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Accounting News Roundup: Tax Bill Passes Senate and Judgment Calls on Revenue Recognition | 12.04.17

Senate Passes Sweeping Revision of U.S. Tax Code [WSJ]
The Senate tax bill passed early Saturday morning, 51-49, with Tennessee Senator Bob Corker the only Republican voting against it. There were all kinds of last-minute goodies thrown in for special interests, including wealthy real estate developers. Weird! The Senate and House bills now go to conference where they will try to reconcile the differences before sending it to POTUS mouse hands for his signature.

Bonus reading: If you’re enjoying the Joint Committee on Taxation’s numbers, here are their estimated effects of the modifications to the bill. The final bill ditched the alternative minimum tax repeal, saving $173 billion, but altogether, the amendments still put the bill further in the red by $30 billion.

Judgment Calls Stalk Revenue Recognition [CFO]
Over the years, accountants have gotten used to the rules-based accounting put out by the FASB. But the new revenue recognition standard involves exercising a lot of professional judgment and “those […] continue to be challenging,” according to an AICPA official. It seems a little strange that accountants would be worried about having to make decisions, rather than following tedious guidance, but there you have it.

HKICPA piles on to PCAOB action [China Accounting Blog]
Paul Gillis notes that the Hong Kong Institute of CPAs, one of the last remaining self-regulatory bodies of the accounting profession, has an interesting disciplinary case against a firm that was banned by the PCAOB, Albert Wong & Company. Funny thing, that firm has morphed several times into different firms, and it’s most recent iteration, Centurion ZD, is NOT banned. “I think they may have pulled one over on the PCAOB,” Gillis writes.

UK audit watchdog triples size of enforcement team [FT]
The Financial Reporting Council, the U.K.’s audit regulator, had “fewer than 10 employees in 2012.” That seems a little small for an organization that has to review massive audits down by the Big 4. They have over 30 staff now, but their enforcement budget remains less than half of the PCAOB’s.

Survey says…

On Friday, we shared a survey sponsored by our partner FloQast. (You can read more about our partnership here.) The survey asks questions about your experience with the month-end close. You’ll have our undying gratitude if you could spare a few minutes to take the survey. Please and thank you.

Previously, on Going Concern…

I wrote about the PCAOB taking a breather.

Jason Bramwell wrote about the less traveled road of controller to CFO.

In Open Items, a user asks about moving from a forensics job to a small CPA firm.

In other news:

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