Tag Archives: Tax

CPE-Eligible On-Demand Programs Now Available from PLI

Uncategorized, , , , , ,

Practising Law Institute is pleased to announce that CPE credit is now available On-Demand to accountants, CPAs and other professionals. PLI’s CPE-Eligible On-Demand programs allow individuals to earn CPE credit online at their convenience and according to their schedule.

Samples of initial offerings include:

  • Evolving Expectations for Audit Committees, Including Audit Committee and Company Communications
  • Partnership Mergers and Divisions
  • SEC Reporting Foundations: A Primer to Key SEC Corporation Finance Concepts and Guidance
  • IRS and Treasury’s New Guidance Issued Under Sections 7874 and 385

For a complete and growing selection of PLI NASBA QAS approved CPE On-Demand programs, follow this link: http://www.pli.edu/products/by_promotion.aspx?t=RHQ4_CPEOD

 

 

 

 

 

Ever Been to an SEC Event? Mark out April 13 for a webcast!

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In our workshops we sometimes joke (a bit) about how fun it is to listen to a webcast of an SEC meeting. And yes, we do say the same thing about FASB meetings. (Total Geek-Out For Sure!)

These meetings are interesting in that you can observe the process the SEC Commissioners and the FASB follow. The depth of the discussions and their careful consideration of the issues is always fascinating to observe.

These meetings generally do not tell you what might happen in the short-term, but do provide a longer-term glimpse into the directions of policy-making and standard setting.

Disclosure effectiveness is a major longer-term initiative at the SEC right now. On April 13, 2016 the SEC is going to discuss “whether to issue a concept release seeking comment on modernizing certain business and financial disclosure requirements in Regulation S-K.”

As you know, this kind of change is something the SEC staff has wanted to do for years. In addition, provisions of both the JOBS Act and the FAST Act focused on disclosure effectiveness. And here is the logical next step – this meeting will likely help illuminate the future direction of disclosure effectiveness.

 

In addition, this meeting may offer ideas that you can implement now to help make your disclosure more direct and useful to investors.

 

So, perhaps this is the time to listen to one of the meetings? You could play it on your computer, have the sound coming out of your speakers, and think how many of your colleagues would join you and listen! SEC Party time perhaps? If you can’t make the live webcast, you can find all of the archived meetings at http://www.sec.gov/news/openmeetings.shtml

 

You can learn more at:

sec.gov/news/openmeetings/2016/ssamtg033016.htm

 

where the original meeting was announced and at:

www.sec.gov/news/openmeetings/2016/ssamtg041316.htm

where the date was changed from March 30 to April 13, 2016.

 

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome!

Known Trends and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

SEC Hot Topic, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Forewarning disclosures, the “known trends or uncertainties that have had or that the registrant reasonably expects will have a material favorable or unfavorable impact on net sales or revenues or income from continuing operations” are one of the topics we discuss occasionally in our blog posts. This MD&A disclosure can be very problematic because the information disclosed may alarm investors or make management nervous about creating a “self-fulfilling prophecy”.

We are always watching how companies deal with these issues, and here are two examples from both ends of the potential disclosure spectrum.

The first example, dealing with goodwill impairment, is from a company that has been in the news a lot lately, Yahoo. Along with all the issues they have dealt with involving their investment in Alibaba, Yahoo continues to work on building their core business. As part of this process in June of 2013 they acquired Tumblr, the blog-hosting website. The purchase price was $990 million and in connection with the acquisition Yahoo recorded $749 million in goodwill. (See note 4 about acquisitions in the consolidated F/S in the 2015 10-K)

Fast forward the acquisition to December 31, 2015 and in note 5 to the consolidated F/S dealing with impairments Yahoo says:

As identified above, in step one, in 2015, the carrying value of the U.S. & Canada, Europe, Tumblr and Latin America reporting units exceeded the estimated fair value. The Company completed an assessment of the implied fair value of these reporting units, which resulted in an impairment of all goodwill for the U.S. & Canada, Europe, and Latin America reporting units and a partial impairment for the Tumblr reporting unit. The Company recorded goodwill impairment charges of $3,692 million, $531 million, $230 million and $8 million, associated with the U.S. & Canada, Europe, Tumblr, and Latin America reporting units, respectively, for the year ended December 31, 2015. The impairments were a result of a combination of factors, including a sustained decrease in our market capitalization in fourth quarter of 2015 and lower estimated projected revenue and profitability in the near term.

