Vol. 24 I No. 12 I Sept. 27-Oct. 10, 2010
webcpa.com

Post-Herz, FASB faces full agenda

With a slate of exposure drafts awaiting comment and a June 2011 deadline for maj or projects on convergence between U.S. GAAP and International Financial Report ing Standards, the Financial Accounting Standards Board nevertheless has little choice but to navigate that imposing agenda without its longtime chairman and with some empty seats on its board.

Last month, Robert Herz, who had helmed the standardsetter since 2002 and who weathered, among other storms, the massive accounting scandals at WorldCom and Enron, and intense pressure from law makers to loosen fair value standards, sud denly announced his retirement, effective October 1. The organization’s overseer, the

Convergence projects,
exposure drafts loom on
standard-setter’s to-do list

BY BILL CARLINO / NORWALK, CONN.

See AFTER HERZ on 44

Reuters

Tax registration regime takes shape

Is there room on the sign for a PTIN? A tax prep shop in Falls Church, Va.

The Internal Revenue Service has begun filling in some of the blanks in the struc ture of its proposed regime for regulating tax return preparers.

Following its initial announcements that the regs would extend Circular 230 authority to include all feepaid tax pre parers, including currently unenrolled

The IRS moves rapidly to clarify the requirements, fees, CPE rules, and expectations

BY ROGER RUSSELL

preparers, and require any practitioner who prepares a tax return after 2010 to get a Preparer Tax Identification Number, the IRS has released more information on user fees, testing and education requirements — and its expectations and goals.

David Williams, the IRS executive lead
for return preparer regulation implemen
tation (as well as its director of electronic
tax administration and refundable credits),
emphasized at a recent IRS Forum in New
York that a PTIN is the only requirement
for tax preparers for next season, though
some other requirements and 15 hours
of continuing education for unenrolled

Reuters

Robert Herz

Cloud-based software devel-
oper NetSuite Inc. has created
an accountants network pro
gram with the goal of educat
ing the CPA community about
the financial and ERP vendor’s
products and enlisting them as
recommenders.
The program is free for ac
counting firms and their clients
who are running NetSuite.
The company had, in its early

NetSuite debuts accountant program

Cloud vendor’s offering targets product adoption, education

BY SETH FINEBERG / SAN MATEO, CALIF.

stages, attempted to introduce an accountingcentric program, but is hopeful its newest incar nation will be more successful.

“Accountants were some of
the earliest adopters of NetSuite
going back to 2002,” explained
NetSuite vice president of chan
nel sales Craig West. “In those
days, we had a solution provider
program, but then after SOX,
firms had to dial back on receiv
ing commissions on software
licenses, so it was harder for us
to reach them. Customers have
started saying, ‘I need a new ac