Global Accounting Body Out Of Gate And Into “Buzz Saw”

In drawing back the curtain on its initial agenda, the newly appointed International Accounting Standards Board recently let the world know it’s taking up the accounting treatment of employee stock options.It’s an issue that in the 1990s sparked such heated controversy that it almost led to the e...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Aug. 27, 2001

So What Happens After the Acquisition?

The term reorganization includes seven different forms of corporate adjustments, each of which has its own unique requirements. From a policy point of view, it’s difficult to justify the sometimes subtle variations in these formal reorganization requirements. Nevertheless, attaining reorganizatio...

By Robert Willens • Aug. 23, 2001

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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

FASB Stokes the Fair Value Flame

Just when senior financial execs are getting comfortable with new rules for treating goodwill and other intangibles, the Financial Accounting Standards Board issues another rule, Statement No. 143, Accounting for Asset Retirement Obligations.The standard, released Thursday, requires that companie...

By Craig Schneider • Aug. 21, 2001

How to Get A Little R&R On Your Next Deal

Can companies have their consolidation cake and eat it too? When it comes to having a stock repurchase program and a tax-favorable reorganization status for a merger at the same time, the answer is not obvious. The tax code at Sec. 368(a)(1)(A) states that a “statutory merger or consolidation” co...

By Robert Willens • Aug. 17, 2001

Tech Companies Rewrite Rules – with Black Ink

A new trend emerging from the ashes of the Internet bust is profitability, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.Priceline.com Inc., for one, reported its first-ever profits two weeks ago, and others are reporting positive earnings.Not all of these Internet companies meet the test of p...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Aug. 14, 2001

Fierce Adversary of the IRS May Become the Agency’s Chief Counsel

Corporate-tax attorney B. John Williams Jr. waged a pugnacious campaign against the Internal Revenue Service six years ago that infuriated some government lawyers, who questioned the propriety of his team’s tactics.But now, in a major role reversal, Williams could soon become the IRS’s chief enfo...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Aug. 14, 2001

IRS Puts its Spin on Taxable Spin-offs and Acquisitions

The next round of tax relief is going to corporations. Specifically, the Internal Revenue Service provided much needed guidance for its proposed regulations, defining the circumstances under which an acquisition or spin-off will be viewed as part of a “plan” and therefore taxable at the corporate...

By Robert Willens • Aug. 10, 2001

Porsche Faces Delisting from Index As Deutsche Boerse Readies Decision

Porsche AG is making one last stand for Germany’s old equity culture.The sports-car maker is expected Tuesday night to lose its position in Germany’s main index for midsize companies as a result of its refusal to issue quarterly earnings reports, reports the Wall Street Journal.Since January, Deu...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Aug. 7, 2001

Three Accountants Face Charges of Securities Fraud Over Audit

The Securities and Exchange Commission took the unusual step of charging three accountants with securities fraud in connection with their audits of Allegheny Health Education & Research Foundation, a Pennsylvania nonprofit organization that filed for bankruptcy, reports the Wall Street Journa...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Aug. 3, 2001

Capital Gap

Too tiny for venture capitalists or banks and too risky for angel investors, promising young businesses are often hamstrung by cash needs, despite climbing profits. To help solve the dilemma, a coalition of business trade organizations, led by Tatum CFO Partners LLP, is hoping Congress will agree...

By Alix Stuart • Aug. 1, 2001

New Study Faults Work Of Auditors Who Consult

According to the Wall Street Journal Online, an academic study to be released Wednesday found that auditing firms are more likely to compromise and stretch the bounds of accepted accounting practices when they are receiving substantial consulting fees from the firms they audit.The study — by prof...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Aug. 1, 2001

Earnings Reports Come Under Fire

U.S. lawmakers took aim Tuesday at the growing corporate practice of presenting financial statements two different ways: one to satisfy regulators, the other to put the best face on results.According to a Reuters report published in the Los Angeles Times, lawmakers and accounting experts at a con...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Aug. 1, 2001

Targeting State Taxes

Taxes aren’t often considered a strategic weapon. But they are if you’re Micro Warehouse Inc. The Norwalk, Connecticut-based direct marketer of computers derives some $2 billion in annual revenue from catalog and Internet sales to consumers in 50 states, yet it collects and remits sales tax in on...

