With 14 mergers recorded between late
October and early November, the marquee
union was sealed between Clifton Gunderson and LarsonAllen, which will become effective January 2.
;e merged entity will be known as CliftonLarsonAllen and immediately create one
of the top 10 accounting ;rms in the U.S., with
combined revenues of between $550 million
and $560 million.
;e two ;rms revealed they began discussions in the spring. ;e ;rms had worked together closely in the past, including on peer
reviews.
Also as we went to press, global CPA and
business advisory firm Grant Thornton is
currently in negotiations to acquire Bos-ton-based regional ;rm CCR. According to
Accounting Today’s 2011 Top 100 Firms and
Regional Firms report, CCR generated $30
million in revenue. It reported 29 partners
and ;ve o;ces.
Grant ;ornton, which ranked No 6. On
the 2011 Top 100 Firms list with revenues of
roughly $1.1 billion, has a Boston-area presence of roughly 175 people. Upon completion, the union would forge the sixth-largest
CPA ;rm in Massachusetts.
(For more, see expanded M&A Watch on
page 30.)
Separately, GT unveiled a new growth and
branding positioning that includes an M&A
agenda, a new web site and marketing materials. ;e ;rm worked with high-pro;le ad
agency Ogilvy & Mather and market research
agency Millward Brown to create the new
brand strategy.
The Financial Accounting Foundation
has sent a comment letter to the Securities
and Exchange Commission supporting the
so-called “condorsement” approach to incorporating International Financial Reporting
Standards into the U.S. ;nancial reporting
system, but with some important changes.
;e SEC sta; issued a paper in May containing a work plan describing how such an
approach might work. “Condorsement,” a
portmanteau word combining convergence
with endorsement, would allow IFRS to be
incorporated one standard at a time into U. S.
GAAP as the Financial Accounting Standards
Board and the International Accounting Standards Board agree on a converged solution.
;e FAF board of trustees which oversees
FASB, issued a comment letter effectively
backing the approach described by the SEC
sta;, but with a few important caveats that
would preserve the role of FASB and the
authority of the SEC in the standard-setting
process and give FASB the ability to preserve
some exceptions for U.S. companies during
the transition.
Also, FASB and the International Ac-
counting Standards Board published revised
proposals for revenue recognition as part of
their continuing e;orts at convergence.
;e revised proposals make good on the
two boards’ previously announced intention
to re-expose the latest version of their current
proposals.
;e revised draft standard aims to improve
the ;nancial reporting requirements for U.S.
GAAP and International Financial Reporting Standards for revenue and some of the
related costs from contracts with customers.
The latest proposals promise to provide a
more robust framework for addressing revenue recognition issues; remove inconsistencies from existing requirements; improve
comparability across companies, industries
and capital markets; provide more useful
information to users of ;nancial statements
through improved disclosure requirements;
and simplify the preparation of financial
statements by streamlining the volume of
accounting guidance.
TAXING MATTERS
;e IRS has issued a revenue ruling per-
mitting an employer that is using an accrual
method of accounting to take a deduction
in the current year for a ;xed amount of bonuses payable to a group of employees, even
though the employer does not know which
of the employees will receive a bonus or the
amount of any particular bonus until after the
end of the taxable year.
Under Revenue Ruling 2011-29, employers could take a deduction on the bonuses,
whether or not the employees has determined who will receive the bonus.
State tax revenues increased 10. 8 percent
in the second quarter of 2011, but revenues for
local governments headed in the opposite direction.
An analysis by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government at the University of Alba-
See WATCH on
7
ACCOUNTANTS CONFIDENCE INDEX
In partnership with ADP®
Accounting Today’s
Perhaps it was the holiday
spirit, but the ACI revealed a
far cheerier outlook this month
than last, with survey participants displaying much more
enthusiasm for the economy.
Both the short-term (
three-month) and mid-term (
six-month) outlooks turned upward
for December.
More heartening may be
the fact that, for the ;rst time
since we began collecting the
ACI data, our respondents indicated that they expect the U.S.
economy to expand in both the
short- and the mid-term.
All responses from an November 2011 survey of the
Accounting Today Executive Research Council, an
online panel of over 1,500 accounting professionals.
The ACI was created in partnership with:
ADP and the ADP logo are registered trademarks of ADP, Inc.
