Industry Trails Big 4 in Accounting Ethics: Study

New research finds that the ethical environments perceived by accountants employed in industry lag well behind the environments perceived inside the leading public accounting firms.That finding is “counterintuitive,” wrote the authors of a new paper on accounting ethics published in the Spring is...

By David McCann • March 16, 2017

More than Just Audits: The New IRS Compliance Campaigns

The rollout of the long-awaited Internal Revenue Service Large Business and International (IRS LB&I) compliance campaigns has left CFOs and financial executives with many questions. What are these campaigns? How do they work? When will they start? How can companies prepare for them?George Far...

By George Farrah • March 14, 2017

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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

What’s Behind Financial Statement Placement Order?

If publicly held companies can leverage a legal means of positively influencing investor and analyst perceptions as to their financial condition, then why not?Take, for example, the order in which companies present financial statements. Maybe you’ve never thought about that. Indeed, it’s likely t...

By David McCann • March 13, 2017

FASB Updates Pension Reporting

By the end of this year, public companies that offer defined-benefit pension plans will have to disentangle the costs of their plans when they report them on their income statements, according to the Financial Accounting Standards Board.Prompted by stakeholders who complained that current rules r...

By David Katz • March 13, 2017

Pot Entrepreneur Fined $12M in Fraud Case

A former cannabis entrepreneur has agreed to pay $12 million to settle charges that he inflated the reported revenues of his marijuana vending machine company through sham transactions with an undisclosed affiliate.The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Vincent Mehdizadeh created a shel...

By Matthew Heller • March 10, 2017

IT Focus Shifts from Revenue to Operating Income

I’m not sure exactly when it happened. But suddenly my technology clients are focused— very focused — on operating income, less so on top-line results. It seems technology investments made over the last few years are starting to pay off, creating urgency in management and boards to drive even mor...

By Akhilesh Tiwari • March 9, 2017

Dick’s Sporting Goods to Drop 20% of Vendors

Despite gaining market share as competitors have gone bankrupt, Dick’s Sporting Goods is forecasting lower-than-expected earnings this year and will drop about 20% of its vendors.In an earnings call, Dick’s CEO Ed Stack didn’t name any of the brands being dropped but said they will include minor ...

By Matthew Heller • March 9, 2017

Costco Hikes Fees by $5 as Q2 Earnings Miss

Costco is increasing its membership fee for the first time since 2011 as its latest quarterly results provided more evidence that competition from Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club and Target is cutting into its business.The warehouse club operator said that effective June 1, the annual fee for “Goldstar” in...

By Matthew Heller • March 6, 2017

What CFOs Need to Know About Corporate Tax Planning

 There are a lot of ongoing issues regarding tax policy that today’s finance chiefs are juggling. Here are five articles to keep on top of trends.Planning for Tax Policy TurmoilStrategies for navigating a potential sea change in the U.S. corporate tax system as the policies of the Trump administr...

By CFO Editorial Staff • March 4, 2017

Raids Escalate Caterpillar Tax Dispute With U.S.

Federal authorities have raided three Caterpillar Inc. facilities in Illinois as part of a widening probe of the heavy equipment manufacturer’s tax-saving practices.Caterpillar confirmed that the raids were connected to its shifting of $8 billion in corporate profits from the U.S. to a Swiss subs...

By Matthew Heller • March 3, 2017

Mexican Homebuilder Accused of $3.3B Fraud

Mexican homebuilder Desarrolladora Homex has been charged with reporting fake sales of more than 100,000 homes to inflate revenues in its financial statements by about $3.3 billion over a three-year period.The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said it uncovered Homex’s “massive financial fr...

By Matthew Heller • March 3, 2017

Data Analytics Adopters Brave Obstacles

The 2017 CFO IT Survey“Without big data analytics, companies are blind and deaf, wandering out onto the web like deer on a freeway,” Geoffrey Moore, author of Crossing the Chasm, wrote.Certainly, many CFOs, and not just those with web-based businesses, would wholeheartedly agree: data is the sens...

By Vincent Ryan • March 3, 2017

AB InBev Won’t Pay Execs Bonuses for 2016

AB InBev posted the first annual decline in its key earnings measure since its formation more than a decade ago and said top executives including CFO Felipe Dutra would not receive bonuses for 2016 because of its “disappointing” performance.For 2015, the members of AB InBev’s executive board of m...