By Russ Banham • Aug. 1, 2001

IRS Attacks

When stock is redeemed (i.e., repurchased by the issuing corporation), the redemption can be taxed, with respect to the redeeming shareholder, as either a distribution to which Sec. 301 applies (a dividend) or as a “sale or exchange.” Exchange treatment is proper in cases where the redemption is ...

By Robert Willens • July 31, 2001

SEC Rejects Pre-Paid’s Appeal Of Accounting-Method Decision

Pre-Paid Legal Services Inc. said the Securities and Exchange Commission’s chief accountant this week rejected an appeal by the company of an earlier SEC decision that the company’s accounting methods don’t conform with generally accepted accounting principles, reports the Wall Street Journal.The...

By CFO Editorial Staff • July 26, 2001

Korean Court Gives Long Sentences To Five Former Daewoo Executives

A Korean court sentenced former Daewoo Group officials to prison terms and levied fines of nearly $20 billion for falsifying financial accounts, according to the Wall Street Journal.The fines were the largest ever levied by a South Korean court, and prosecuting attorneys said the ruling signified...

By CFO Editorial Staff • July 25, 2001

AT&T Holds Talks with AOL on Merging Cable-TV Business

AT&T Corp., looking to fend off an unsolicited suitor for its cable business, is in preliminary talks with AOL Time Warner Inc. about a friendly deal to merge the two companies’ cable-systems operations, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal. The talks between the No. 1...

By CFO Editorial Staff • July 25, 2001

Heads I Win Tails You Lose

Although the overriding goal of financial accounting is to properly match expenses with the revenues of the period to which such expenses relate, the objectives of tax accounting are markedly different. With respect to advance payments, such receipts are almost always recorded as income in the pe...

By Robert Willens • July 24, 2001

WTO Final Decision On Tax Credit Dispute Faults US

The World Trade Organization has ruled against the U.S. in a final report on whether a U.S. export tax credit violates international trade rules, E.U. trade diplomats said Tuesday.According to a report from Dow Jones Newswires, an E.U. trade source said the WTO confirmed a June 22 interim ruling ...

By CFO Editorial Staff • July 24, 2001

GAO: FHLB Competition For Other GSEs Could Aid Borrowers

The Federal Home Loan Bank System’s new direct mortgage-acquisition programs increase competition between the system and Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE), the General Accounting Office said in a not-yet- released report, according to Dow Jones Newswires.“Such increased competition could pro...

By CFO Editorial Staff • July 23, 2001

FASB Issues Statements on Goodwill, Other Intangibles

The Financial Accounting Standards Board published Statement No. 141, Business Combinations, and Statement No. 142, Goodwill and Other Intangible Assets on Friday. Both statements are available via FASB’s Web site or by calling FASB’s order department at 1-800-748-0659.The hard copy will provide ...

By Craig Schneider • July 23, 2001

The Good-Bye Gift from RealNetworks’s CFO

When RealNetworks reported its second quarter results on Tuesday, Paul Bialek, the company’s chief financial officer, also said he’d be leaving the firm.On the one hand, Bialek is leaving the company at a difficult time. The company has been hit hard in the economic slowdown. Its sales were off s...

By Joseph Radigan • July 20, 2001

SEC Nominee Pitt Promises to Monitor Decimals, Reg FD

Harvey Pitt, President Bush’s nominee to head the Securities and Exchange Commission, pledged to be tough on securities-law violators but also to give publicly traded companies and Wall Street firms a bigger voice in how the agency regulates them, reports the Wall Street Journal.At a Senate Banki...

By CFO Editorial Staff • July 20, 2001

Nokia Defends Reporting Style Despite Contrasts

Nokia on Thursday defended its earnings reporting style as the most accurate possible in spite of large discrepancies between its pro forma and International Accounting Standards (IAS) second quarter figures, reports Reuters.The telecoms equipment maker at the start of 2001 began reporting pro fo...

By CFO Editorial Staff • July 19, 2001

Auditor Independence Body To Wrap Up Duties At Month End

The Independence Standards Board, charged with developing tougher standards for auditors, will discontinue operations at the end of July, regulators said.According to a Dow Jones Newswires report, after four years of operation, the board has largely fulfilled its mission, according to an announce...

By CFO Editorial Staff • July 18, 2001