 

So, from June 2013 to December 31, 2015 the $749 million in Tumblr related goodwill was reduced by $230 million. In the tech world, these things happen.

But what about the future? In an interesting spot, Critical Accounting Estimates in their 2015 10-K MD&A Yahoo included this statement:

Given the partial impairment recorded in our Tumblr reporting unit in 2015, it is reasonably possible that changes in judgments, assumptions and estimates we made in assessing the fair value of goodwill could cause us to consider some portion or all of the remaining goodwill of the Tumblr reporting unit to become impaired, which comprised $519 million of our remaining $808 million goodwill balance as of December 31, 2015. In addition, a future decline in market conditions and/or changes in our market share could negatively impact the estimated future cash flows and discount rates used in the income approach to determine the fair value of the reporting unit and could result in an impairment charge in the foreseeable future.

 

This is a direct warning, using the S-K words “reasonably possible”.

 

Here is the second example. These comments are from a letter to a retailing company, and you can see the SEC is asking whether the company effectively dealt with an uncertainty in their future:

  1. Please expand this section to discuss any known material trends, events or uncertainties that have had or are reasonably expected to have a material impact on your liquidity or revenues or income from continuing operations. In this regard, we note (i) persistent comparable store sales decreases in fiscal year 2014 and through the first three quarterly periods of 2015 and (ii) that the company has scaled back its previously planned strategic retail expansion for fiscal year 2016 and beyond.

We also note management’s concern, as expressed in recent earnings calls, regarding the cannibalization effect from new retail stores, coupled with softer than expected new store performances. Please discuss whether you expect comparable store sales to continue to decrease, due to continued cannibalization or otherwise, and the short and long-term actions that you are taking to address any perceived trends. In this regard, your discussion should address your past and future financial condition and results of operation, with particular emphasis on the prospects for the future. See Item 303(a) of Regulation S-K and SEC Release No. 33- 8350.

 

One really interesting part of this comment is how the staff went well beyond the company’s filings to information disclosed in earnings calls.

 

 

As always, your thoughts and comments are appreciated!

Comment of the Week – Market Risk Reminder

Comment of the Week, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

 

We have been discussing the topic of Market Risk Disclosures a lot in this environment of volatile exchange rates, bumpy commodity prices and uncertain interest rates. This disclosure is one of the most confusing parts of Regulation S-K. Without going into a whole lot of details about S-K Item 305 (which we covered in an earlier blog at seciblog.pli.edu/?p=489), as we move towards the end of the first quarter it will continue to be important to focus on getting this disclosure right.

 

So, with this post as a reminder, here is a quick example in a recent comment:

Item7A. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk, page 63

  1. Please provide an analysis on whether your “cash flow hedges,” discussed in the second- to-last paragraph of page 63, are material, such that you would need to provide the disclosure in Item 305(a) of Regulation S-K. Please see General Instruction 5.B to Item 305(a) and (b).

 

As usual, your thoughts and comments are welcome!

