Auditors to Help with Bailout? PwC and E&Y

The Treasury Department chose PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and Ernst & Young to help implement its $700 billion bailout plan.The government agency said the firms will provide Treasury with the accounting and internal controls services needed to administer the complex portfolio of troubled asset...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 21, 2008

Just in Case: FASB to Clarify Bankruptcy Issues

The Financial Accounting Standards Board on October 9, issued two proposed statements of financial accounting standards (exposure drafts) that may become more relevant as the credit crisis continues. One deals with the circumstances under which a reporting entity must acknowledge that its status ...

By Robert Willens • Oct. 20, 2008

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

Good News for Joe the Plumber: FIN 48 Is Delayed

Joe the Plumber can breathe a sigh of relief about uncertain tax positions. The small-business icon, who rose to national prominence during the final Obama-McCain debate, will not have to comply with the accounting rule known as FIN 48 this year.The Financial Accounting Standards Board voted on W...

By Marie Leone • Oct. 17, 2008

Walker Makes Plea to CFOs

David M. Walker, the former U.S. comptroller general, is asking CFOs to help the federal government dig itself out of its $50 trillion deficit. On Thursday, at the CFO Rising West conference in Las Vegas, Walker suggested that the expertise and influence of corporate finance chiefs could prevent ...

By Sarah Johnson • Oct. 17, 2008

Rulemakers: Take Politics out of Accounting

The Securities and Exchange Commission has set up “arbitrary” dates in its proposal to move all U.S. publicly traded companies to international financial reporting standards by 2010, says Ed Trott, a former member of the Financial Accounting Standards Board.Trott joined Public Company Accounting ...

By Sarah Johnson • Oct. 17, 2008

In Data Tagging, Auditors Feel Left Out

The Institute of Internal Auditors says it will release guidance on the role of audit executives in the new process of filing financial statements with interactive data.The announcement by the IIA is in response to a survey conducted by which found that as data-tagged XBRL filing becomes a reali...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 16, 2008

Accounting Boards Hang on to the Bottom Line

Even though times are tough, reports of the death of earnings have been greatly exaggerated.At least on corporate income statements. To be sure, early staff drafts of a paper by the Financial Accounting Standards Board the International Accounting Standards Board on how companies should present t...

By David Katz • Oct. 16, 2008

Credit Crunch Team in the Works

While central bankers and G7 leaders work to form panels to respond to the global banking crisis, accounting standard-setters are doing their part to do the same. On Thursday, the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board created an advisory group ...

By Marie Leone • Oct. 16, 2008

Don’t Suspend Fair Value, Cox Urged

Two days after the president of the American Bankers Association asked Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox to, in effect, weaken the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s fair-value measurement rules, investor and auditor representatives fired off a letter to Cox urging h...

By David Katz • Oct. 15, 2008

SEC Allows Special Accounting for “Perpetual Preferred”

The Securities and Exchange Commission has agreed to allow issuers to delay writedowns on “perpetual preferred securities” that are showing paper losses.The valuation losses on these securities could amount to more than $640 billion, according to Bloomberg News, which first reported on the letter...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 15, 2008

Fair Value Tweaking on a Global Scale

In response to the global credit crisis, the International Accounting Standards Board has made its third announcement in as many days about slight changes to fair value accounting rules. The proposal issued today is a tweak to IASB’s financial instrument disclosure rule, which is out for public c...

By Marie Leone • Oct. 15, 2008

Revenue Recognition Rules Hamper Biotech Firms

As the Financial Accounting Standards Board wrestles with ways to fix revenue recognition accounting, biotechnology firms say they are facing what one new study calls “unnecessary hurdles” caused by the outdated existing standard. According to a the study — released by the Biotechnology Industry ...

By Alan Rappeport • Oct. 14, 2008

In the Bailout, Which Taxpayers Win?

The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, popularly known as the bailout legislation, contains tax provisions that will benefit some taxpayers and penalize others. Among the widely-reported authorities the new law grants, the $700-billion government bailout legislation allows the Treasury...

