Symmetry’s UK Accounting Out of Sync

Accounting irregularities at the UK unit of orthopedic-implant maker Symmetry Medical Inc. may require the company to restate prior financials and has caused it to default on its bank debt.Symmetry says employees at its Sheffield operating unit who are believed to be primarily involved in the acc...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 5, 2007

SEC: Size Doesn’t Matter

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged a tiny company and two of its former top executives, including the interim CFO, with fraudulently using a legal judgment to boost earnings. The SEC also charged the former executives with backdating Sarbanes-Oxley certifications. To be sure, the ...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 4, 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

FEI Pushes for Fair-Value Deadline Delay

Financial Executives International has asked the Financial Accounting Standards Board to give companies a one-year break before their deadline to comply with FASB’s new fair-value standard.In a letter sent to FASB earlier this week, two FEI members said companies won’t be ready by year-end to pr...

By Sarah Johnson • Oct. 4, 2007

Deloitte Quits as Radian’s Auditor

Deloitte & Touche has decided to stop serving as Radian Group’s independent accountant after the company files its third-quarter report, Radian announced. The relationship was scheduled to end had Radian completed its merger with MGIC Investment Corp, but Radian and MGIC agreed on September...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 3, 2007

Rectifier Tries to Live Up to Its Name

International Rectifier Corp. said it has shifted reporting of its internal audit function to the board’s audit committee and the general counsel as part of a larger effort to improve internal controls and corporate governance. The maker of power-management products also announced that Alex Lidow...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 3, 2007

Diebold to Change Revenue Recognition

Diebold, Inc. said it may decide to restate its financial statements for the year ended December 2006 and the first quarter of 2007 after it completes an in-depth analysis of its revenue recognition practices. The company Tuesday said it has been discussing with the Office of the Chief Accountan...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 2, 2007

Paulson Names Auditing Group

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced on Tuesday the members of the auditing advisory committee that will recommend ways to strengthen financial reporting and improve the transparency of the auditing profession. Formed in May, the committee will examine auditing industry concentration, finan...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 2, 2007

Payback: Tribune Collects a Tax Refund

Tribune Co. said it received a $344 million tax refund after settling a dispute with the Internal Revenue Service in tax court. The media giant said the settlement, announced in June,yielded a net cash payout of $286 million.The company appealed a 2005 tax court decision disallowing the tax-free...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 2, 2007

Coherent to Restate Over Backdating

Coherent Inc. said Friday that it expects to restate certain previously issued financial statements to correct errors related to the backdating of stock options. The restatement will reflect additional non-cash compensation totaling between $22 million and $28 million pre-tax, the laser manufact...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 1, 2007

Rewriting the Rules

Now the hard part begins. Five years after the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed, its raison d’être — to improve corporate transparency and thus boost investor confidence — has been realized, at least to a degree. Debates still rage about how much credit the act can claim for Wall Street’s (pre-subpr...

By Michelle Leder • Oct. 1, 2007

Does the SEC Want to Control Accounting?

Experts from outside the United States last week publicly aired their suspicions about a U.S. land grab—in the area of accounting rulemaking, that is.As the SEC’s comment period on its proposal to eliminate the need for reconciliation between the U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAA...

By Alan Rappeport • Oct. 1, 2007

PCAOB Audit Gives Crowe Chizek Higher Marks

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s 2006 inspection of auditor Crowe Chizek notes deficiencies in the audits of three of the firm’s clients. The report, released late last week, reflects a contrast of the second-tier firm’s performance compared to its larger brethren. Examining the au...

By Sarah Johnson • Oct. 1, 2007

AIG Investors Sue PwC over Huge Restatement

American International Group shareholders have renewed their claims against former auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers and about four dozen other companies and individuals in an amended derivative lawsuit related to the insurer’s massive restatement in 2005, according to Reuters. The shareholders are...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 1, 2007

Martha Stewart’s 97-Point Mistake

It’s not as bad as going to jail for illegal insider trading, or even having to pay your shareholders $30 million to settle a lawsuit claiming they were duped. But as sales-reporting errors go, this one’s a whopper.Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia had reported 125 percent sales growth for its “sof...

By Stephen Taub and David McCann • Sept. 28, 2007

Bill Threatens Stock-Option Tax Break

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) introduced a bill Friday that would change the way companies deduct stock-option expenses on their tax bills. The legislation, his third try at such a bill, could have added momentum because of the recent regulatory focus on accounting for stock options. Lawmakers’ conce...

By Sarah Johnson • Sept. 28, 2007

Sweeping Away GAAP

At an industry conference Friday morning, Financial Accounting Standards Board chairman Robert Herz said he expects that U.S. companies eventually will be made to follow a single accounting standard. That standard, he said, would be International Financial Reporting Standards, not U.S. generally ...

By Marie Leone • Sept. 28, 2007

Regulator’s Quandary: Which IFRS to Use?

A proposal to allow foreign companies to use international accounting standards when filing in the United States is drawing cautionary reactions from the U.S. and abroad. Some comments submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission, for example, reflect a lack of clarity about which version ...

By Alan Rappeport • Sept. 27, 2007

SEC Settles Accounting Charges with Freddie Mac

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday settled charges that Freddie Mac and four of its former executives, including its one-time CFO, perpetrated a multibillion-dollar accounting fraud.The four charged were David Glenn, president, chief operating officer, and vice chairman of the bo...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 27, 2007

Report: Cendant’s Silverman Knew about Fraud

Ever since the accounting scandal broke at Cendant Corp. during the 1990s, its then-chief executive Henry Silverman maintained he was an innocent victim because the fraud took place at CUC International before it was acquired by Cendant’s predecessor company, HFS.But new legal documents seem to ...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 27, 2007

Pall Shelves Four Staffers in Tax Probe

Pall Corp. today placed four finance employees on administrative leave pending completion of an internal probe into a previously disclosed understatement of the company’s U.S. income tax payments. The company, which makes industrial filtration systems, also deposited $135 million with the Intern...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 26, 2007

A Woman’s Place Is in the Firm

Three of the Big Four auditing firms — Ernst & Young, KPMG, and PricewaterhouseCoopers — have ranked among Working Mother magazine’s top-10 list for best places to work for mothers. Other companies on the top 10 list: Baptist Health South Florida, Booz Allen Hamilton, General Mills, IBM, McGr...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 25, 2007

EDS Settles Charges of Inadequate Disclosure

EDS agreed to pay $491,000 to settle a number of accounting and securities law violations, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission.In addition, the former president of its Indian subsidiary agreed to pay a $70,000 penalty to settle bribery charges.The SEC’s order found that EDS failed...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 25, 2007

H&R Block Drops KPMG

H&R Block reported that it ha dropped its auditor, KPMG, because two of the tax-services company’s three newest directors are monitoring the Big Four firm’s deferred prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice.The Block directors overseeing the accounting firm’s adherence to its pros...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 24, 2007

GAO Wants Inflation-Adjusted Bite in Tax Penalties

Companies that file tardy tax returns – or don’t file at all – could face larger penalties than in the past if Congress pays heed to a new study from the Government Accountability Office. The study shows that by adjusting civil tax penalties for inflation, the Internal Revenue Service could both ...

By Marie Leone • Sept. 24, 2007

NEC Gives Up over Revenue Recognition

NEC Corp. says it is stumped by U.S. accounting rules for revenue recognition and has given up trying to comply with them.The Japanese electronics giant says it realizes this will likely lead to the delisting of its ADR shares on Nasdaq. It also says it will not be able to file its 2006 annual re...

By Tim Reason • Sept. 21, 2007