10-K Tip Number Six for 2016 – The SEC’s Disclosure Effectiveness Initiative

10-K Tips, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

As a starting point in this post, we want to be clear, the SEC continuously focuses on making disclosure effective. This is an important part of their mission, to provide information to investors. Over the years projects like Plain English and the MD&A guidance in FR 72 have clearly helped improve disclosure.
And, in large part thanks to the JOBS Act, disclosure effectiveness is a formal initiative at the SEC right now. This, of course, is why we included it as a hot topic on our 2016 Form 10-K Tune-Up, which is now available on-demand with CLE and CPE credit at:

www.pli.edu/Content/OnDemand/Second_Annual_Form_10_K_Tune_Up/_/N-4nZ1z116ku?fromsearch=false&ID=278540

 

The JOBS Act formalized this process with its requirement to study various S-K disclosures. Going beyond the JOBS Act, the SEC has sought comment on other matters including certain parts of Regulation S-X. Late last year the FAST Act created required next steps in this process. All of these projects, and the others that will come, will hopefully result in a modernization and refocusing of the whole disclosure process. You can read about all the different parts of this initiative at the Disclosure Effectiveness section of the SEC’s web page:

www.sec.gov/spotlight/disclosure-effectiveness.shtml

 

 

(If you would like to read more about the FAST Act check out this post:

seciblog.pli.edu/?p=515 )

 

 

These elements of the SEC’s process are clearly longer-term, and the regulatory steps involved need time for constituent input and careful consideration of the impact of possible change. This does not mean that there are not steps you can take right now to help make information better for investors. In fact, in numerous public forums the SEC Staff has consistently focused on three themes you can use right now to improve disclosure. They are:

Reduce repetition

 

Focus disclosure

 

Eliminate outdated and immaterial information

 

You can get the SEC’s perspective on these issues in this speech by Corp Fin Director Keith Higgins:

www.sec.gov/News/Speech/Detail/Speech/1370541479332

 

And this speech from December 2015 by Chief Accountant James Schnurr touches on things to do now, particularly using judgment:

www.sec.gov/news/speech/schnurr-remarks-aicpa-2015-conference-sec-pcaob-developments.html

 

 

One last issue – if you have questions about something such as a whether to continue a disclosure related to an SEC comment from prior years that is immaterial today, the staff actually encourages that you call them to discuss the issue!

 

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome!

Form 10-K Tune-Up Tip Number Five for 2016

10-K Tips, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The next topic from our 2016 Form 10-K Tune-up One-Hour Briefing is SAB 74 disclosures. You can listen to the briefing on-demand with CPE and CLE credit available at:

www.pli.edu/Content/OnDemand/Second_Annual_Form_10_K_Tune_Up/_/N-4nZ1z116ku?fromsearch=false&ID=278540

 
To begin, what does SAB 74, which is Topic 11-M in the SAB Codification, actually require? You can read the whole SAB at:

www.sec.gov/interps/account/sabcodet11.htm#M

 
Here are a few highlights.

First, it is clear that this disclosure is not required for all new Accounting Standards Updates:
“The Commission addressed a similar issue and concluded that registrants should discuss the potential effects of adoption of recently issued accounting standards in registration statements and reports filed with the Commission. The staff believes that this disclosure guidance applies to all accounting standards which have been issued but not yet adopted by the registrant unless the impact on its financial position and results of operations is not expected to be material.”
This part of the SAB dovetails very nicely with an important part of the SEC’s Disclosure Effectiveness Initiative, which is to eliminate immaterial disclosures that potentially “clutter up” a report and potentially obscure material information.
Here are two examples to explore this issue.

CocaCola did not mention recently issued accounting standards in their 2014 Form 10-K MD&A. They apparently made the judgment that there was no material impact in the current year from new accounting standards. They did include SAB 74 disclosures in their financial statements in note 1. You can check it out at:
www.coca-colacompany.com/content/dam/journey/us/en/private/fileassets/pdf/2015/02/2014-annual-report-on-form-10-k.pdf

 
Intel treated this disclosure in exactly the same way, and you can find their 2014 10-K at:
www.intc.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=50863-15-15

 
So, the first theme for SAB 74 is focus on material information.

 

 

The second point to think about with this disclosure is what do we need to say about new standards that we believe will be material.