By Matthew Heller • March 2, 2017

Best Buy Beats Profit Estimates But Sales Sag

Best Buy on Wednesday reported better-than-expected profit for the fourth quarter but weak sales drove its shares down more than 4%.The retailer’s same-store sales dropped 0.7% for the three months ended Jan. 28, which includes the critical holiday season. Analysts had expected an increase of 0.5...

By Matthew Heller • March 1, 2017

Hershey to Slash Costs Through 2,700 Layoffs

Restructuring among Big Food companies continued as Hershey announced Tuesday it would cut thousands of jobs as part of an effort to boost operating profit and drive growth in its core snacks business.The announcement came as Hershey CEO Michelle Buck officially assumed leadership of the chocolat...

By Matthew Heller • March 1, 2017

Radical Changes Needed in Border-Adjusted Tax Plan

Corporate tax reform is a top priority of Congress and the Trump administration, with varying proposals calling for replacement of the current corporate income tax with a tax that would be “border adjusted,” sometimes referred to as a “destination-based” tax.Border-adjusted tax systems are widely...

By Nate Smith • March 1, 2017

Cap on Benefits Tax Breaks Could Shake up Companies

How Republicans in Congress will fulfill their promise to “repeal and replace” the 2010 Affordable Care Act remains uncertain. Nevertheless, there is at least one issue on which lawmakers increasingly agree: limiting the tax exclusion for employer-provided health insurance, under which an employe...

By Rohit Kumar • March 1, 2017

Repatriating Cash in a Territorial Tax System

Under the existing U.S. worldwide tax system, the taxation of profits earned by foreign subsidiaries generally is deferred until the profits are repatriated to the United States. At that time, the profits are subject to a 35% income tax rate, with a credit available for the foreign taxes paid. Pl...

By John Kelleher and Howard Wagner • March 1, 2017

Target Plans Price Cuts as Sales Slump Again

Target’s shares dropped to 2-1/2 year lows in heavy trading on Tuesday after the retailer reported a larger-than-expected decline in same-stores sales and announced it would cut prices to address what it called a “seismic shift” in the retail industry.Chief Executive Brian Cornell said Target is ...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 28, 2017

Special Report: Smart Tax Planning

With Republicans occupying the White House and comprising majorities in Congress, CFOs have good reason to be optimistic about their employers’ tax prospects. After all, there is widespread agreement that the current 35% corporate income tax rate should be slashed to at least 20% (the House of Re...

By David Katz • Feb. 28, 2017

Planning For Tax Policy Turmoil

After Donald Trump unexpectedly won the U.S. presidential election last November, it would have been hard for most CFOs not to be hugely optimistic about their companies’ tax positions, if not about the entire U.S. economy.Not only had the pro-business Republicans taken the executive branch, they...

By David Katz • Feb. 28, 2017

Federal Tax Reform Could Have Big Effect on States

One of the outcomes of the November election is that the near-term prospects for comprehensive federal tax reform increased considerably. Yet while most of the attention has been focused on the federal tax impacts of reform, it is well worth noting that, if enacted, any federal reform will have s...

By Larry Cusack • Feb. 28, 2017

Your Guide to Claiming the R&D Tax Credit

The federal R&D tax credit was made permanent by the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act, effective for 2016 tax returns. That broke the pattern of annual year-end—and often retroactive—extensions of the R&D credit. Further, new offsets for the alternative minimum tax and payroll tax ...

By Tom Sanger • Feb. 28, 2017

Domino’s Digital Deliveries Boost Q4 Sales

Domino’s Pizza is continuing to outdo its pizza chain rivals, posting double-digit same-store sales growth for the fourth quarter that easily beat analysts’ estimates.Comp sales at company-owned outlets in the U.S., Domino’s biggest source of store revenue, jumped 13.7% in the three months ended ...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 28, 2017

Berkshire Hathaway Profit Falls 6% to $4.38B

Berkshire Hathaway’s operating profit from its businesses fell 6% in the fourth quarter, with its insurance investing and railroad, utilities and energy segments leading the decline.Warren Buffett’s conglomerate had operating earnings of $4.38 billion, or $2,665 per Class A share, in the three mo...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 27, 2017