FASB Pops the Questions

Required summer reading: Once, that meant dragging a sandy, Coppertone-stained copy of Homer’s Iliad to the beach in final summer weeks before school — and Classic Lit 401 — started up again. If members of the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s Advisory Council (FASAC) thought those days were...

By Marie Leone • Aug. 7, 2006

New Leasing Rules Could Add Assets

The lease-accounting project recently proposed by the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) could result in hundreds of billions of dollars added to corporate balance sheets, according to a new Standard & Poor’s report.The new lease-accou...

By Stephen Taub • Aug. 3, 2006

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 Transfer Pricing Regs, New Headaches

In a move that affects all U.S. and foreign multinational companies, the U.S. Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service have issued proposed and temporary regulations on how services transactions are taxed under the transfer pricing rules. The regulations could affect management, legal...

By Helen Shaw • Aug. 2, 2006

Publisher Blames Finance VP for Errors

An internal probe at an educational publisher found that the former vice president of finance at one of its units “bears primary responsibility for the accounting misstatements” that forced the company to restate results.ProQuest said the investigation by its audit committee and outsiders, includ...

By Stephen Taub • Aug. 2, 2006

The Money Bowl

It’s enough to make legendary college-football broadcaster Keith Jackson cry, “Whoa, Nellie!”During a three-year project completed in 1999, the University of Texas spent $90 million to upgrade and expand the football stadium on its Austin campus. Now, less than seven years later, Texas is at it a...

By Joseph McCafferty • Aug. 1, 2006

Pension Dissension

Companies generally pride themselves on being forward-looking, but many are balking at the idea of looking ahead to future pension obligations and affixing a firm price tag on today’s balance sheet. That has emerged as the biggest, but by no means only, bone of contention as companies, the Financ...

By Russ Banham • Aug. 1, 2006

GAO to SEC: Probe 8-Ks for Restatements

The Government Accountability Office recommended last week that the Securities and Exchange Commission investigate potential noncompliance by public companies with 8-K filing requirements that may have caused restatement information to slip through the cracks.The SEC should make its guidance to p...

By David Katz • Aug. 1, 2006

SEC to Ban Adelphia Auditor

The engagement partner in charge of Deloitte and Touche’s audit of Adelphia Communications was banned for life from appearing before the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to an initial decision by an SEC Administrative Law Judge.In its decision, the SEC concluded that former Deloitte ...

By Stephen Taub • July 28, 2006

PCAOB Alerts Auditors on Backdating

Two days after the Securities and Exchange Commission issued executive-pay-disclosure rules mandating that corporations report on the backdating of stock-option grants, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board issued guidance to auditors on the same subject.In putting out Friday’s guidance, ...

By David Katz • July 28, 2006

What Backdating Means For You

With dozens of firms now under investigation for backdating stock options, and one already facing civil and criminal charges, it’s clear that practices such as backdating carry a heavy corporate cost. Lost amid the swirl of media attention, however, is what backdating, or other practices, such as...

By Helen Shaw • July 27, 2006

Worldcom’s Sullivan Too Poor to Pay

Former Worldcom CFO Scott Sullivan — featured on a 1997 cover of CFO magazine as the highest paid CFO in the country — is now too poor to pay any penalties for his role in a fraud that led to the largest bankruptcy in US history.The SEC announced final civil settlements Thursday with Sullivan, fo...

By Stephen Taub • July 27, 2006

SEC Plans to Charge EDS Controller

Officials at Electronic Data Systems said controller and principal accounting officer Scot McDonald has received a Wells Notice from the Securities and Exchange Commission related to a previously disclosed SEC investigation into transactions between EDS and Delphi Corp.The outsourcing giant also ...

By Stephen Taub • July 26, 2006

SEC Fines Two Ex-Conseco Finance Execs

Two former finance executives at Conseco Inc. were fined and suspended by the Securities and Exchange Commission for their role in the company’s accounting scandal.Rollin M. Dick, a former chief financial officer of Conseco Finance Corp., a subsidiary then known as Green Tree Financial, was order...

