ANTHONY H. CATANACH JR. is an associate professor in the School of Business at Villanova University, as well as the Cary M. Maguire Fellow at the American College Center for Ethics in Financial Services. His professional experience includes five years as an audit manager with KPMG and six years in the financial services industry. Dr. Catanach has received numerous awards for his publication, teaching, and curriculum innovation efforts. He has authored numerous articles on a variety of accounting, finance, and management issues, as well as several business education texts..
Deferred tax assets and deferred tax liabilities remain bizarre and frequently misunderstood members of the financial statement community. Whatever they may be, it is doubtful that the former are assets, or that the latter are liabilities. Likewise, to measure income tax expense as a function of financial reporting income is peculiar because Congress and the [...]
The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) is getting around to addressing the disclosure catastrophe that has befallen our beloved financial statements. Yes, in case you haven’t noticed, the financial statement notes (the report content that really matters) have disintegrated into a series of disorganized, generic, boilerplate text references that can at best be called tedious, [...]
Jul 022012
California is getting a lot of press these days about its awful budget situation, most of which has been self-inflicted. Boskin and Cogan refer to California’s problems as “Casino Budgeting.” They observe the reluctance of Governor Jerry Brown and other state politicians to impose real reforms, relying instead on increasing tax rates, accounting gimmicks, and [...]
Emily Chasan wrote in The CFO Journal that a “Lease Accounting Breakthrough Could Come in June.” Since this issue has been debated for several decades, it is about time.
Abraham Briloff complained that sometimes the accounting standard setters do a pathetic job by creating rules that enhance the ability of managers to manage earnings. At those times, he indicated that GAAP becomes cleverly rigged accounting ploys. The CRAP acronym is tart, but precise.
J. EDWARD KETZ is an associate professor of accounting in the Smeal College of Business at Pennsylvania State University. He has a bachelor’s degree in political science, a master’s degree in accountancy, and a Ph.D., all from Virginia Tech. Professor Ketz has been a member of the Penn State faculty since 1981. He also has taught at the University of Connecticut and the University of Maryland. Professor Ketz has authored and edited 17 books including Hidden Financial Risk (Wiley, 2003) which examines the corporate culture and the institutional setting that engendered recent accounting scandals. Dr. Ketz has been cited in the popular and business press, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Business Week, and USA Today. He also has appeared as an accounting commentator on CNN, National Public Radio, and Bloomberg Radio.