The SAB contains four disclosure requirements:

 
1. “A brief description of the new standard, the date that adoption is required and the date that the registrant plans to adopt, if earlier.

 
2. A discussion of the methods of adoption allowed by the standard and the method expected to be utilized by the registrant, if determined.

 
3. A discussion of the impact that adoption of the standard is expected to have on the financial statements of the registrant, unless not known or reasonably estimable. In that case, a statement to that effect may be made.

 
4. Disclosure of the potential impact of other significant matters that the registrant believes might result from the adoption of the standard (such as technical violations of debt covenant agreements, planned or intended changes in business practices, etc.) is encouraged.”

 

 

As you consider these disclosures, the first thing that arises is that over time there will be a progression in the detail of the disclosure.

For example, most companies at this point in time will not know which method they will use to implement the new revenue recognition standard. But, as we go through next year, we will get closer to that decision. When the decision is made, the disclosure should be updated to inform investors about which method will be used. The same issue applies to quantifying the impact of a change.

 
The fourth disclosure, the potential impact on other significant matters, points out that when such a situation exists, this information may not be appropriate to disclose in the financial statements, but would be disclosed in MD&A.

This means that this disclosure should not always be exactly the same in the financial statements and MD&A.
As a brief PS, we have blogged about this topic before and suggested some wording for SAB 74 disclosures about the new revenue recognition standard. You can read that post at:
seciblog.pli.edu/?p=171

 

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome!

10-K Tip Number Four for 2016 – COSO and ICFR

10-K Tips, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This is the fourth of our deeper dives in the topics we discussed in our Second Annual Form 10-K Tune-up One-hour Briefing on January 7. (This One-Hour Briefing will be available on-demand soon.)

The topics for this post are:

The COSO framework, and

Internal Control Over Financial Reporting.
COSO

The easier of these two topics to discuss, although it presents some very gray issues, is the 2013 revision of the COSO framework. If you have not yet adopted the updated framework, what are the implications in your SEC reporting?

The SEC has not made any bright-line statements or mandates about this transition. And, in fact, many companies have not yet adopted the framework.

In December of 2013, Paul Beswick, The SEC’s Chief Accountant at that time, said in a speech:

“SEC staff plans to monitor the transition for issuers using the 1992 framework to evaluate whether and if any staff or Commission actions become necessary or appropriate at some point in the future. However, at this time, I’ll simply refer users of the COSO framework to the statements COSO has made about their new framework and their thoughts about transition.”

In addition to this cautionary language, the SEC Staff also discussed this issue at a meeting of the Center For Audit Quality’s SEC Regulations Committee. Here is that section of the minutes:

Ms. Shah stated that the staff is currently referring users of the COSO 1992 framework to the following statements made on the COSO web site:

“COSO believes that users should transition their applications and related documentation to the updated Framework as soon as is feasible under their particular circumstances. As previously announced, COSO will continue to make available its original Framework during the transition period extending to December 15, 2014, after which time COSO will consider it as superseded by the 2013 edition. During the transition period (May 14, 2013 to December 15, 2014) the COSO Board believes that organizations reporting externally should clearly disclose whether the original Framework or the updated Framework was utilized.”

Exchange Act Rule 13a-15(c) requires management’s evaluation of the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting to be based on a framework that is “a suitable, recognized control framework that is established by a body or group that has followed due-process procedures…” In Release 33-8328, the SEC stated that ” [t]he COSO Framework satisfies our criteria and may be used as an evaluation framework for purposes of management’s annual internal control evaluation and disclosure requirements.”

The staff indicated that the longer issuers continue to use the 1992 framework, the more likely they are to receive questions from the staff about whether the issuer’s use of the 1992 framework satisfies the SEC’s requirement to use a suitable, recognized framework (particularly after December 15, 2014 when COSO will consider the 1992 framework to have been superseded by the 2013 framework).

