professionwatch
NOT ALL TAX
Even as tax season hit its home stretch,
the profession took a couple of days in late
March to discuss a Public Company Accounting Oversight Board concept release
on mandatory auditor rotation. Arguments
mainly came in against the idea, but it had
some supporters. Perhaps more important,
many o;ered other suggestions than rotation
for improving auditor independence. (See
our cover story.)
BUT MOSTLY ...
Tax season itself ended with its usual mid-
night madness — though we noted that more
of that took place inside o;ces and in front
of computers, rather than at public places
like post o;ces, as the steady conquest of
everything by e-;ling continued.
Meanwhile, before the 2012 season was of-
;cially over, Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Doug Shulman warned in both a
speech and a congressional hearing that the
2013 season could be “a real disaster” if Congress failed to decide on major provisions,
including the fate of the Bush tax cuts, before
December 31. At the House hearing, Shulman also told Congress that if budget cuts
at the service continued, it would be forced
to cut down on its audits. A report from the
IRS Oversight Board also urged Congress to
restore recent budget cuts to improve enforcement and taxpayer service. It called for
a 2013 budget of $13.034 billion, an increase
of $1.218 billion over the enacted budget in
;scal 2012.
Separately, the IRS announced that it was
giving tax professionals a priority phone
number that they can call when their clients
are undergoing a Campus Correspondence
Examination audit. They’ll be able to access the CCE Practitioner Priority Service
by calling (866) 860-4259 and selecting the
“Correspondence examination” option. CCE
PPS will address up to ;ve clients per call and
transfer or refer issues outside the CCE scope
to the appropriate IRS functions.
In no way connected to this was the fact
that the recent release of its FY 2011 Data
Book showed that the IRS has been increasing
its audits and examinations of high-income
individuals, examining nearly 30 percent of
the returns of those earning $10 million and
more, nearly twice the rate of a year earlier.
Finally, tax services ;rm Ryan ;led a suit
in a federal court in Washington, challenging
Circular 230 provisions from 2007 that more
or less ban contingency fee arrangements.
LESS TAXING
;e Financial Accounting Standards Board
added a new item to its agenda to revise the
accounting standards for repurchase agreements in response to the problems that led
to the collapse of ;nancial ;rm MF Global,
which relied on a form of repurchase agreement known as “repo to maturity.” ;e existing guidance for repurchase agreements
and similar arrangements was originally
established in 1996 by FASB Statement No.
125. Because repos involve shared rights to
the transferred ;nancial assets, they were,
and continue to be, di;cult to characterize
because they possess attributes of both sales
and secured borrowings, FASB noted.
;e Governmental Accounting Standards
Board issued two new accounting statements. Statement No. 65, Items Previously
Reported as Assets and Liabilities, clari;es
the appropriate reporting of deferred out-;ows of resources and deferred in;ows of
resources to ensure consistency in ;nancial
reporting. Statement No. 66, Technical Cor-
rections-2012 , contains technical corrections
to resolve con;icting guidance.
BDO USA LLP elected Wayne Berson as
its next chief executive o;cer, starting November 1. He’ll succeed longtime CEO Jack
Weisbaum, who announced his October 31
retirement in February. Berson plans to expand the ;rm’s presence in major cities in the
U. S. through mergers and acquisitions.
As of April 1, the U. S. had the highest com-
bined federal and state corporate tax rate in
the industrialized world, after Japan dropped
its top rate.
CORRECTION
;e Firm Highlights section of our Top 100
Firms report incorrectly stated that Reinsel
Kuntz Lesher had acquired ParenteBeard’s
Senior Living Services Consulting Group; in
fact, a partner and three sta; from the group
left ParenteBeard and joined RKL to start a
senior living services practice. ParenteBeard
continues to provide consulting services to
the senior living industry.
ACCOUNTANTS CONFIDENCE INDEX
In partnership with ADP®
Accounting Today’s
ACI: Two in a row S O N D J F M A M 60 51.51 54.71 54.33 month 6 month
50
52.91
The members of our Executive Research Council remain
fairly optimistic this month,
slightly upping the expansionary predictions they made last
month. They saw more growth
further out, with the 6-month
ACI rising by a full point, while
the 3-month ACI only rose by a
tenth of a point.
In the individual components, our panelists are still
less than enthusiastic about
the future prospects for the
U.S. economy as a whole, expecting contraction in both the
short- and mid-term.
INDEX COMPONENTS
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
60
YOUR FIRM
60
SMALL BIZ
CLIENTS
60
MIDSIZED
CLIENTS
60
LARGE BIZ
CLIENTS
60
U.S. ECONOMY
Scale: ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
3 MOS. 6 MOS.
50
3 MOS. 6 MOS.
50
3 MOS. 6 MOS.
50
3 MOS. 6 MOS.
50
3 MOS. 6 MOS.
50
LINKING IN, BUT OTHERWISE NOT SO SOCIAL
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
LINKEDIN
68%
21%
FACEBOOK
TWITTER
17%
18%
18%
43%
BLOGGING
PLATFORM
11%
18%
6%
YOUTUBE
14%
1%
FOURSQUARE
6%
SLIDESHARE 1%
CURRENTLY USING
PLAN TO USE SOON
6%
26%
NONE
0
10
20
30
40 50
44%
60
70
All responses from an April 2012 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.
