Interpublic Slapped with Wells Notice

Officials at advertising and marketing giant The Interpublic Group said the company received a “Wells Notice” from the Securities and Exchange Commission related to corporate restatements announced in 2002 and 2005. The Wells Notice invites the company to respond to SEC’s charges before the regul...

By Stephen Taub • June 14, 2007

Citrix to Restate Financials from 2004 to 2006

Citrix Systems Inc. said it will restate its 2004 and 2005 financial reports and interim quarterly filings for 2005 and 2006 to reflect additional non-cash stock-based compensation expenses and tax effects related to previously granted stock options.The amount of the additional non-cash compensat...

By Stephen Taub • June 14, 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

New Lease Accounting May Roil Retailers

Lease accounting hasn’t changed in more than 30 years. But with accounting standard setters now looking to rewrite they way companies show leases on their financial statements, a new study takes a look at what the impact might be on retailers, an industry particularly dependent on leasing. The re...

By Alan Rappeport • June 14, 2007

FASB Votes for Quick Repo Change

Changing the way companies account for repurchase financing agreements may generate a sizeable amount of public comment in the coming months. But the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s immediate worry is how to get the word out about the proposed changes while operating on a tight schedule.Th...

By Marie Leone • June 14, 2007

Aspen Slips Up on Securitization

Aspen Technology said it will restate results for several years after realizing that sales contracts signed with repeat customers had inadvertently undermined its ability to treat earlier receivables as part of a securitization sale.In a mistake that highlights just how fine the accounting line i...

By Stephen Taub and Tim Reason • June 12, 2007

Smoke Signal: Alliance One Finds Tax Errors

Alliance One International, Inc. said it will restate its results by $8.7 million for the three quarterly periods ended December 31, 2006 after it discovered errors related to income taxes.The tobacco merchant stressed that there will be no impact on the actual cash payments of income taxes, but ...

By Stephen Taub • June 12, 2007

HOG Clean on Channel-Stuffing: SEC

Harley-Davidson announced that the Securities and Exchange Commission has terminated a probe linked to claims of channel-stuffing made in shareholder lawsuits against the company. The SEC recommended no enforcement action.On July 11, 2005, Harley, whose ticker symbol later became HOG, had reporte...

By Stephen Taub • June 11, 2007

SEC Ends Thomas Group Options Probe

The Securities and Exchange Commission has ended its investigation into the way Thomas Group grants stock options and has taken no enforcement action, the professional services firm said on Friday. Earlier this year, the Thomas Group disclosed that it had conducted its own probe into the timing o...

By Sarah Johnson • June 8, 2007

Marriott Settles ESOP Dispute with IRS

Marriott International said Friday that it has reached a $220 million settlement with the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Labor following an IRS examination of its employee stock ownership plan.The after-tax charge will total $54 million, or 13 cents per share, and reduce sharehold...

By Alan Rappeport • June 8, 2007

PCAOB: Can Auditors Handle Fair Value?

As companies begin to expand their use of fair value accounting, their auditors may not be fully ready to evaluate that work. The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board is concerned that fair value accounting could put reliable auditing of financial reporting at risk, says PCAOB chairman Mark ...

By Sarah Johnson • June 7, 2007

PacNet to Restate Results

Pacific Internet Ltd. will restate its financial statements for the years 2000 through 2006 to consolidate the results of operations of two companies in which it holds equity interests. The Singapore-based telecommunications company said the impact on its revenues and net income will be less than...

By Stephen Taub • June 6, 2007

Levin Takes Aim at Stock Option Deductions

Once, stock options seemed a source of almost infinite wealth. Today, they seem to be the source of endless accounting debates.In the latest twist, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) is blaming the way companies account for stock options expenses and deduct taxes for them as a major contributor to the U.S...

By Sarah Johnson • June 5, 2007

Navistar to Get 10-K Rolling by October

Serial late-filer Navistar International said it expects to have its fiscal 2005 annual report ready within the next four months. The company’s 2005 Form 10-K contains restated financials for fiscal years 2003, 2004, and the first three quarters of 2005.Once the 2005 filing is complete, Navistar ...

