Category: News

The U.S. government shutdown has entered its 3rd week and most IRS activities have been halted. The IRS says it will soon release a contingency plan for this federal income tax filing season. Until then, a shutdown back in 2013 may provide clues as to how the IRS will handle things. At that time, the IRS instructed taxpayers to keep filing their returns and making deposits, as required by law. No telephone service was available. Walk-in taxpayer assistance centers were closed. And while the IRS website remained available, some of its interactive features weren’t

The U.S. Treasury Inspector for Tax Administration has issued an audit report on the results of the 2018 tax filing season.

Through May 4, 2018, the IRS received 140.9 million tax returns and issued more than 101.3 million refunds totaling some $282 billion. More than 89% of the returns were e-filed. The agency processed 4.9 million returns that reported nearly $27 billion in health insurance Premium Tax Credits either received in advance or claimed at the time of filing.

Read the full audit report here:https://bit.ly/2GGOp7v

The White House is working on a second tax bill. The Trump Administration plans to propose a second tax cut law, possibly by the end of summer, which would make permanent the tax breaks for individuals that were passed in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The White House Director of Legislative Affairs has been working with House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX) and the Senate Finance Committee on the proposal. If a bill materializes and gains approval in the House, it would face an uncertain future in the Senate, where it would need 60 votes to pass.

A new accounting rule for reporting leases goes into effect in 2019 for public companies. Although private companies have been granted a one-year reprieve, no business should wait until the last minute to start the implementation process. Some recently revised guidance is intended to ease implementation. Here’s an overview of what’s changing.

Old rules, new rules

Under the existing rules, companies must record lease obligations on their balance sheets only if the arrangements are considered financing transactions. Few arrangements get recorded, because accounting rules give companies leeway to arrange the agreements in a way that they can be treated as simple rentals for financial reporting purposes. If an obligation isn’t recorded on a balance sheet, it makes a business look like it is less leveraged than it really is.

In 2016, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued a new standard that calls for major changes to current accounting practices for leases. In a nutshell, Accounting Standards Update (ASU) No. 2016-02, Leases (Topic 842), will require companies to recognize on their balance sheets the assets and liabilities associated with rentals.

Most existing arrangements that currently are reported as leases will continue to be reported as leases under the new standard. In addition, the new definition is expected to encompass many more types of arrangements that aren’t reported as leases under current practice.

Revised guidance

Recently, the FASB revised two provisions to make the lease guidance easier to apply:

1. Modified retrospective approach. Upon adoption of the new lease accounting standard, companies may elect to present results using the current lease guidance for prior periods. This will allow management to focus on accounting for current and future transactions under the new rules — rather than looking backward at old leases.

2. Maintenance charges. On March 28, the FASB agreed to give lessors and property managers the option not to separately account for the fees for “common area maintenance” charges, such as security, elevator repairs and snow removal.

In addition, the FASB has provided a practical expedient to utilities, oil-and-gas companies and energy providers that hold rights-of-way to accommodate gas pipelines or electric wires. Under the revised guidance, companies that hold such land easements won’t have to sort through years of old contracts to determine whether they meet the definition of a lease. This practical expedient applies only to existing land easements, however.

Need help?

The lease standard is expected to add more than $1.25 trillion of operating lease obligations to public company balance sheets starting in 2018. How will it affect your business? Contact us to help answer this question and evaluate which of your contracts must be reported as lease obligations under the new rules.

© 2018

ATA invited employees and their families to a day at the Discovery Park of America. We wanted to show appreciation to our hard-working staff, and we value the support they receive from their families.

When companies reissue prior financial statements, it raises a red flag to investors and lenders. But not all restatements are bad news. Some result from an honest mistake or misinterpretation of an accounting standard, rather than from incompetence or fraud. Here’s a closer look at restatements and how external auditors can help a company’s management get it right.

Avoid knee-jerk responses

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) defines a restatement as “a revision of a previously issued financial statement to correct an error.” Accountants decide whether to restate a prior period based on whether the error is material to the company’s financial results. Unfortunately, there aren’t any bright-line percentages to determine materiality.

When you hear the word “restatement,” don’t automatically think of the frauds that occurred at Xerox, Enron or WorldCom. Some unscrupulous executives do use questionable accounting practices to meet quarterly earnings projections, maintain stock prices and achieve executive compensation incentives. But many restatements result from unintentional errors.

Spot error-prone accounts

Accounting rules can be complex. Recognition errors are one of the most common causes of financial restatements. They sometimes happen when companies implement a change to the accounting rules (such as the updated guidance on leases or revenue recognition) or engage in a complex transaction (such as reporting compensation expense from backdated stock options, hedge accounting, the use of special purpose or variable interest entities, and consolidating with related parties).

Income statement and balance sheet misclassifications also cause a large number of restatements. For instance, a borrower may need to shift cash flows between investing, financing and operating on the statement of cash flows.

Equity transaction errors, such as improper accounting for business combinations and convertible securities, can also be problematic. Other leading causes of restatements are valuation errors related to common stock issuances, preferred stock errors, and the complex rules related to acquisitions, investments and tax accounting.

Want more accurate results?

Restatements also happen when a company upgrades to a higher level of assurance (say, when transitioning from reviewed statements to audited statements). That’s because audits are more likely than compilation or review procedures to catch reporting errors from prior periods. An external auditor is required to “plan and perform an audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement, whether caused by error or fraud.”

But after the initial transition period, audits typically catch errors before financial statements are published, minimizing the need for restatements. Auditors are trained experts on U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) — and they must take continuing professional education courses to stay atop the latest changes to the rules.

In addition to auditing financial statements, we can help implement cost-effective internal control procedures to prevent errors and accurately report error-prone accounts and transactions. Contact us for help correcting a previous error, remedying the source of an error or upgrading to a higher level of assurance.

© 2017