Last Tax Break Standing

President Obama’s proposed limit on the tax benefits associated with income generated overseas is likely bad news for most multinational businesses. But there may be some consolation for  companies selling U.S-made goods overseas.  Experts say they’re seeing renewed interest in a lucrative but li...

By Alix Stuart • May 20, 2009

FASB Kills the “Q,” Stiffens Off-Balance-Sheet Reporting

The Financial Accounting Standards Board decided on Monday to require companies to disclose more about how they consolidate variable-interest entities and classify the transfer of financial assets as a sale. Further, the board will issue a standard in June that finally gets rid of qualifying spec...

By David Katz • May 19, 2009

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

Attack on the 7-foot-tall Woman

Besides wrangling with their lenders to keep fees and interest rates down and ensure their credit lines will be renewed, corporate borrowers making use of asset-based lending have had a new nuisance to deal with in recent months: bankers seem to be upping their due diligence by making more onsite...

By Sarah Johnson • May 19, 2009

Figuring Out the Fair Value of a Liability

The illiquid markets spawned by the subprime mortgage debacle and the subsequent credit crisis has left some corporations in the unusual position of recording a boost to income when booking a loss in value of a liability.Indeed, companies, particularly financial institutions, have recorded massiv...

By Robert Willens • May 18, 2009

Supreme Court to Rule on PCAOB’s Fate

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review a case that questions the constitionality of the creation of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The justices will consider whether the existence of the PCAOB violates the Constitution’s separation-of-powers princ...

By Sarah Johnson • May 18, 2009

U.K. Lawmakers Defend Fair Value

The U.K. House of Commons has gone to bat for fair-value accounting — and the International Accounting Standards Board — saying it was “a bridge too far” to expect accounting rules to compensate for bad decision-making by banks.The report by the House Treasury Committee, released last week, delve...

By Marie Leone • May 15, 2009

U.S. “Will Be The Outlier” Without IFRS

The United States will pay a high price for failing to adopt International Financial Reporting Standards within the next five years, an international accounting rulemaker told a European Commission conference audience last Thursday.“I believe it is in the interest of the United States to adopt IF...

By Tim Reason • May 12, 2009

Riding the Rails

It was an apt analogy. At a meeting last month of international accounting experts in London, Gene Ludwig, a former American banking supervisor, called for standard-setters to establish clear priorities for their work, given the myriad projects they face and the political pressure they are under....

By Jason Karaian • May 11, 2009

“Unchecking the Box” Could Lead to Fierce Debate

President Obama’s international tax proposals attempt to accomplish two major goals. First and foremost, the proposals seek to curtail the benefit of deferral of foreign earnings. The proposal does this by limiting the deduction of expenses — other than research and development expenses — that ar...

By Robert Willens • May 11, 2009

A Cornucopia of Cost Cuts

Bob Zobel’s job is running the internal finance function at XN Financial Services, a growing firm that creates specialized insurance products underwritten by Lloyd’s of London. His hobby, though, is “turning over little rocks.”That the hobby is part of the job doesn’t diminish Zobel’s zeal for di...

By David McCann • May 8, 2009

Import Duties: Bend Me, Shape Me, Any Way You Want Me

Import duties are the unloved stepchild of the tax department at smaller companies. In short, there’s a lack of appreciation for the amount of tax planning small and midsize businesses can do with respect to import duties. As a result, companies are missing “significant opportunities” to lower th...

By Marie Leone • May 8, 2009

PCAOB Knocks McGladrey on Loan-Loss Reserves

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s latest inspection report on McGladrey & Pullen criticizes the firm’s reviews of some of its clients’ allowances for loan losses.The firm “failed to perform sufficient audit procedures” when testing client accounting for the reserves, the PCAOB w...

By Sarah Johnson • May 8, 2009

Since Sarbox, Non-audit Fees Dove from 51% to 21%

Remember the Sarbanes-Oxley Act? In the furor over the current financial meltdown and its attendant cries for stiffer regulations, good old Sarbox has largely faded from the news. But according to a new study, one of its most prominent provisions — the one that seeks to insure auditors’ independe...

