Vol. 26 I No. 6 I June 2012

DEATH, YES; TAXES, WELL ... p. 12
The future of estate tax reform remains uncertain,
creating grave difficulties in planning
CASE STUDIES: BI p. 25
Four firms share their successes in making
business intelligence software work for them

accountingtoday.com

THE LESS-PAPER OFFICE p. 33
Why is it taking so long to arrive?
And what can you do to speed it up?

When will it change?

Not the usual suspects

On diversity, the
profession’s mission
is unaccomplished

The accounting profession has a long way to go in attracting, retaining and including both minorities and women.

Executives at the top accounting firms all agree that diversity in the profession is far from reaching an acceptable balance — a reality reflected in the numbers.

According to the American Institute of CPAs’ 2011 Trends in

BY DANIELLE LEE

See DIVERSITY on 50

A CLOSE CALL GALVANIZES GOLDSTEIN SCHECHTER KOCH’S TECH TEAM See page 8 An ounce of prevention Chipman sees SEC’s IFRS decision coming soon

With the G- 20 finance ministers having given accounting stan-dard-setters a new deadline of mid-2013 to get their convergence work done, the Securities and Exchange Commission is under fresh pressure to reach a decision on incorporating International Financial Reporting Standards into the U.S. financial reporting system Grant Thornton CEO speaks out on regulation, accounting standards and China

BY MICHAEL COHN / NEW YORK

— and Grant Thornton CEO Stephen Chipman expects the SEC to make a decision soon, though he believes it is likely that the transition will be a slow one.

“My sense is that the SEC is get-
ting closer to a position,” he said
during an interview with Account-
ing Today in May. “I don’t have
any inside information. This isn’t
based on anything other than intu-
ition, just watching the tea leaves.
But I think sometime during this
year, they will bring some addi-
tional clarity to the way for ward. I
don’t expect it to be an aggressive
timeline. I think it will be a timeline
that acquiesces to the reality, quite
frankly, that the issuers, investors
and preparers are not falling over
themselves cheering for IFRS here
in the U.S. They want time and they
want a transition period, and they
want to be able to deal with the
disruption of costs associated with
the change.”
Chipman anticipates the SEC
plan will seek to address that is-
sue, along with finding a place for
the Financial Accounting Stan-
dards Board to stay involved in the
process. “I think it will also seek
to address a compromise position
for the FASB in a meaningful role
that maintains the ability to have
appropriate influence over the
standards that are promulgated for
use in the United States,” he said.
“I think they are getting closer and
I would expect to see something in
the next six months.”
Chipman doubts the U.S. wants
to risk losing its seats on the In-
ternational Accounting Standards
Board, while at the same time,
the IASB is reluctant to take those
seats away. He thinks the IASB
would be willing to accept a long-
er timeline, even though the board
would prefer the U.S. to be more
aggressive in incorporating IFRS.

Tax Season 2012
was complicated —
but not by Congress

This past tax season will be re- membered for a number of complications in preparing and filing tax returns — despite the fact that there was not much in the way of legislation.

“Both the IRS and the states added complexity to the process administratively,” said Bob D. Scharin, senior tax analyst at Thomson Reuters. “New tax legislation is not the only source of complication. The IRS has initiatives to encourage electronic filing of returns and reduce the number of paper returns it receives, yet the number of pages in those returns is bound to have increased. A prime example is new Form 8949. Instead of using only Schedule D to report capital gains and losses, separate Forms 8949 need to be used depending on whether the