Accounting and Audit

This newspaper has long argued that items such as goodwill and brand values should be excluded from balance sheets as they are nebulous, cannot be accurately calculated and give a false value to companies. So, we argue, does valuing companies on "revenue" and artificial straight line depreciation saying that fixed assets and profit are the only true measures of a company's value to shareholders. Once again, it is reported by a market regulator, a company is "writing down" goodwill. It's time for a radical rethink on how companies, especially listed companies, are valued.

Australia's Self-Managed Superannuation Fund schemes are great on paper. But in the real world, they are a constant source of problems.

The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) conducted inspections at Australia's six largest audit firms and found that they performed a little better than the industry average but even so, a fifth of them lacked material information.

In the wider world of financial services, there's a tendency to forget that there are regulators for other areas of commerce, too. In the UK, in accounting, the last stop for action relating to accounting and audit misconduct is the Financial Reporting Council. It's one of those bodies that replaces gravitas with slogans on its website (which is "flashy" but doesn't work properly) but when it gets its teeth into a case, it acts as a proper regulator. It levies only small fines but it's paying more and more attention to the big boys.

The creation of the new, PoTUS Trump-driven tax regime with effect from 1 January, only a week after the law was passed and that being a week everyone was off partying, is leading to a flurry of activity in government offices. The first important documents to come out of the Inland Revenue Service are "withholding tables" that relate to deduction of income tax at source.

"Updated 2018 Withholding Tables Now Available; Taxpayers Could See Pay cheque Changes by February," says the IRS in a statement.

ASIC has disqualified Kathleen Whittle of New South Wales from being an approved self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) auditor.

New York state is one of a number of US states that now require taxpayers in the state to provide a driving licence or other state (not necessarily NY)-issued identification when taxpayers file returns electronically. Federal tax systems do not have a similar requirement.

The list of items that HMRC says were particularly silly in 2014-5 tax returns is amusing but not so bad. You should see what lawyers have claimed in bills to clients as expenses.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has obtained the suspension by the Companies Auditors and Liquidators Disciplinary Board of Dean Royston McVeigh for 18 months, preventing him acting as liquidator or voluntary administrator.