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Accounting News Roundup: Faster Audit Fee Disclosure; Wake Forest CPA Success; Crowe Horwath Hits Miami | 12.03.14

Faster Disclosure of Audit Fee Increases Helps Investors Assess Company Trouble Earlier [AT]
Nicole Thorne Jenkins of the University of Kentucky, Karl E. Hackenbrack of Vanderbilt University and Mikhail Pevzner of the University of Baltimore authored a study that concluded: "Accelerating the mandated corporate disclosure of the audit fee could provide useful information to investors, reducing the severity of negative market reactions when companies announce bad news. […][S]hareholders don't find out about those raises until the publication of the firm's next annual report, a year after they have has been agreed upon,” said Jenkins in a statement. “Investors and markets could benefit considerably if audit fees became public at the time they are negotiated, since this would likely avert the crashes in company stock that can occur when undisclosed bad news is allowed to build up over time." 

What do public companies disclose about auditor relationships? [JofA]
NOT audit quality. The study from the CAQ and Audit Analytics found: "
A discussion of audit fees and their connection to audit quality was included in just 13% of S&P 500, 4% of S&P MidCap, and 1% of S&P SmallCap proxy statements."

WFU School of Business has nation’s top pass rate for CPA exam [W-SJ]
For the 12th time since '97.

Accounting firm opens first Miami office [SFBJ]
Crowe Horwath's first Miami office will open with 20 people but they hope it will grow to 100 in 5 years.

4 Crucial Steps to Help You Write More Effectively about Accounting [AWEB]
You need this bc you're writing sux. 

Police: Man used McChicken as a weapon [DMR]
He wasn't lovin' it: "Marvin Tramaine Hill II, 21, admitted to police that he threw the sandwich at his wife 'because he doesn’t like them.' Hill was arrested for simple domestic assault and taken to the Polk County Jail. Des Moines police met with Hill at the couple’s home in the 1400 block of 13th Street. Hill told police it was actually his wife who assaulted him. Hill said his wife woke him up around 1 p.m. with a McChicken in hand. He admitted to police that he became upset and threw the sandwich at her, then picked up some of the bun, throwing it at her again."