Audit Firm Bigs Cite Lust for Global Standards

The push for a single set of global accounting standards has reached fever pitch. At least that’s what the heads of major accounting firms are claiming. After two years of convening roundtables in such financial centers as Cape Town, Tokyo, New York, Santiago, and Paris, a group of jet-setting ch...

By Marie Leone • Jan. 15, 2008

“Bill and Hold” Causes Diebold to Restate

Diebold Inc. said it will restate its results for the four years ended 2006 and the first quarter of 2007 to revise its method of recognizing revenue. The changes are in response to discussions with Securities and Exchange Commission.In addition, the company, which makes automated teller machines...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 15, 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

IFRS Gets Push from Accounting Giants

The world’s six largest accounting firms are pushing for the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).Tuesday, top executives from Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, Grant Thornton, and BDO Seidman published a paper asserting they hav...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 15, 2008

Poorly Trained Finance Worker Makes $152M Flub

A mid-level employee in the finance department at Ace Hardware caused a $152 million accounting discrepancy between general ledger and actual inventory, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.As a result, the cooperatively owned retailer must restate its earnings for fiscal years 2004 through 2006, acco...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 14, 2008

New Merger Rules May Spark Cash Deals

New accounting rules may affect the structure and timing and timing of mergers. As a result, companies will have to rethink how much equity or cash to plow into a deal, what kinds of share-price restrictions to apply, and when’s the best time to close a transaction.The rules, two released by the...

By Marie Leone • Jan. 14, 2008

Audit Costs Not Affected by Big Four’s Stronghold: GAO

Since the collapse of Arthur Andersen six years ago, large publicly traded companies have felt stuck. They have grumbled about their lack of choices for accounting firms and have partly blamed that for the recent rise of auditing fees. But they don’t have the support of the U.S. government’s own...

By Sarah Johnson • Jan. 14, 2008

Marketing GAAP

The Financial Accounting Standards Board isn’t known for its marketing prowess. As the caretaker of America’s accounting standards, the outfit is often derided for spawning overly rigid and complex rules. What’s more, while its international counterpart hands out its standards to anyone who will ...

By Alan Rappeport • Jan. 11, 2008

Coupling: Americans Do It International Style

The accounting world got a little bit smaller on Thursday when the International Accounting Standards Board published revised rules on mergers and acquisitions. The rules, which the IASB said “reinforce” rather than change existing standards, will ensure that transactions are accounted for the sa...

By Marie Leone • Jan. 10, 2008

Giuliani Poses Deep Corporate Tax Cuts

In what may be viewed as a potential godsend to corporations or a desperate bid to bolster sagging poll results, Republican presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani said Thursday that he wants to lower the corporate tax rate by a whopping 10 percentage points, all the way down to 25 percent. “Ens...

By Stephen Taub and Marie Leone • Jan. 10, 2008

Slow Death for GAAP: Cox

Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox on Thursday pushed away criticism that the SEC is moving too fast toward allowing U.S.-based companies to use international financial reporting standards. The concern is that such a measure would hasten the demise of U.S. generally accep...

By Sarah Johnson • Jan. 10, 2008

E.U. Drops Reconciliation Requirement

The European Union took another step toward convergence of international accounting standards by announcing on Tuesday that foreign-based companies doing business in E.U. countries no longer will have to reconcile their financial statements with E.U. standards.The new regulation, to take effect i...

By Alan Rappeport • Jan. 9, 2008

Trial Begins in AIG Fraud Case

The trial of five executives in American International Group’s financial fraud case got under way Monday, with the prosecutor saying that AIG patriarch Maurice “Hank” Greenberg set the scheme in motion in 2000. Greenberg was never charged, but four former executives of General Re — whose loss-p...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 8, 2008

KB Home Pins Hopes on Future Tax Benefits

KB Home took a page from the tax management book of Hovnanian Enterprises when it reported a big write-off that included a $514.32 million valuation allowance. The allowance is related to its deferred tax assets (DTAs) and is reflected as a charge to fourth quarter income tax expense as of Novemb...

