A BETTER TAX SEASON NOW p. 18
10 things you can do before filing season starts
to make your firm more successful in 2013
CASE STUDIES: PAYROLL p. 30
Four firms share their successes in offering
payroll processing services to clients
accountingtoday.com
DITCH THE NICHE? p. 38
Gale Crosley on why you shouldn’t treat your
specialty services like niches anymore
Clear
as mud
What does last
month’s election
mean for tax pracs?
The fiscal cliff, once a seeming
imaginary event far off on the hor
izon, is looming large as we ap
proach the beginning of 2013 with
a divided government. The cliff, a
combination of tax increases and
government spending cuts, threat
ens to send the country deeper
into another recession, according
to economists from the Congres
sional Budget Office.
In the immediate aftermath of
the election, House Speaker John
Boehner had indicated a willing
ness to work with President Barack
Obama to avoid January’s fiscal
BY ROGER RUSSELL
See tax fallout on 43
COLORADO’S TAXOPS IS THE BEST SMALL FIRM TO WORK FOR IN THE U.S. for 99 more great firms to work for, see page 7 ALMOST TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE
FASB chair looks to new IASB relationship
IASB and how the two standard
setters will be working together
with other accounting organiza
tions even after the memorandum
of understanding they signed in
2002 in Norwalk, Conn., known
as the Norwalk Agreement, ex
pires. Overall, she characterized
the 10year convergence effort as
a success.
“Even though we do expect
our relationship with the IASB
to change from the bilateral sort
of partnership arrangement that
we’ve had in recent years, that does
not mean that convergence is over
or that divergence is going to start
to occur,” she said. “In the early
days of our relationship, we had
what I would call a ‘best efforts’ ap
proach and we accomplished a lot.
It seems to me that going forward
we can continue to achieve a lot
even if the nature and structure of
our relationship changes. We plan
to continue to work cooperatively
with the IASB and other standard
setters around the world to con
tinue to improve our standards
here in the U.S., as well as global
accounting standards, and make
them more comparable.”
When asked why the conver
STILL GOING
A detailed timetable for
the rest of convergence
— see page 22
gence effort is perceived to be en
dangered amid report of disagree
ments between the two boards on
issues such as the impairment of
financial instruments, Seidman re
sponded, “That’s why we thought
it was important to take a broader
look at where this started and
where it’s gone. It seems to me that
there is more than one approach
to achieving comparability in ac
counting standards. What we’re
suggesting is that there are ways
to work together cooperatively
to identify opportunities for im
provement and opportunities for
reaching converged solutions on
standards short of, one, the bilat
eral relationship that we have had
in recent years, in other words,
an intense sidebyside conver
gence program; or two, on the
other side, an adoption program
where the only way you can get to
comparability is by adopting a set
of standards. We think there’s a lot
of room in between there.”
Seidman also commented on
the impact of the Securities and
Exchange Commission’s staff re
ports on IFRS and the lack of a
decision by the SEC on whether
to incorporate IFRS into the U.S.
financial reporting system.