By Stephen Taub • July 26, 2006

Fast Payments Hurt Tech Firm Cash Flows

Cash flow has been on the wane among technology companies for several quarters now, a potential cause of concern for investors who view cash flow as a measure of financial health. But a recent study says that the drop is primarily the result of faster payments to vendors, suggesting that tech fir...

By Helen Shaw • July 26, 2006

SEC Names Hewitt Chief Accountant

Conrad Hewitt, former chief financial regulator for the State of California, was named chief accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. He will oversee accounting interpretations, international accounting matters, and professional practice issues, for the SEC.Hewitt also will...

By Stephen Taub • July 24, 2006

The Battle to Preserve LIFO

When U.S. Senate leaders proposed a $100 gas-tax rebate for every American family in May, they intended to do so by repealing the last-in, first-out (LIFO) inventory-accounting method for oil companies, which would result in a bigger tax bill for those companies and more tax revenue for the gover...

By Helen Shaw • July 21, 2006

SEC Clears Cognos

A Securities and Exchange Commission review has found nothing objectionable in the revenue-recognition policies of Cognos Inc., the Ottawa, Canada-based software maker reported.The review, done by the staff of the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance, mainly covered the way Cognos allocates reve...

By Stephen Taub • July 21, 2006

FASB, IASB Call for Lease Experts

The world’s two major accounting standard setters are seeking nominations for candidates to participate in a working group to overhaul lease-accounting rules.The working group will comprise individuals from a variety of backgrounds: preparers, auditors, and users of financial statements; subject-...

By Stephen Taub • July 21, 2006

FASB Tax Rule Seen Aiding Rating Probes

FIN 48, the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s recently published guidance on the accounting of uncertain tax positions could provide credit-rating analysts and investors with clues about how companies “may be using taxes as an earnings management tool,” according to an executive at Moody’s I...

By Stephen Taub • July 20, 2006

FASB Votes to Revamp Lease Accounting

The Financial Accounting Standards Board voted unanimously on Wednesday to put lease accounting on its formal agenda, setting the wheels in motion to rework the rule that allows companies to keep certain leases off their balance sheets. The board agreed to work jointly on the project with the Int...

By Marie Leone • July 19, 2006

AFP to FASB: Define Cash

A trade group representing corporate finance professionals is calling on Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to clarify its definition of cash and cash equivalents.The Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) asserted that the lack of clarity in Financial Accounting Standard No. 95, ...

By Stephen Taub • July 19, 2006

Company Disputes Whistle-Blower’s Claims

Beckman Coulter, Inc. reported that its audit committee concluded that a whistle-blower’s charges of accounting irregularities are unfounded.The medical-testing equipment manufacturer announced in early May that its audit and finance committee was overseeing an investigation into claims made by ...

By Stephen Taub • July 18, 2006

FASB Hoists Red Flags Higher for Taxman

A new interpretation from the Financial Accounting Standards Board has some companies worried that it will help point Internal Revenue Service examiners straight to those items on their tax returns that are aggressive or complex.FASB’s July 13 interpretation of FASB Statement No. 109, Accounting ...

By Helen Shaw • July 14, 2006

FASB Issues Lease Accounting Guidance

Come December, companies will be required to recalculate their leverage leases if the timing of tax benefits affect corporate cash flows, says new guidance released Thursday by the Financial Accounting Standards Board. The FASB Staff Position (FSB) revises FASB Statement No. 13, Accounting for Le...

By Marie Leone • July 13, 2006

Where’s the Relief from COSO?

Small business are reacting with skepticism to the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission’s (COSO) claim that its newly-issued guidance for smaller firms will help them assess internal controls in a cost-effective manner.The guidance, which supplements COSO’s 1992 Intern...

By Helen Shaw • July 13, 2006