U.S. Representative Scott Garrett (Republican, New Jersey) was first elected to Congress in 2002, months after the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. A couple of weeks ago, he introduced legislation that would amend S-OX to require that PCAOB* enforcement actions…
The International forum of Independent Audit Regulators (IFIAR) has published its second annual survey of audit inspections of the Big Four plus BDO and Grant Thornton firms around the world: “The leading areas of deficiency in inspected auditors of ……
Let's pretend that we could decide anew how accounting standards for U.S public companies should be promulgated. Who would want the operations to be run by the Financial Accounting Foundation? Are there other options? When it was established in 1972,…
A couple of posts ago, I waded in on the infamous Reinhard & Rogoff spreadsheet error, in an attempt to extract lessons of a cautionary nature for accountants of public companies. Since then, two interesting developments have occurred. First, I…
This post more or less (actually somewhat more, than less) mirrors my answers to questions posed by Matt Kelly, editor of Compliance Week in a recent podcasted interview. The subject was audit firm term limits, or mandatory audit firm rotation;…
The Senate Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance and Investment has announced that it will meet this Wednesday to conduct a hearing entitled "The Role of the Accounting Profession in Preventing Another Financial Crisis." "The witnesses on Panel I will be: Mr.…
I can't cite chapter and verse for this, but experience tells me that there is a cardinal rule for IASB and FASB members that goes something like this: 'If you can't say something nice about board deliberations, then don't say…
I am, and have always been, a very reluctant user of pen and paper. Even on the rare occasion where I am sufficiently moved to take handwritten notes, they frequently end up to be little more than random doodling. Soon…
The Koss Corp. fraud case has been in the news since the end of December, so why am I just getting around to writing about it now? Because, that's the way I roll, man. I don't know if anyone has…
I apologize for the long interval between this and my last posting – especially to those of you who have privately thanked me for material just boring enough, and long enough, to induce a good night's sleep. Tax blogs, I…