By Stephen Taub and Marie Leone • Jan. 8, 2008

Deloitte Dumped for 43 Percent Discount

When Catapult Communications Corp. made the uncommon decision to drop a Big Four accounting firm in favor of a local, smaller auditor, it also took the unusual step of announcing its reason for the switch: Deloitte & Touche, Catapult’s auditor of the past two years, was simply not offering th...

By Sarah Johnson • Jan. 8, 2008

FASB Gets the GAAP House in Order

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has compiled all of the GAAP guidance into one spot, creating a one-stop source to which accountants can turn with their accounting questions. Begun nearly six years ago, FASB’s codification project aims to simplify financial reporting.The codification wil...

By Sarah Johnson • Jan. 8, 2008

Subprime Mess Overtakes GAAP Gaffes

Allegations of accounting violations in securities class-action lawsuits waned last year, according to a new review of the 2007 filings. The percentage of complaints accusing companies of violating generally accepted accounting principles made up only 42 percent of federal filings, compared with ...

By Sarah Johnson • Jan. 4, 2008

Waste Management Case Finally Ends

The former CFO of Waste Management must pay more than $4 million as part of a final SEC judgment on one of the largest accounting frauds of the 1990s.The judgment also permanently bars James Koenig from acting as an officer or director of a public company and enjoins him from future violations o...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 3, 2008

Vivendi Knocked for “Aggressive” Accounting

French financial investigators are bitterly criticizing the accounting practices of Vivendi Universal during the years it was run by CEO Jean-Marie Messier, Agence France Presse reported, citing a story in the financial daily La Tribune. According to the French wire service, a report the investi...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 3, 2008

Customer Relations Gone Wild

The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed civil charges against Joseph Apuzzo, the former CFO of Terex Corp., for allegedly helping a customer, United Rentals, in an accounting fraud scheme. Apuzzo is the second CFO charged in the matter. On December 12 the SEC settled financial fraud cha...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 2, 2008

Long Live the King?

Even before the Securities and Exchange Commission made a key move in November to advance the convergence of generally accepted accounting principles and international financial reporting standards, many leaders in the accounting world were wondering aloud what that effort would mean for the futu...

By Sarah Johnson • Jan. 1, 2008

Carbon Trading

In northern Louisiana, ecologists are creating a new forest — one Beetle at a time. In a floodplain known as the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley, nearly 250,000 trees are being planted by a not-for-profit group called Carbonfund.org. Funding for the massive project, however, is coming from a de...

By John Goff • Jan. 1, 2008

Why VSOE Spells Trouble

Ever since 1963, the year it first issued shares in New York, Japanese electronics giant NEC Corp. has proudly reported its financial results according to U.S. generally accepted accounting principles. The $42 billion (in revenues) maker of computers, monitors, and semiconductors was so steeped i...

By Alix Stuart • Jan. 1, 2008

Lifting the Handicap

The race is on to cut corporate tax rates around the world. Last year, eight countries, including Germany and the Netherlands, cut their corporate tax rates. The year before, five countries did the same. Now the question is: Will the United States join the competition — and if so, when?“Right now...

By Lori Calabro • Jan. 1, 2008

Deloitte to Pay $38 Million in Delphi Case

Deloitte & Touche LLP has agreed to pay more than $38 million to settle claims related to an accounting scandal at Delphi Corp., according to Grant & Eisenhofer, co-lead counsel for the lead plaintiffs.The case stems from alleged accounting improprieties at the bankrupt auto-parts maker t...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 28, 2007

Ringing in the Restatements

Three companies hoping to start the new year with a clean slate announced significant restatements during the last full week of 2007. Sanyo Electric said on Tuesday that it would restate prior earnings reports after the electronics company admitted it had understated losses from subsidiaries for ...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 27, 2007