By Robert Willens • Oct. 14, 2008

Banks to SEC: Overrule FASB Fair-Value Guidance

Stepping up its attack on mark-to-market accounting, the American Bankers Association today called on the Securities and Exchange Commission to override guidance issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board on how to apply FASB’s controversial standard on disclosures of fair-value measureme...

By David Katz • Oct. 13, 2008

Fair Value Guidance to Go Live

The Financial Accounting Standards Board will likely issue final guidance on fair value accounting by Monday. The board is working today and perhaps over the weekend to tweak some of the language to clarify how assets in illiquid markets are valued. FASB decided to rework two sections of the draf...

By Marie Leone • Oct. 10, 2008

CFOs Want More Disclosure on Auditor Exits

Seven of 10 finance executives believe companies should be required to provide more detail when they change auditors, according to a new survey by Grant Thornton.The accounting firm specifically asked 688 chief financial officers and senior comptrollers: Should the SEC enhance the 8-K rules to re...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 10, 2008

Fair Value: A Matter of Judgment

When the Securities and Exchange Commission and Financial Accounting Standards Board issued proposed fair-value accounting guidance last week, they may have eased the minds of many conservative, honest accountants who are wary of basing estimates largely on their own assumptions. Under pressure f...

By Sarah Johnson • Oct. 9, 2008

Europe in Lock Step with U.S. Fair Value

The parent organization of the International Accounting Standards Board announced support for the standard-setter’s “accelerate” response to the global credit crisis — support that includes embracing the clarification of fair value standards issued last week by the U.S. Financial Accounting Stand...

By Marie Leone • Oct. 9, 2008

Goldman Saw Fall in Fair-valued Assets

Goldman Sachs said the value of its Level 3 assets — those determined by “unobservable inputs” — fell 13 percent in its August third quarter, to $67.9 billion from $78.1 billion at the end of May.These illiquid, hardest-to-value assets were rated as worth $69.2 last November, according to the ban...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 8, 2008

New Tips for Testing Fair Value amid Turmoil

Another standard-setter has entered the fray to try helping accountants and auditors deal with fair-value rules during the credit crisis. The guidance — from the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) — is the latest in a rush of advice geared to dealing with the intricacies...

By Sarah Johnson • Oct. 7, 2008

Let the Fair Value Scrutiny Begin

The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act gave the Securities and Exchange Commission 90 days to study the effects of fair-value accounting. And today, the regulator announced that it will hold roundtables on the subject, appointing deputy chief accountant James Kroeker, a former Deloitte & To...

By Sarah Johnson • Oct. 7, 2008

EU Relents on Some Mark-to-Market Accounting

As the growing chorus of critics blames mark-to-market accounting rules for much of the global financial-markets meltdown, European Union finance ministers apparently concur — and are eager to do something about it.Today, the ministers agreed to allow EU banks to follow the same policy that was a...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 7, 2008

The Global Fair-Value Fight

The political stampede against fair-value accounting is intensifying outside the United States as much as inside it. The uproar has U.S. and global standard-setters scrambling to come up with new guidance, examples, and meetings to refute the notion that their guidelines for marking assets and li...

By Sarah Johnson • Oct. 6, 2008

PwC Zapped in $97.5 Million Settlement

PricewaterhouseCoopers agreed to pay $97.5 million to the state of Ohio to settle a class-action lawsuit on behalf of investors in troubled insurer American International Group, which uses PwC as its independent auditor. The “partial” settlement, on Friday, came after the Ohio Public Employees Re...

By Alan Rappeport • Oct. 6, 2008

Fair Cop

IN FIRING their bazookas at the crisis, policymakers have blown holes in rules on everything from share trading to competition policy. It is therefore a miracle that fair-value accounting standards have not been hit too, in particular the requirement that banks “mark-to-market” most of their fina...

By Economist Staff • Oct. 2, 2008