What Keeps The SEC Busy - 2012: The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants held its annual "Current SEC & PCAOB Developments Conference" in Washington, DC last week, featuring speakers from all of the accounting bodies that matter: the …
Archive | 2011 Reports
2011 Reports
Volume 20, No. 13
Draft-A-Palooza: Standard Setters Open The Spigot Wide: Over the last couple of years, there have been precious few new proposals issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board. The SEC’s promotion of IFRS convergence has led the FASB to devote …
Volume 20, No. 12
Pension & Other Benefit Plans: A Look Ahead: Investors in firms with defined benefit pension plans always face the risk of suddenly being pushed farther back in line when it comes to being served their returns. Variability in plan …
Volume 20, No. 11
Fair Value Reporting: A Financial Institutions Survey: A year ago, the FASB’s proposal for revamping financial instrument accounting was the burning accounting issue of the day. In the end, the FASB got singed by the fire. In the face …
Volume 20, No. 10
Midyear Inventory: Accounting Issues In The Second Half: The debt ceiling drama is temporarily behind us, replaced by the current “Rome is burning” excitement (along with“the rest of Italy, and Greece, and Portugal, and the United States is burning” …
Volume 20, No. 9
A PCAOB Proposal: Not Your Father's Audit Opinion: The auditor’s opinion on the financial statements have only slightly more information content than the nutrition label on a bag of potato chips. The typical “clean” opinion identifies the financial statements …
Volume 20, No. 8
Is The IFRS "Condorsement" Coming? Maybe: It’s been four years since the Securities & Exchange Commission first floated the idea of permitting U.S. companies to use international financial reporting standards (IFRS) for their filings. In between 2007 and now, …
Volume 20, No. 7
S&P 500 Executive Pay: Bigger Than...Whatever You Think It is - (Originally Issued May 23, 2011): It’s the time of year for proxy deliveries and shareholder meetings - and plenty of rhetoric about CEO pay. This year, the“say on …
Volume 20, No. 6
State Of The Pension Promise: The S&P 500 in 2010: In the annual report tour, one of the usual stops made by investors is the pension plan footnote. Through various FASB edicts, the pension footnote is now so swollen …
Volume 20, No. 5
Over There: Where U.S. Earnings Rise: Over here, however, is where they are reported. The basic consolidated financial statements present an American corporation’s results on a homogenous basis: investors see one number for say, net income or cash, and …