NYSSCPA Members in the News
Joanne S. Barry – Executive Director & CEO
NY CPA Leader Honored for Corporate Social Responsibility
INSIDE Public Accounting
New York State Society of CPAs (NYSSCPA) Executive Director and CEO Joanne Barry was honored with City and State’s 2016 Corporate Social Responsibility Award for her Sustainability. “It’s an honor to be recognized for the consensus-building work the NYSSCPA has done this year in the effort to establish an integrated accounting framework in the United States as we strive for global financial stability and sustainable development,” Barry says. The CSR Awards in Sustainability recognize outstanding corporate citizens for their work in sustainability – from the construction, energy, transportation and food industries and beyond.
Other Accounting and Financial News Stories
Investor Demand for Bond Funds Relative to Stocks Is Highest on Record
Wall Street Journal
Stocks have bounced, but investors prefer bonds. Emboldened by central-bank stimulus and a hefty price tag on equities, investor demand for bond funds relative to stocks is the highest on record, according to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.’s analysis of global exchange-traded-fund and U.S. domiciled mutual-fund flows going back to 2007. Investors have poured $202 billion into global bond funds and withdrawn $47 billion from global equity funds this year, putting stocks on track for their first yearly outflow since 2008, according to the bank.
FASB Proposes Changes in Presentation of Financial Statements
Accounting Today
The Financial Accounting Standards Board has released an exposure draft proposing changes in its conceptual framework related to how items are presented in a financial statement. The exposure draft, Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting: Chapter 7: Presentation, explains the proposals and will become a basis for FASB when it describes presentation requirements in future accounting standards.
U.S. Government Bonds Pull Back After Two-Day Rally
Wall Street Journal
U.S. government bonds pulled back Thursday, giving up most of their gains from a two-day rally that had nearly erased losses suffered after last Friday’s surprisingly strong jobs report. Weakness in haven debt coincided with a rally in riskier assets such as stocks that was driven by better-than-expected earnings from U.S. retailers and an uptick in oil prices.
How Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Differ on Taxes
New York Times
If Donald J. Trump wins the White House and proceeds to persuade Congress to pass his tax agenda, middle-class Americans will get a small tax cut, wealthy Americans and businesses will get a huge tax cut, and the budget deficit will widen substantially unless there is the type of economic boom he promises amid lower taxes and lighter regulation. If Hillary Clinton wins the White House and persuades Congress to pass her agenda, wealthy Americans will pay higher taxes, businesses will face tax rules that make it less advantageous to relocate overseas, and the money those changes produce will go to fund the rest of her policy agenda, from child care to roads, bridges and other infrastructure.
New Phishing Scheme Mimics Software Providers; Targets Tax Professionals
IRS.gov
The Internal Revenue Service today alerted tax professionals to an emerging phishing email scam that pretends to be from tax software providers and tries to trick recipients into clicking on a bogus link. The email scheme is the latest in a series of attempts by fraudsters to use the IRS or other tax issues as a cover to trick people into giving up sensitive information such as passwords, Social Security numbers or credit card numbers or to make unnecessary payments.
Textbook Failure: Why Rate Cuts Have Stopped Working on Currencies
Wall Street Journal
It has been a year to forget for writers of economic textbooks. Rate cuts by global central banks have done little to weaken surging currencies. In theory, loosening monetary policy should lower a currency’s value. However, all this year the opposite has been happening. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand became the latest victim of this phenomenon on Thursday.
US exchanges to overhaul process to resume trading after halt
FinancialNews
Nearly a year after a wild trading session on August 24, 2015, led to more than 1,000 stock and exchange-traded fund halts in a single day, NYSE Group, a unit of Intercontinental Exchange, Nasdaq and Bats Global Markets outlined a series of planned measures on August 11 aimed at smoothing trading activity. Among the moves will be a unified process by which stocks and ETFs resume trading after a halt.
'Big Four' Accounting Firms Meet to Consider Blockchain Consortium
CoinDesk
Blockchain representatives from each of the 'Big Four' accounting firms are set to meet this morning with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants to discuss establishing a distributed ledger consortium. Held at Microsoft's headquarters in New York City, the event marks the first meeting between blockchain specialists from Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PwC. Collectively, the four firms last year generated $123.7bn revenue.