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..
The Equipment Leasing & Financing (ELF) Foundation issued a study on leases in December. We assume these elves were hoping Santa would present them a gift of no amendments to lessee accounting. After all, why report economic reality if you don’t have to?
Jan 142012
In a recent article, Michael Rapoport says “What quirks in accounting rules giveth, they also taketh away.” We agree whole-heartedly.
Dec 122011
If principles-based accounting is superior to rules-based accounting, as professed by so many in the profession, then this proposition ought to apply to other areas as well, including accounting ethics. The profession could set up accounting ethics as a principles-based system or as a rules-based codification, and which direction the profession chooses will speak volumes [...]
With the collapse of MF Global, focus naturally moves to the risky repo transactions in which the business enterprise engaged and the accounting for these transactions. After all, billions of dollars of liabilities were kept off the balance sheet. What rationale did MF Global have to remove the liabilities from its balance sheet?
Sep 192011
Last Thursday the FASB updated accounting for goodwill impairment, specifically focusing on the testing of goodwill impairments. The details are given in 2011-08, which is entitled Intangibles—Goodwill and Other (Topic 350): Testing Goodwill for Impairment. We don’t understand the dilution of a rather simple concept.
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.