Editorial Staff

Publisher/Editor-in-Chief
Colleen Katz

Managing Editor
Elizabeth Uva

Senior Editors
Laura Baron
Katharine W. Coveleski
Peter D. Fleming
Michael Hayes
Robert Tie

Senior Assistant Editor
Sarah Cobb

Assistant Editor
Vincent Nolan

Contributing Editors
Anita Dennis
Lesli S. Laffie
Joan Mancuso
Barbara J. Shildneck
Stanley Zarowin

Production Director
Peter M. Tuohy 

Art Director
Jeryl A. Costello

Production Manager
Gene Cioffi

Senior Manager—
Production Services—
Publishing Technology
Robert DiCorcia

Production Editor
D. Hillel Lofaso

Senior Production Associates
Valrie Mason
Ingrid Medina

Art Assistant
Patricia L. Arrington

Associate Publisher
Thomas R. Greve

Advertising Team Manager
Karin DeMarco

Advertising Representatives
Joseph Torres
Kurt Weber

Advertising Coordinator
John Weinberg

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Highlights

The AICPA Center for Public Company Audit Firms began operations January 1, 2004, as a voluntary membership organization for firms that audit or are interested in auditing public companies. Following the Sarbanes-Oxley Act’s creation of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) to inspect and discipline auditors of SEC-registered issuers, the Institute established the center to achieve the following objectives:

Enhance the quality of member firms’ public company audit practices through the timely communication to members of SEC- and PCAOB-related news, the development of technical and educational information for members and the promotion of best practices.

Provide a forum for member firms to discuss and express their views on matters that affect public company audits.

Maintain relationships with member firms and act as a liaison to the SEC and the PCAOB on their behalf.

Propose to regulators solutions to issues member firms identify, and prepare comment letters on rule proposals that affect public company auditors.

Administer a peer review program—focused on member firms’ private company audit practices—that will bridge the PCAOB’s inspection of member firms’ public company audit practices.

Additional information on the center is available at www.aicpa.org/cpcaf. Questions or feedback can be sent by e-mail to center@aicpa.org.

Mark VanDeveer, chairman of the AICPA IRS practice and procedures committee, said at a January meeting of the IRS oversight board—an independent body responsible for providing the service with long-term guidance and direction—that the IRS’s principal strategic goals for the next five years should be the continuation of its reorganization, further modernization of its information technology systems and strengthening of its enforcement activities.

For example, while praising communications efforts accompanying the service’s restructuring, he cited the absence of what he said may seem like a mundane resource but that practitioners actually consider essential—an up-to-date telephone directory of personnel in each of the IRS’s four operational divisions. Many practitioners represent clients covered by more than one of these divisions.

VanDeveer also said the IRS should continue to sponsor the Office of the National Taxpayer Advocate and urged the oversight board and Congress to support renewed funding for making IRS systems more capable of fulfilling the agency’s various functions. In addition, he said the AICPA backs the service’s major compliance initiatives related to abusive tax shelters, offshore credit card users, high-income nonfilers and unreported income and supports IRS efforts to reengineer its examination and collection efforts so that taxpayer audits focus on material issues.

The international financial reporting interpretations committee of the International Accounting Standards Board released two Draft Interpretations: D3, Determining whether an Arrangement contains a Lease, and D4, Decommissioning, Restoration and Environmental Rehabilitation Funds (www.iasb.org.uk). The first contains guidance on determining whether arrangements that do not take the legal form of a lease (for example, certain take-or-pay contracts) should nevertheless be accounted for in accordance with IAS 17, Leases. The second addresses the accounting to be adopted by entities that contribute to funds used to help meet decommissioning costs or environmental rehabilitation costs. Comments are due March 19.

Editorial Advisers

Catherine R. Allen, Kenneth D. Askelson, James Bean, John C. Boma, Jacob R. Brandzel, Steven J. Brown, Jolene C. Brucks, Thomas F. Burrage, Linda Burt, J. Gregory Bushong, R. Patrick Cargill, Benson J. Chapman, Rosemarie T. Dunn, Thomas Emmerling, Elizabeth Fender, Robert J. Freeman, Kim Gibson, Alan Glazer, Randi K. Grant, Patrick T. Hanratty, DeAnn Hill, James E. Hunton, Frank J. Kopczynski, Jeffrey B. Kraut, Dennis B. Kremer, William F. Laurie, Alan Levin, John Lewison, Joseph P. Liotta, Mano Mahadeva, Benjamin F. Mathews, David McIntee, Anita Meola, Debra Mitchell, Roger H. Molvar, Brenda Morris, Craig Murray, Lyne P. Noella, Edward T. Odmark, Mary P. Ricciardello, Mark L. Richardson, Marshall B. Romney, Peggy Scott, Carolyn Sechler, Gary Shamis, Ivan J. Sotomayor, Alan Steiger, Paul C. Sullivan, Gary R. Trugman, Robert Willens, Mark A. Yahoudy