Clearly there is no hard and fast rule about when to transition, but if a company were to use the old framework much longer, questions about the suitability of the old framework increase in importance. Issues such as what kinds of problems that the new framework might identify that the old framework could miss, (where are there gaps in other words) would need to be addressed.

As a last note, this blog post from the WSJ reports that 73% of 10-K filers for 2014 adopted the new framework:

blogs.wsj.com/riskandcompliance/2015/04/29/the-morning-risk-report-companies-adopting-updated-coso-framework-newsletter-draft/
ICFR

Since its inception the SOX 404 processes used to assess the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting by management and external auditors have been evolving. In the last few years there have been a number of developments and companies, auditors and regulators have all been raising questions about the process. Some observers have even called this period a “perfect storm” of ICFR evaluation issues.

So, what is behind the perfect storm? Here are a few of the underlying sources of this ongoing issue.
The SEC has asked some challenging questions, including “Where are all the material weaknesses?” In this speech, Deputy Chief Accountant Brian Croteau addresses for the second year in a row how most restatements are not preceded by a material weakness disclosure, raising the question about whether managements’ assessments and external audits are appropriately identifying material weaknesses:

www.sec.gov/News/Speech/Detail/Speech/1370543616539

The PCAOB in their inspection reports have found what they believe to be a significant number of issues in ICFR audits. In the Overall Findings section of their first report on ICFR inspections the Board reported:

In 46 of the 309 integrated audit engagements (15 percent) that were inspected in 2010, Inspections staff found that the firm, at the time it issued its audit report, had failed to obtain sufficient audit evidence to support its audit opinion on the effectiveness of internal control due to one or more deficiencies identified by the Inspections staff. In 39 of those 46 engagements (85 percent) where the firm did not have sufficient evidence to support the internal control opinion, representing 13 percent of the 309 integrated audit engagements that were inspected, the firm also failed to obtain sufficient audit evidence to support the financial statement audit opinion.

Since this report the PCAOB has summarized issues they have found in ICFR audits in other documents, including Staff Audit Practice Alert No. 11: Considerations for Audits of Internal Control Over Financial Reporting. You can find the alert at:
pcaobus.org/Standards/QandA/10-24-2013_SAPA_11.pdf
The issues addressed in the Alert are very similar to those addressed in the summary inspection report and include:

Risk assessment and the audit of internal control

Selecting controls to test

Testing management review controls

Information technology (“IT”) considerations, including system- generated data and reports

Roll-forward of controls tested at an interim date

Using the work of others

Evaluating identified control deficiencies
In particular, testing management review controls and relying on system-generated data have been common and particularly difficult challenges to deal with in the ICFR process. This combination of challenging areas to deal with and questions about identifying and reporting all material weaknesses in ICFR will likely continue to make this a difficult area in future years.

 

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.

 

The whole briefing is now available on-demand with CPE and CLE credit at:

www.pli.edu/Content/OnDemand/Second_Annual_Form_10_K_Tune_Up/_/N-4nZ1z116ku?fromsearch=false&ID=278540

 

10-K Tip Number Three for 2016

10-K Tips, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This post continues the series of deeper dives into the 10-K reporting issues we highlighted in our January 7, 2016 One-Hour Briefing, “PLI’s Second Annual Form 10-K Tune-Up”. (This One-Hour Briefing will be available on-demand soon.) This is the third topic in the briefing, audit committee disclosures.

In the Fall of 2015 we did a series of posts about audit committee issues, a topic that has been under discussion by the SEC and the reporting community. The SEC’s concept release about audit committee disclosures and a study by The Center for Audit Quality and Audit Analytics that shows that many companies are making audit committee disclosures well beyond those required by the SEC, the Exchanges and the NASDAQ brought this discussion to a new level of importance.