By Stephen Taub • June 4, 2007

Taming the Trib’s Tax Trouble

Tribune Co. said it reached a settlement in its appeal of the 2005 Tax Court decision that had disallowed the tax-free reorganization of Matthew Bender, a former legal-textbook-publishing unit of Tribune’s Times Mirror subsidiary.Under the proposed settlement, the Chicago-based media conglomerate...

By Stephen Taub • June 4, 2007

Food Fights

First it was E. coli in spinach, then Salmonella in peanut butter, then melamine in pet food. When quality controls in the food supply chain break down, the results can be deadly. The risks dwarf anything faced by makers of khakis, couches, or most other consumer goods. The human cost is incalcul...

By Randy Myers • June 1, 2007

FASB: Let Managers Call It Quits

Management, and not auditors, may soon have the primary responsibility of assessing whether a company is a going concern. On Wednesday, members of the Financial Accounting Standards Board voted unanimously to develop a standard that explicitly states that the duty of determining whether a company...

By Marie Leone • May 31, 2007

Computer Sciences Finds “Significant” Tax Errors

Computer Sciences Corp. said it discovered “significant errors” in its accounting for tax liabilities in fiscal years 2000 through 2006.Correcting the errors, as well as less significant slip-ups, will result in a total charge of $300 million to $400 million through March 31, 2006. The amount doe...

By Stephen Taub • May 31, 2007

PwC: CFOs Predict a Fair-Value Headache

The switch to fair-value reporting is the biggest accounting issue for financial services CFOs this year, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey. More than one quarter of finance executives predict that the new Financial Accounting Standards Board’s rules regarding fair value will have the ...

By Sarah Johnson • May 30, 2007

Current, Former E&Y Partners Indicted On Tax Shelters

Two current and two former partners of Ernst & Young–one a former branch chief of the Internal Revenue Service–have been indicted for tax fraud conspiracy and related crimes involving tax shelters promoted by the big Four accounting firm.The defendants “concocted and marketed tax shelter tran...

By Stephen Taub • May 30, 2007

SEC Clears Stage Stores’ Inventory Accounting

Stage Stores is reporting that the Securities and Exchange will not be taking any action against the company as a result of the commission’s probe of the specialty retailer’s inventory-accounting practices.Stage said it received a letter from the commission’s Division of Enforcement stating that...

By Stephen Taub • May 30, 2007

PHH Filing Delays Could Derail Merger

Last year, PCC Corp. shelled out $44 million to complete its 2005 annual report. In fact, it paid $250,000 to CFO Clair M. Raubenstine, who had joined the company in February 2006, for overseeing the filing, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Despite all those outlays, however, the provider ...

By Stephen Taub • May 29, 2007

Princeton Review Fires E&Y

The Princeton Review said Friday it has fired Ernst & Young LLP as its independent accounting firm, effective immediately, and replaced it with Grant Thornton LLP.The provider of test preparation and educational support services stressed in a regulatory filing that in connection with the audi...

By Stephen Taub • May 29, 2007

Adelphia Duo Lose Appeal

Adelphia Communications founder John Rigas and his son Timothy are another step closer to spending many years behind bars.On Thursday an appeals court upheld their July 2004 convictions for their roles in one of the more infamous corporate scandals of recent years, a massive fraud that bankrupted...

By Stephen Taub • May 25, 2007

Duane Reade Subpoenaed over Lease Deals

Duane Reade has disclosed that it received a grand jury subpoena from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York for documents related to certain real estate transactions. The drugstore chain also announced that it will restate its results for 2000 through 2004.In a regulato...

By Stephen Taub • May 25, 2007

New Errors at New Century

New Century Financial has disclosed errors in its financial statements for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2005, related to the accounting and reporting of loan repurchase losses and the company’s valuation of certain residual interests in securitizations.In a regulatory filing, the bankrupt s...

By Stephen Taub • May 25, 2007