KPMG’s Work Delays EDS Filing

Electronic Data Systems Corporation (EDS) said it will delay the release of its third quarter results until Nov. 3 so that its auditor, KPMG, can finish evaluating a possible impairment of the company’s assets stemming from its intranet contract with the U.S. Navy. The impairment evaluation inclu...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 27, 2004

Airing Out ”Mothballed” Facilities

In August, the Financial Accounting Standards Board proposed a new interpretation of FAS No. 143, Accounting for Asset Retirement Obligations (AROs). Scheduled to be finalized by the end of this year, the proposal would effectively require many companies to book their AROs more quickly than in th...

By Marie Leone • Oct. 25, 2004

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

KPMG Sanctioned for Improper Conduct

The Securities and Exchange Commission settled charges with KPMG LLP, two former partners, and a current partner and senior manager for “improper professional conduct” as auditors for Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc.The Big Four accounting firm, which agreed to settle the action without admitt...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 22, 2004

FASB Delays Option Rule for Some

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has granted small-business issuers and nonpublic companies six additional months to begin implementing Statement 123R, the board’s proposed rule on expensing employee stock options.FASB’s decision on Tuesday follows its vote last week to delay the effectiv...

By Craig Schneider • Oct. 21, 2004

E&Y Warns of Independence Conflict

Marriott International announced in a regulatory filing that its outside auditor, Ernst & Young LLP, warned the company about a possible violation of auditor independence rules.The hotel giant said E&Y recently notified the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Public Company Accounting...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 21, 2004

MCI, Sprint Take $3.5 Billion Charges

It’s been a long, hard road for long-distance phone companies.On Tuesday, Sprint Corp. announced that it would take a $3.5 billion pre-tax, non-cash charge to write down the value of its long-distance business. “We have to maximize the value of these assets,” said Howard Janzen, president of Spri...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 20, 2004

Better Insight into Sources of Revenue

Most companies don’t really manage top-line growth. They allocate resources to businesses they think will be most productive and hope the economy cooperates. But a growing number are taking a less passive approach, and studying revenue growth more carefully. They argue that quantifying the source...

By Joseph McCafferty • Oct. 19, 2004

Ceridian Restates Five-Plus Years

Ceridian Corp., a provider of payroll processing and human-resource services, announced that it will restate its financials for five years from 1999 to 2003, as well as for the first quarter of this year, to make accounting adjustments.The company added the revisions would reduce pretax earnings ...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 19, 2004

Testing the Top Line

Most companies don’t really manage top-line growth. They allocate resources to businesses they think will be most productive and hope the economy cooperates. But a growing number are taking a less passive approach, and studying revenue growth more carefully. They argue that quantifying the source...

By Joseph McCafferty • Oct. 19, 2004

Bottom-Line Sustainability Reporting

The idea that a company should conduct its business in ways that benefit not just shareholders but the environment and society, too, is called sustainability, or sustainable development. FedEx Kinko’s is one of roughly 500 organizations that issue sustainability reports following the strict guide...

By Russ Banham • Oct. 18, 2004

FASB Delays Stock-Option Rule

Bending to corporate and industry pressure, the Financial Accounting Standards Board has decided to delay by six months the effective date for public companies to implement Statement 123R, its proposed standard that would require companies to expense the value of employee stock options in the inc...

By Craig Schneider • Oct. 14, 2004

SEC Settles with Ahold, Execs

The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed enforcement actions against Royal Ahold NV and three former executives, alleging fraud and other violations stemming from the Dutch food giant’s massive accounting scandal.The individuals are former chief executive officer and chairman Cees van der...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 14, 2004

FASB Delays Stock-Option Rule

Ending months of uncertainty, the Financial Accounting Standards Board has decided to delay by six months the effective date for public companies to implement Statement 123R,its proposed standard that would require companies to expense the value of employee stock options in the income statement.F...

By Craig Schneider • Oct. 13, 2004

SunTrust Places Finance Execs on Leave

SunTrust Banks Inc. announced that it placed two finance executives on paid administrative leave and that it expects to restate its results for the first six months of 2004.The two executives are Sandra W. Jansky, executive vice president and chief credit officer, and Jorge Arrieta, senior vice p...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 13, 2004

Getting the Prices Right

When costs have been cut to the bone and revenue growth is still shaky, a company naturally turns to thoughts of pricing. Many are thus moving from cost-plus pricing to value pricing or variable pricing. But the new models can be tricky, so more companies are turning to price consultants to get i...

By Claire Adrian • Oct. 13, 2004

KPMG Pays $115 Million to Settle Suit

KPMG LLP has agreed to pay $115 million to settle lawsuits stemming from the collapse of software company Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products NV, according to published reports.The accounting firm, which was Lernout’s auditor, said in an emailed statement that it was settling the litigation for...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 12, 2004

Taxpayer Beware

The tax man is knocking on doors. In June, the Internal Revenue Service informed Motorola that the global communications giant owed an estimated $500 million in back taxes due to transfer-pricing errors. The IRS is also taking a hard look at pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline for alleged trans...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Oct. 12, 2004

Charges for Former Peregrine Execs

The Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission have filed charges against a number of former executives of Peregrine Systems Inc. and against outside business associates of the company. Amid a massive accounting scandal, the software maker filed for bankruptcy protection in ...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 8, 2004

Tax Cut Weighs In at $145 Billion

Congress is expected to finalize $145 billion in tax breaks before adjourning until after the November elections — possibly today — according to press reports. The Senate may delay action until the weekend, according to the Associated Press, if an anticipated filibuster is mounted by anti-tobacco...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 8, 2004

FASB Refines Stock Option Project

In its latest effort to finalize Statement 123R, its proposed standard on stock-based compensation, this past week the Financial Accounting Standards Board tackled transition issues for public companies, including a complex tax-accounting matter that continued to divide the board members.While mu...

By Craig Schneider • Oct. 8, 2004

Are Auditors and CFOs Growing Apart?

As the amount of communication between auditors and top executives has increased, the content of these conversations has become much more restricted, maintain many CFOs. “The whole relationship is more at arm’s length,” explains David Bronson, finance chief of PSS World Medical, a $1.3 billion me...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Oct. 8, 2004

Give It Away Now

Each month, Quill Corp., a $1 billion office-supply company owned by Staples Inc., ships thousands of free Mrs. Fields cookies to its customers, along with their orders of pencils and pens.The company has also given away weekend trips, digital cameras, and George Foreman grills. To cost-conscious...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Oct. 8, 2004

Can We Talk?

In years past, when CFO Jeff Tomz would sit down at the end of an audit engagement with the partner in charge, the meeting was usually brief. “I would ask, ‘Any issues?’ He’d say, ‘No issues,’ and we’d be done,” he recalls. But since the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002, “I’m involved [w...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Oct. 8, 2004

First Parmalat Indictments Handed Up

Two former auditors have become the first defendants indicted for their alleged roles in the accounting scandal that rocked Italian food giant Parmalat late last year.Maurizio Bianchi and Lorenzo Penca — who worked at office of Grant Thornton’s former Italian unit, now named Italaudit — were char...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 7, 2004

Iraq Audits Expose Poor Controls

Over the past few months, American and international agencies have released audit reports citing accounting and financial-transparency problems at the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the U.S.-led governing body that was set up in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein.The CPA was shuttered ...

By Marie Leone • Oct. 7, 2004