This is, of course, why we included this topic in our One-Hour Briefing. And, rather than repeat all the issues, here are the blog posts which you can peruse and dive into more deeply at your leisure:

 

 

Part One – Overview and Some History seciblog.pli.edu/?p=447

Part Two – Independence Oversight seciblog.pli.edu/?p=450

Part Three – Audit Fee Disclosures –A Few Common Problem Areas in This Independence Disclosure  seciblog.pli.edu/?p=456

Part Four – The SEC’s Concept Release seciblog.pli.edu/?p=462

Part Five – Voluntary Disclosures in the News   seciblog.pli.edu/?p=486

Part Six – Some Next Steps  seciblog.pli.edu/?p=496

 

 

 

As always, your thoughts and questions are welcome!

 

10-K Tip Number One for 2016

10-K/10-Q Tips, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Happy New Year from all of us at the SEC Institute Division at PLI! We hope your new year is beginning well and if you are working on closing year-end December 31, 2015 that all is proceeding smoothly.

Last week, on January 7, 2016, Carol and George (that being us of course, the bloggers you are reading now!) presented a One-Hour Briefing, “PLI’s Second Annual Form 10-K Tune-up”. In the briefing we discussed three broad groups of issues to think about this year-end. These were New and Emerging Issues, Recurring Issues, and SEC Staff Focus Areas. Here is the complete list of the topics we discussed in the One-Hour Briefing:

  • New and Emerging Issues
    • Customer accounting for fees paid for cloud computing arrangements
    • PCAOB AS 18 Related Parties – impacts both auditors & registrants
    • PCAOB AS 17 Auditing Supplemental Info Accompanying Audited F/S
    • Audit Committee disclosure
    • ICFR and COSO
  • Recurring Issues
    • SAB 74 disclosures for Revenue Recognition and others
    • Disclosure effectiveness
    • Cybersecurity
    • Conflict minerals & Form SD disclosure
  • SEC Staff Focus Areas
    • Segments – focus on ASU 280
    • Statement of Cash Flows
    • Income taxes
    • Fair value
    • Foreign Exchange Rates, Commodity Prices, and Interest Rates

 

You can hear everything we discussed in an On-Demand version of the Briefing that will be available soon.

To augment the Briefing we are writing a series of blog posts to dive more deeply into each of the areas we discussed than the one-hour time limit allowed.

The first issue, customer accounting for fees paid for cloud computing arrangements, relates to ASU 2015-5. This ASU is effective for public business entities for periods beginning after December 15, 2015. For other entities the effective date is one year later.

One of the major issues in this new standard is that costs associated with a contract may be accounted for differently depending on whether the contract involves a software license or is only a service contract.

To get to that issue we need to review the major provisions of the ASU.

This project arose with the increase in the use of “cloud” based computing systems. These generally include “software as a service agreements” (SaaS) and other types of “software hosting” arrangements. There was no clear guidance about how customers should account for such arrangements. As a consequence, it was unclear whether these were software contracts subject to software accounting guidance or simply service contracts or perhaps a hybrid of the two accounting areas.

The ASU puts paragraph 350-40-15-4A into the ASC section dealing with internal use software:

“The guidance in this Subtopic applies only to internal-use software that a customer obtains access to in a hosting arrangement if both of the following criteria are met:

  1. The customer has the contractual right to take possession of the software at any time during the hosting period without significant penalty.
  2. It is feasible for the customer to either run the software on its own hardware or contract with another party unrelated to the vendor to host the software.”

If the above criteria are not met then the contract does not involve a software license and is a service contact.

The key issue here is that if the two criteria are met, then the agreement is treated as a multiple element arrangement and the costs are allocated between the software license and a service element associated with the hosting contract. The costs associated with the software license fall into the guidance for costs related to internal use software, or if appropriate, another software model such as software to be used in research and development.

On the other hand, if there is no software license element, then the contract is treated as any other service contract.

The financial reporting implications of this distinction can affect issues such as balance sheet classification, since a software license would be accounted for as an asset in appropriate circumstances, i.e. if it was paid for in advance. Income statement geography can also be affected as software amortization versus service contract expense could be in different income statement line items. And, it is possible that the amount of costs recognized in each period could be different.