By David Katz • May 7, 2009

Deloitte to Pay $1M in Beazer Suit

Deloitte & Touche has agreed to pay investors of Beazer Homes USA nearly $1 million to settle claims the firm should have noticed the homebuilder was issuing inaccurate financial statements as the housing market began to decline earlier this decade.The audit firm, Beazer, and former Beazer ex...

By Sarah Johnson • May 7, 2009

European Ministers Put Pressure on Accounting Standards Board

The EU’s finance ministers and the European Commission are ratcheting up pressure on the setters of accounting standards in Europe to soften their rules on valuing assets.Finance ministers threatened to summon a representative of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) to their next m...

By European Voice Staff • May 7, 2009

Watch Out for the Expense-deferral Rule

The details are sketchy, but the intent is clear. President Obama is pushing Congress to rework tax rules affecting U.S. multinational corporations so that more revenue will flow back into the United States – about $210 billion over the next 10 years, according to the Treasury Department.Obama’s ...

By Marie Leone • May 5, 2009

‘Stepping Up’ to Make a Strategic Acquisition

Pharmacy benefits management company Express Scripts Inc. signed a definitive agreement last month with WellPoint Inc., under which Express Scripts will acquire Wellpoint’s “NextRx subsidiaries” for $4.675 billion — an amount which includes consideration “for the value of a future tax benefit for...

By Robert Willens • May 4, 2009

Study: Cash-Flow Margins Declining

Facing the risk of seeing their cash flows erode to a level not seen since the 2001 recession, companies can avoid the worst by staying focused on keeping their working capital requirements and capital expenditures down, a new study suggests.To be sure, the current downturn has been chipping away...

By Sarah Johnson • May 4, 2009

Attack of the Penny Savers

When Primo Water, a four-year-old maker of environmentally responsible bottled-water products, decided to trim travel costs, it took an unusual tack: public embarrassment.Starting with the new year, Primo began producing a monthly report ranking all company travelers by their travel expenses per ...

By David McCann • May 1, 2009

The Tax Men Cometh

Click here to download the complete results of the 2009 State Tax Survey.A small furniture manufacturer based in Arizona recently received a nexus survey — a questionnaire about the company’s business activity — from the state of Washington. With just two retail customers in the Evergreen State a...

By Kate O'Sullivan • May 1, 2009

The Next Accounting Controversy

Revisions to how companies account for off-balance-sheet items and loan-loss provisions will knock fair-value accounting off the front page with respect to financial reporting, according to James Kroeker, acting chief accountant at Securities and Exchange Commission.Further, new guidance on these...

By Marie Leone • April 30, 2009

Will Your Supplier Still Be Here Tomorrow?

The U.S. automotive industry’s wobbly supply chain has become shakier in recent months with an increasing number of auto-parts suppliers going belly-up or becoming financially distressed as their largest clients — the Big Three automakers — continue to lose money and pull back their business.The ...

By Sarah Johnson • April 29, 2009

Bonus Depreciation Is the Tip of the Tax Iceberg

If critics were unsure whether the bonus depreciation deduction would prod companies into making capital investments during a recession, they can stop wondering. According to a new survey, half of the more than 500 CFOs polled claimed that their companies have used, or plan to use, the bonus depr...

By Marie Leone • April 28, 2009

Real Estate ‘Put’ Option Could Help Defer Taxes

For quite some time, the Internal Revenue Code has allowed companies and individuals to defer tax payments if property of like kind is exchanged. To be sure, Section 1031(a) of Code states that no gain or loss is recognized on the exchange of property held for productive use in a trade or busines...

By Robert Willens • April 27, 2009

Critics Pan New Financial Statements

It’s been called the most dramatic overhaul of financial statements since the cash flow statement was introduced more than two decades ago. But when the comment period closed last week on the ideas for radically changing financial statements, the proposed design from the world’s accounting standa...

By Tim Reason • April 24, 2009