CPA Horizons 2025 identifies “global and local trends and the steps CPAs can take to plan for the challenges and leverage the opportunities the future will hold.” Get the free instant download.
READ MORE → GO PRO FOR INSTANT ACCESS / PRO MEMBERS LOG IN HERE
As busy season ebbs into memory and accounting firms start looking toward the future, top managers will be confronting a host of difficult issues. by Rick Telberg Many of the most pressing issues are close to home — winning a few more big clients, nurturing succession, finding adequate capital to reinvest in the business. Some other issues, however, may seem more abstract. They are, to be sure, no less real. A host of global trends are conspiring to make this year’s retreat season just that much more complicated for accounting firm leaders. Here are 10 top global trends that are rushing headlong toward the American accounting firm industry:
READ MORE → GO PRO FOR INSTANT ACCESS / PRO MEMBERS LOG IN HERE
Only 13.5% are getting ready — same as May 2010. via AICPA The key message from the AICPA’s October 2010 IFRS Readiness Survey is that movement within the U.S. accounting profession toward IFRS has been on hold since May 2010. Basic familiarity with IFRS has remained stable at 45 percent and the number of companies and firms actively preparing for adoption or ready for adoption has remained about the same at 13.5 percent. Thirty-eight percent of respondents indicated they are delaying implementation while waiting for SEC action.
Change is coming hard and fast. Paul Stahlin, regional president at Skylands Community Bank in Somerville, N.J., takes over the top spot of the AICPA in October from Bob Harris, a Florida CPA firm owner. In this impromptu 12-minute video, Stahlin outlines his views of the profession’s — and the institute’s — biggest challenges and opportunities. He starts with five hot topics: Some 120 countries are already on IFRS, he notes, suggesting that it’s “critical” U.S. CPAs get up to speed. Private company financial reporting standards (don’t call it “Little GAAP”) could pose a whole new set of complexities for accountants at 29 million U.S. companies. Amidst all the changes of the last decade, it’s time, he says, for the [...]
Intrusive and intimidating IRS initiative. by William Stromsem, CPA, JD CPAs are complaining about an intrusive and intimidating Internal Revenue Service (IRS) initiative that began in early January when the IRS started sending “over 10,000” letters to tax return preparers (commercial and professional), with follow-up visits to “thousands” of letter recipients. This is part of an IRS program to be sure that preparers are “assisting clients appropriately” and part of Commissioner Shulman’s overall effort to increase oversight of return preparers. The IRS may intend this as an encouragement to do a better job, but CPA practitioners see this as poorly timed and intimidating during the busy tax season as they seek to apply the tax law correctly to client situations. [...]
Early results are suggesting that most organizations remain unprepared for the biggest chgange in GAAP in 50 years. After years in the making, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) on Wednesday, July 1, will launch the new GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) codification. That said, today’s results from working CPAs and finance managers are all the more interesting: Online Surveys – Zoomerang.com Don’t be alarmed if you’re only dimly aware of the GAAP codification project. Apparently other CPAs are too. One poll showed only about one in three accountants had looked into it. Another found less than half of all CFOs and senior comptrollers had even heard of the codification project To be sure, GAAP itself isn’t intended to change, [...]
Financial system rules and regs take the spotlight at AICPA 2009 Spring Meeting of Council. “I firmly believe that any sound solution to the severe economic challenges facing our country will require the insights and contributions of the CPAs in this room… and in every corner of our great nation,†AICPA Chairman Ernie Almonte said at the opening of the meeting. The Journal of Accountancy reports today: Mark Peterson, AICPA vice president, governmental and public affairs, said he expects Congress to begin to work through numerous proposals aimed at closing gaps in financial regulation. The various proposals may be pulled together into a larger reform bill, Peterson said. He predicted Congress would then address the idea of a systemic regulator-an [...]