This perhaps more complex issue depends on whether the arrangement includes a software license. If it does include a software license the internal use software guidance applies. The expense recognition part of this guidance is articulated in ASC 350-40-30:

30-1     Costs of computer software developed or obtained for internal use that shall be capitalized include only the following:

  1. External direct costs of materials and services consumed in developing or obtaining internal-use computer software. Examples of those costs include but are not limited to the following:
  2. Fees paid to third parties for services provided to develop the software during the application development stage
  3. Costs incurred to obtain computer software from third parties
  4. Travel expenses incurred by employees in their duties directly associated with developing software.
  5. Payroll and payroll-related costs (for example, costs of employee benefits) for employees who are directly associated with and who devote time to the internal-use computer software project, to the extent of the time spent directly on the project. Examples of employee activities include but are not limited to coding and testing during the application development stage.
  6. Interest costs incurred while developing internal-use computer software. Interest shall be capitalized in accordance with the provisions of Subtopic 835-20.

These costs can even include the costs of data conversion.

For service contracts, there is no such guidance. And here in fact lies the more problematic issue. If a cloud based computing arrangement includes a software license the internal use software guidance for costs may require capitalization of costs that would not be capitalized if the contract is only a service contract. Thus the amount of expense recognized for an arrangement could be different if it has a software license or does not have a software license. If you have this situation, careful analysis is crucial!

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome!

Audit Committee Evolution – Some Next Steps

Role of the Audit Committee, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Over the last two months we have done a series of posts about the evolution of the role of the audit committee and related disclosures:

Part One – Overview and Some History seciblog.pli.edu/?p=447
Part Two – Independence Oversight seciblog.pli.edu/?p=450
Part Three – Audit Fee Disclosures –A Few Common Problem Areas in This Independence Disclosure  seciblog.pli.edu/?p=456
Part Four – The SEC’s Concept Release seciblog.pli.edu/?p=462
Part Five – Voluntary Disclosures in the News   seciblog.pli.edu/?p=486

 
In this last post in the series we discuss two resources for audit committees:

  1. The PCAOB’s outreach to audit committees, and
  2. Our PLI programs for audit committee members

 

PCAOB Outreach to Audit Committees

Recognizing the importance of audit committee oversight of the audit process, the PCAOB has included information for audit committees on their webpage to help audit committees in their oversight role. They have also begun a regular newsletter, “Audit Committee Dialogue”. The newsletter is on the same webpage, along with a number of other resources.
pcaobus.org/Information/Pages/AuditCommitteeMembers.aspx

 

PLI Programs for Audit Committee Members

And, lastly, here are some of our PLI programs that will help audit committee members and other directors build and maintain the knowledge and expertise to appropriately fulfill their responsibilities. Most of these programs are available via web archives, webcast and live attendance. You can learn more about all our programs at www.pli.edu.

Audit Committees and Financial Reporting 2016: Recent Developments and Current Issues
www.pli.edu/Content/Seminar/Audit_Committees_and_Financial_Reporting/_/N-4kZ1z11i36?fromsearch=false&ID=259781

Audit Committees and Financial Reporting 2015: Recent Developments and Current Issues www.pli.edu/Content/OnDemand/Audit_Committees_and_Financial_Reporting/_/N-4nZ1z129aq?ID=221250

Corporate Governance — A Master Class 2016

www.pli.edu/Content/Seminar/Corporate_Governance_A_Master_Class_2016/_/N-4kZ1z11ij4?fromsearch=false&ID=259397

 
Directors’ Institute on Corporate Governance (Thirteenth Annual)www.pli.edu/Content/OnDemand/Directors_Institute_on_Corporate_Governance/_/N-4nZ1z129if?fromsearch=false&ID=221435

 

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome!