The Right Accounting System Will Save America's Future [HuffPo] While the U.S. Financial Statements for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2012 show a national debt of $18.8 trillion, it is well known that liabilities for Social Security, Medicare, and federal pensions, if properly shown on our nation's "balance sheet," would add about another $40 trillion to the national debt (not including bad government loans and guarantees that have yet to be written off our government's books). Partisan politics has consumed the federal budget process and important private sector standards such as accountability, transparency, fairness and objectivity are being used as political rhetoric and are not taken seriously enough in managing the cumbersome federal financial bureaucracy.
Accounting Profession Needs to Do More to Prepare Finance Leaders [Accounting Today] The accounting profession and employers should work more actively to get accountants ready for finance leadership roles such as CFOs, according to a new study. The study, The Role and Expectations of a CFO, by the International Federation of Accountants, highlights five principles behind the changing expectations, scope, and mandate of the CFO and finance leadership roles. The discussion paper also recommends a number of actions that employers can take to prepare professional accountants for career progression to finance leadership.
Seven questions you should be asking your lawyer or accountant [Birmingham Business Journal] "Is your office above a Chinese restaurant?" isn't one of them.
Mexico president to whack middle class with taxes [USA Today] President Enrique Peña Nieto has proposed overhauling the country's tax system to raise more revenue, increase social spending and curtail the informal economy – all in a country where tax evasion, loopholes and fiscal privileges are considered problematic.
We Are Teaching High School Students to Write Terribly [Slate] Prepping y'all well for written communication…
Kansas Man Sentenced To 30 Years for Fraud [AP] A Kansas man who pitched his company to investors as a blessing from God that would make them rich for as little as $100 has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for bilking thousands of people out of more than $10 million.
PCAOB Adopts Standards for Broker-Dealer Audits and for Auditing Supplemental Information [PCAOB] The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board today adopted two attestation standards pertaining to audits of brokers and dealers that will help protect customer funds by enhancing the quality of compliance information provided to the Securities and Exchange Commission and used in its regulatory oversight of broker-dealers. The Board also adopted an auditing standard applicable when auditors are engaged to perform audit procedures and report on supplemental information that broker-dealers and others file with the SEC. Finally, the Board adopted related amendments to other PCAOB standards.
Here's the Insane Lamb-Chop-and-Oyster Lunch Twitter Employees Eat [Gawker] U jelly?