainability option for large national manufacturers. Our solution could eliminate the cardboard ut...

By CFO Readers • Oct. 1, 2011

LivingSocial’s High-Growth Adventure

Marathon interview sessions, major technology upgrades, global expansion plans: LivingSocial finance chief John Bax has a to-do list that many CFOs would envy in these slow-growth times. Nearing the end of his first year at the fast-growing daily-deal website, Bax is helping the four-year-old com...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Oct. 1, 2011

CFOs Prefer a Simpler Tax Code, Even If They Don’t Save

There are many points on which most finance chiefs disagree with the country’s chief executive, President Obama. But they are united in their desire to change the corporate tax code, whose statutory rate of 35% ranks as one of the world’s highest.The President called for a reduction of the corpor...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Oct. 1, 2011

Give-and-Take on R&D

Ben Franklin may have cited taxes as one of two certainties in this life, but CFOs might disagree — at least when it comes to the taxability of research-and-development spending.For the past 30 years, companies have enjoyed a tax credit for increases in their R&D expenditures, but have never ...

By David Katz • Oct. 1, 2011

IRS Break on Independent Contractors Called Risky

The Internal Revenue Service has begun offering employers who have misclassified their employees as independent contractors a chance to come clean with a minimal amount of tax liability. But such employers should make sure they have erred before they come forward because reclassification could co...

By David Katz • Sept. 29, 2011

Excel - Rein In the Dueling Pivot Table Problem

TAGS: Excel, pivot tables, training, VBA, finance, report filters, macros Dipesh M. will receive an e-book copy of Learn Excel 2007-2010 from MrExcel for this question:  “I have set up two pivot tables. Each pivot table has some Report Filter fields. When I change the Report Filter field in the f...

By Bill Jelen • Sept. 28, 2011