Diebold’s “Bill and Hold” Probe Widens

Diebold Inc. said the Justice Department has become the latest government agency to launch an investigation into accounting practices. In early October, the maker of automated-teller machines, security systems, and voting machines warned it may restate its financial statements for the year ended ...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 26, 2007

IRS Revises Tax-Exempt Filing Form

The IRS has updated the form that charities and other tax-exempt organizations use to file their annual returns.The new Form 990 allows organizations to describe their exempt accomplishments and missions up front and provides more opportunities throughout to explain their activities. Other major ...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 21, 2007

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

Best of 2007: Accounting

There can be little doubt that in terms of accounting, the biggest stories of the year were the huge rise in momentum in the move toward the international convergence of financial-reporting standards and the rise of fair-value accounting. But the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s replac...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Dec. 21, 2007

Dutch Company Snared in Iraq Scheme

A Dutch pharmaceutical company has agreed to pay more than $2.5 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges stemming from improper payments to Iraq under the United Nations’s Oil for Food Program. The regulator charged that Akzo Nobel NV knew, or was reckless in not knowing, that...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 21, 2007

Deft Tax Move Makes Best of Bad Situation

Hovnanian Enterprises said on Tuesday that it was unsure of its ability to earn enough income to take advantage of tax deductions it had accumulated. The notice came in a regulatory filing in which the homebuilder disclosed that it would book a $216 million valuation allowance for the fourth quar...

By Stephen Taub and Marie Leone • Dec. 20, 2007

Report: Lease Financing on the Rise

More than half of the $1.1 trillion invested in plant, equipment, and software last year was financed through leasing, loans, and credit, according to a report released Tuesday by the Equipment Leasing and Finance Association.American industries used such financing as leases, loans, or lines of c...

By Alan Rappeport • Dec. 19, 2007

Downsizing FASB

The parent organization of the Financial Accounting Standards Board aims to shrink the size of the standard-setting organization and give more power to its chairman, according to a proposal expected to be released late Tuesday afternoon.The Financial Accounting Foundation plans to recommend cutti...

By Tim Reason and Marie Leone • Dec. 18, 2007

Ex-CEO Settles with Ahold

The former chief executive of Ahold’s U.S. unit agreed to pay the company $8 million to settle charges in the Dutch food giant’s accounting scandal. Ahold said the settlement with James Miller, who was CEO of U.S. Foodservice, does not imply that Miller acknowledged liability. The pending litiga...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 18, 2007

Tale of Two Deficits: It’s All in the Accounting

The federal government on Monday announced that its budget deficit for fiscal year 2007 will be the lowest in five years, $162.8 billion. However, that mild good news comes with a caveat. The government’s calculation was arrived at by using the cash-flow method, under which expenses are recorded...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 18, 2007

Feds’ Financials Flunk, Again

The Government Accountability Office was prevented from rendering an audit opinion of the federal government’s financial results, citing “serious” material weaknesses affecting the nation’s financial systems, fundamental recordkeeping, and financial reporting. The 2007 Financial Report of the U...

By Marie Leone • Dec. 17, 2007

Could You Switch to IFRS in 3 Years?

Following a 2002 mandate from the European Commission, European companies took three years to change over their financial reporting systems from their home-country GAAP to International Financial Reporting Standards. By most public accounts, the change generally went smoothly for the companies th...

By Sarah Johnson • Dec. 17, 2007

Whistle-blower Shouted Down

A Chinese maker of solar wafers that trades on the New York Stock Exchange said an investigation of an alleged inventory irregularity found no material errors. LDK Solar Co., which has an office in Sunnyvale, Calif., said charges of a discrepancy in its silicon feedstock inventory were incorrect...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 17, 2007

Finance Bigs Like Mandated Global Accounting Rules

The Securities and Exchange Commission should let U.S. companies choose between GAAP and international financial reporting standards, said a group of finance and accounting luminaries participating in a roundtable discussion at the regulator’s headquarters on Thursday. But that choice will surely...

By Sarah Johnson • Dec. 13, 2007

Jury Finds Accounting Firm Guilty

In a case that tested the bounds of auditor liability, a jury in Virginia found accounting firm Goodman & Company guilty of aiding and abetting a client company that allegedly breached its fiduciary responsibilities. Yet despite the guilty verdict, the jury did not award damages to the plain...

By Marie Leone • Dec. 13, 2007

H&R Block a Day Late, a Dollar Short

H&R Block warned that it does not expect to be in compliance with a capital plan required by the Office of Thrift Supervision by its deadline next spring and said it may have to issue additional debt or equity.The company is subject to a 3 percent minimum ratio of adjusted tangible capital to...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 13, 2007

Loose Ends Short Circuit Financials

Merix Corp., a small maker of printed circuit boards, said in a regulatory filing that it will restate it financials for the first fiscal quarter ended September 1, 2007 after discovering an assortment of accounting errors.The most significant mistake was the result of the company authorizing a ...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 12, 2007

The Restatement Bandwagon

A flurry of companies announced early this week that they are finally current with their regulatory filings or that they have restated prior results.• Navistar International said it “achieved a significant milestone” toward becoming a current filer by filing its 2005 annual report, which include...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 11, 2007

Global Accounting Board Cheered, Jeered on Transparency

The London-based International Accounting Standards Board is seen by some as the future financial reporting standard-setter for the entire world. Last week, One World Trust, a research consultancy, seemed to strengthen the case for that possibility by providing the IASB with stellar marks for org...

By Alan Rappeport • Dec. 11, 2007

Audit Watchdog Issues Subprime Alert

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has issued a so-called practice alert to help auditors navigate financial statements affected by actual and expected losses brought on by the credit crisis.Specifically, the alert, which was released on Monday, focuses on issues related to Financial A...

By Marie Leone • Dec. 11, 2007

PCAOB Fines Deloitte $1 Million

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has censured and penalized Deloitte & Touche $1 million for not following the PCAOB’s auditing standards during a 2003 audit. Deloitte had knowingly allowed one of its partners who was apparently in over his head to lead an audit of a drug maker’s...

By Sarah Johnson • Dec. 10, 2007

Playing Games

Opera singers aren’t the only ones who like to end on a high note. In a bid to boost the year-end results featured in their annual reports, companies across Europe are going to great lengths to slash working capital in the fourth quarter. However, these improvements often prove unsustainable, res...

By Jason Karaian • Dec. 10, 2007

The Smell of Money

“We had no choice; we just didn’t have enough money.” That’s how Lyn Harris, owner of high-end perfume company Miller Harris in London, describes her decision not to follow the mass-market route of other perfumers. Rather, shortly after setting up shop in 2000, she launched Nouvelles Editions, a ...

By Janet Kersnar • Dec. 10, 2007

M&A Error Trips Up Software Company

Unify Corp. officials said that an accounting error would force the company to restate its financial results for the fiscal year ended April 30, 2007, as well as for the quarters ended January 31, 2007 and July 31, 2007.The announcement comes less than two week after the company reported its resu...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 10, 2007

Internal Controls Lost in the Iraqi Desert

A security services unit in Iraq does not have full command of its finances, according to an audit report released by the Department of Defense’s inspector general office earlier this week. Indeed, the unit, called the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq, lacks proof of whether some o...

By Sarah Johnson • Dec. 7, 2007

The Economics of IFRS

The eventual transition to a single, international financial reporting standard will not merely affect companies. Making IFRS mandatory will also affect the markets in every country — and many believe the change will be for the better. Two new studies discuss the optimism about the future of a gl...

By Alan Rappeport • Dec. 7, 2007