All articles by Tammy Whitehouse – Page 41
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Blog
IASB Releases Final Lease Standard
Image: The IASB has issued its long-awaited accounting standard requiring assets and liabilities associated with leases to be added to corporate balance sheets. Companies that follow International Financial Reporting Standards have until 2019 to adopt the standard. “It’s been a long road getting to this event,” says Sean Torr, a ...
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Blog
FASB Tackles How to Present Partial Sales of Nonfinancial Assets
In its quest to clarify how to define “business” for the sake of accounting rules, FASB is wading into how to account for partial sales of nonfinancial assets. FASB has tentatively decided that all transactions where an entity retains an equity interest in an asset or receives an equity interest ...
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U.S. Treasury Proposes Country-by-Country Tax Reporting
The U.S. Treasury Department has issued proposed regulations that would require the ultimate parent entity of multinational enterprises to report tax info to Treasury annually on a country-by-country basis. Companies would be required to provide information related to the multinational entity’s income and taxes paid in each tax jurisdiction along ...
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Blog
FASB Publishes Final Standard on Recognition and Measurement of Financial Instruments
Image: A decade in the making, public companies now have a new standard that tells them how to measure and recognize the value of financial assets and financial liabilities in financial statements. Accounting Standards Update No. 2016-01 rewrites certain requirements under the Accounting Standards Codification for how to recognize, measure, ...
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Article
Auditing World Braces: More ICFR Attention, Big Rule Changes
Image: Expecting a letup in the scrutiny of internal controls? Forget it: 2016 promises to be another intensive year for ICFR as all sides sharpen their understanding of the subject. “Internal control over financial reporting will remain on everyone’s radar,” says Cindy Fornelli, head of the Center for Audit Quality. ...
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Blog
Is That Disposal a Discontinued Operation? SEC Staff Offer Views
SEC Associate Chief Accountant Barry Kanczuker says FASB’s new standard on when a particular disposal should be characterized as a discontinued operation isn’t always clear cut. Kanczuker says companies will have to apply judgment to what constitutes a relevant financial result; look at financial results that might be relevant to ...
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Blog
SEC Offers View on Pension Measurement Considerations
Image: The SEC is open to the new methods some companies are considering to revise their approach to certain pension accounting assumptions. The Commission recently consulted with companies and accounting firms on two different approaches—single weighted-average and disaggregated or “spot rate.” “After considering their specific facts and circumstances, we have ...
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Blog
CPAs Launch Research to Push Data Analytics in Audit
Image: The AICPA and Rutgers Business School haved formed a data analytics research initiative to demonstrate how the use of data analytics can advance the public accounting profession. According to Rutgers professor Miklos Vasarhelyi, the initiative’s two shared goals are “to examine how audit objectives might be achieved more effectively ...
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Article
Regulators Suggest It’s Time to Double Down on Internal Controls
Image: After nearly a year of moderating corporate gripes of excessive auditing driven by regulatory inspections, regulators say the answer is for companies to double down on their controls and use a little more muscle with their auditors. “Preparers are on the back end of the compliance funnel,” said Kevin ...
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Blog
FASB, IASB Agree on Revenue Recognition Solutions
Guidance on when to recognize revenue on a net or gross basis is expected to be highly consistent across U.S. and international rules when the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board issue their final amendments.
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Blog
2016 GAAP Taxonomy Ready for Use, Pending SEC Approval
FASB has released its final update of the 2016 GAAP Financial Reporting Taxonomy, pending acceptance by the SEC, to allow public companies to prepare to use it to complete their XBRL filings. The annual update allows FASB staff to make the taxonomy easier to navigate and more effective in reflecting ...
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PCAOB’s Top Inspector Shares Plans for 2016
Image: When audit inspectors begin work on 2015 financial statements, they will be looking closely at the audit of internal controls, accounting estimates, misstatement risks. Those are the key themes from the 2014 financial statement inspections, said Helen Munter, director of inspections for the PCAOB. “Audit committees might wish to ...
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Blog
PCAOB’s Top Inspector Shares Plans for 2016
Image: When audit inspectors begin work on 2015 financial statements, they will be looking closely at the audit of internal controls, accounting estimates, misstatement risks. Those are the key themes from the 2014 financial statement inspections, said Helen Munter, director of inspections for the PCAOB. “Audit committees might wish to ...
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Blog
PCAOB Adopts Form to Name Engagement Partner, Others in Audit
Finally achieving the path of least resistance after multiple prior attempts, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has approved a rule requiring audit firms to identify engagement partners and others outside the firm who contribute to public company audits.
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Article
For Internal Audit, Is Emerging Technology More Trouble Than It’s Worth?
Image: IT audit is challenged not only by persistent talent shortages and rapid changes in technology, but also by concerns about reporting lines that raise questions about independence and the frequency of risk assessments. “Changes in security remain top of mind,” says Robert Stroud, immediate past president of ISACA and ...
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Blog
PCAOB Experiments With Random Inspections, Data Analysis
Image: The PCAOB has opened a project to study inspection results statistically and to consider whether the board should allocate some inspection resources to randomly selected audits. Chairman James Doty: “Could some randomization help us make better inferences about how pervasive audit deficiencies may be? Could some random selection increase ...
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Blog
FASB Seats Transition Group for Impairment, Not Leases
Image: Building on the success of the revenue recognition transition group, FASB is planning a new group to facilitate implementation of the pending financial instrument impairment standard. In recent remarks, FASB Chairman Russ Golden said the TRG has already met to identify any key issues. The board is putting the ...
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SEC Looks for Disclosures, Consistency in Revenue Rule; May Offer Guidance
Image: Companies that can’t say by year’s end how they will be affected by the new revenue standard should let investors know when they will have it sorted out. SEC Deputy Chief Accountant Wesley Bricker said recently, “As companies prepare their annual financial statements over the next couple of months, ...
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Regulators Continue Full Throttle on Internal Controls
Image: SEC Chief Accountant Jim Schnurr is encouraging preparers to communicate more with auditors and consider that tensions might be escalating because their controls aren’t up to snuff. “The ICFR issues identified by the PCAOB may not be just a problem of audit execution,” Schnurr said. “Rather, they may, at ...
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SEC to Consider Staff Proposal on IFRS
Image: The SEC is considering making amendments to rules that would give domestic issuers the chance to provide IFRS-based information as a supplement to U.S. GAAP financial statements. At a recent conference, SEC Chair Mary Jo White said, “The staff has now developed a recommendation for the Commission’s consideration, which ...