I recently had the privilege of attending an International Federation of Accountants Council (IFAC) meeting where we discussed the credit crisis, its impact on different countries’ economies and the profession’s reaction to the crisis including professionals in practice and professional accountants in business. IFAC’s main purpose is the development of auditing, ethics and education standards…
TEACHERS AND PERCEPTIONS “In your report here it says that you are an extremely dull person. Our experts describe you as an appalling dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, lacking in initiative, spineless, easily dominated… Whereas in most professions these would be considerable drawbacks, in Accountancy they are a positive boon” (Bougen, 1994, quoting a Monty Python…
URGENT AMENDMENTS ISSUED ON THE RECLASSIFICATION OF FINANCIAL ASSETS APB APPROVAL The Trustees of the International Accounting Standards Committee Foundation, the oversight body of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), recently agreed that the IASB accelerate its response to the credit crisis. Under this approach, the IASB sought to reduce the difference between International Financial…
Look at the history of any business and you will see organisations beset by challenges, which at particular points in time, demand extraordinary focus and attention. In the early 1990’s, ‘diversity’ was the one such focus area that took centre stage. At the turn of the century we were busy with ‘innovation’ and, as we…
A Chief Financial Officer’s response Gobble-lisation is defined as “when billions of dollars of retirement savings are gobbled-up and destroyed due to the combined effect of globalisation and a couple of turkeys at some banks that decided to sell cheap credit mortgages”. OK, I may have made up this word, but I thought that the…
The financial and auditing skills exodus Plugging the ‘brain drain’ in the Financial and Auditing sector will be no mean feat as the SAICA commissioned research reveals. Pressure comes from different sources that impact negatively on the number of skilled professionals and workers in the sector; unacceptably low output of capable learners from school level,…
In August 2008, the United States (US) Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) unanimously approved a proposed roadmap for conversion to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs). The roadmap’s first step is to allow for the early adoption of IFRSs by 110 of the largest publicly held companies in the US; companies that represent 14% of the…
The Revenue Laws Amendment Bill, 2008 (the Bill) introduced an amendment to the Income tax Act No.58 of 1962 (the Act) in respect of the taxation of pre-retirement withdrawals from retirement funds (SARS, 2008:4). Pre-retirement withdrawal benefits are payable to fund members when they exit the fund prior to retirement or involve payments before termination…
Walking down George Street in the CBD of Sydney, Australia and hearing the variety of accents engulfing me I asked myself the question; ‘Am I proud to be a South African?’. Do I hold my head high ready to debate the current political turmoil or the perceived pessimistic outlook with anyone who dares question my…
The number of recent claims against audit firms, some of them running into billions of Rands, for alleged ‘audit failures’, is a stark reminder of the problems facing the auditing profession in the absence of some protection offered by an equitable apportionment of liability regime. This constant threat of seeking to be held liable as…