There is so much I would like to write about, yet so little time... I could write about the latest half measure on the accounting for repurchase agreements (ASU 2014-11)— and that Tom Linsmeier’s lone dissent is highly similar to…
On October 4th, Jon Weil published "An Accounting Lesson for Twitter." Here's how it starts: Whether he prevails at his insider-trading trial or winds up paying a fine to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas…
(Note to readers — I have deleted the reference to Worldcom in a previous version of this post. A dialogue with one reader caused me to re-consider my statement that account roll forwards could have saved an audit process that…
I have been a habitual spreadsheet user for 30 years, and a Keynesian for, like, forever. That particular pairing of predilections is probably why I experienced a brief and thrilling shiver of Schadenfreude as I read one of the many…
My best insights (but who am I to judge?) come from reading something for which accounting is the furthest thing from the author's mind: "My own view is that people tend to underestimate the pace of technological change but they…
One of the items in my inventory of pet peeves when I first started blogging (six years ago!) was interperiod tax allocation, familiarly known as "deferred tax accounting." I've always objected to it on theoretical grounds, and know that it…
Hewlett Packard Co. claims they were 'misled' (to put it mildly) by accounting 'misstatements' (to put it mildly) into overpaying, on the order of $8 billion, to acquire Autonomy. But, if anybody outside of HP has precise knowledge of those…
Many books and articles have been written to describe the mishaps that led to the Great Recession of 2008, but few have done so while putting the role of accounting standards and auditing in context. I reported back in January…
Last August, I wrote a post in which I expressed my dismay that Carl Levin (D-Michigan) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) are trying to make tax law based on the premise that FASB rules for stock options are caviar -- when…
Rabid conservative ideologues believe that everything transacted in a free-market, i.e., unfettered by government involvement or regulation, is by definition a good thing. I presume this is why Newt Gingrich acted like he was between a rock and a hard place…