Today, I had a long chat with Bob Garnett, a member of the London-based International Accounting Standards Board. Before joining the board, he was Executive Vice-President, Finance for the global...

No surprises that US government auditors have found that the contracting practices in Iraq are deficient. And a complete waste of taxpayers' money.The New York Times reports that the us...

Never expect banks to stick to rules once they start losing money. When banks run into trouble, there is a simple solution: just change the rules.No surprises then that the Financial Times reports...

Every now and then when you read through accounts, you come across a "going concern statement'' from the auditors. It's basically a red flag signalling that the company's state...

There might be many more female accountants than there were 30 years ago but are still under-represented in the top ranks of accounting firms, according to a new survey.The survey from the Illinois...

Alarming news that banks and securities firms are hiding $35 billion of writedowns. Instead of putting this stuff on their income statements, where it will hit the bottom line, they are leaving it on...

Some alarming stats coming out of a recent Grant Thornton survey.According to the survey, nearly 75 per cent of accountants have no experience dealing with International Financial Reporting Standards...

In an extraordinary development, lumbering mortgage finance behemoth Freddie Mac's share price climbed after the company used accounting shenanigans to a report $151 million net loss for the...

I have always talked about Sarbanes-Oxley being a gold-mine for accountants. So big a gold-mine that accountants seem to be recession-proof.That might explain the latest data showing that accounting...

Here's a warning to all audit firms: the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has signalled that it will target securitized mortgage loans and collateralized debt offerings when it inspects...

Auditors take note: from now on, you will have to tell audit committees all about compromising links BEFORE you do any work for them.As expected, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has...

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board is looking at a new independence rule designed to force auditors to come clean on their links with corporations.The PCAOB has announced it will hold an...

Accounting firm Grant Thornton has been hauled over the coals by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board for its slack audits.With one client, the so-called experts at Grant Thornton failed to...

To what extent is the subprime meltdown the result of an accounting technique?In theory, mark to market accounting sounds neat because it potentially gives a more realistic take by assigning a value...

KPMG's problems seem to go from bad to worse.Earlier during the week, we had reports that the US Government was pushing hard to revive its tax shelter case, promising to play fair this time. Yeah...

Accounting tools like budgeting and sales projections can be dangerous.According to new research out of Wharton, they can lead people astray because they do nothing in themselves to dispel biases,...

Late last year, I did a blog entry at how the US Government was not backing down on its determination to prosecute foremr KPMG partners for peddling dubious tax shelters. That was after Judge Lewis...

Last month I asked the question: are accountants recession-proof?. It seems that the beancounters have honed their processes and sharpened them up to the point where they could ride through and even...

Significant changes on the boards of the American accounting rule settlers. But are they for the best? And might they make things worse?As Reuters reports, the Financial Accounting Standards Board...