Education & Careers news

Education & Careers

Accounting Professor Named Governor’s Professor of the Year for South Carolina

Christine Crosby, who teaches accounting at York Technical College, was named the 2005 Governor’s Professor of the Year for South Carolina’s two-year colleges in a ceremony last Thursday at the state Capitol Rotunda. The formal citation is accompanied by a $5,000 check.Ms. Crosby served as Accounting Program Manager, the equivalent of department chair, at York Tech for 10 years but left that position in 2005 to return to full-time classroom teaching and academic advising, according to a biography on the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education (CHE) web site.
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A&A

Entrepreneurs Critical Piece of Economic Picture

Low taxes, manageable regulations and few obstacles to entering the business world are keys to encouraging small business growth around the world, a federal economist said last week."Countries around the global are discovering how important small business is for their growth and long-term economic health. Their policies toward entrepreneurship differ, but the results of similar policies are consistent,” Chad Moutray, chief economist of the U.S.
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Tax

Tax Breaks for Dutch Witches

A court in the Netherlands has ruled that witchcraft lessons are tax deductible, the Associated Press (AP) reports. On September 23, Reuters reports, the Leeuwarden District Court reaffirmed the legal right of witches to write off the costs of learning to cast spells, practice divination and brew potions as long as it increases the possibility of employment and personal income.“Once you become a witch…you can pass along things you have learned,” Margarita Rongen, operator of the “Witches Homestead” in the northern Friesland province told the AP.
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Practice Management

Wanted: Accounting Grads, Willing to Pay Gym Fees

Overworked accounting executives are finding that great pay and benefits aren't enough to attract top talent.Satisfying the crushing demand for accounting services means getting creative: offering athletic club memberships, flexible work schedules, telework options, bonuses, training opportunities and the intangibles, such as a positive “work environment” and “work-life balance.”
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Practice

White Paper Overview: CPA Firms Lack Formal Staffing Programs

Few certified public accounting (CPA) firms have formal, documented programs for attracting and retaining qualified staff members a recent survey conducted by the Private Companies Practice Section (PCPS) of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). Survey results appear in the white paper Best Practices in Recruiting and Retaining Talented Staff. “Unfortunately, many firms believe that they lack the resources to implement a formal program.
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Education & Careers

Wearing Your Career Aspirations on Your Sleeve

Student members of the Texas Society of Certified Public Accountants (TSCPA) were given “CPA 2B” and “Born 2B CPA” temporary tattoos as part of a lighthearted summer membership promotion. Student members were encouraged to take a picture while wearing the tattoos on their summer vacation and submit them to TSCPA.Entries showed TSCPA student members displaying their temporary tattoos as far away as the streets of Spain and the mountains of Peru and as close as a backyard pool in Texas. All submissions were entered in a random drawing for four $250 prizes.
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Community News

Illinois CPA Society Offers Future CPAs Scholarships

The Illinois CPA Society has announced its annual Accounting Scholarship Program. The Society also announced two additional scholarship programs – the Herman J. Neal Scholarship Program and the Women’s Executive Committee’s Advancing Women in Accounting Scholarship.The Accounting Scholarship Program awards up to six scholarships of up to $4,000 each to outstanding accounting students and planning to become CPAs, who demonstrate both academic achievement and financial need. Applicants to this program must be a U.S.
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Education & Careers

One Firm’s Answer to the 150 Credit Hour Requirement

For many younger employees, benefits can seem pretty irrelevant. Not at Beers & Cutler, a leading accounting and consulting firm in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. On Monday, Beers & Cutler announced its 150 Hour Tuition Reimbursement Program.The program is an innovative tuition reimbursement program to assist qualified undergraduate and graduate students in meeting the 150 credit hour requirement in order to sit for the CPA exam.
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Technology

Finance and Accounting Outsourcing is Expanding

The Everest Research Institute reports that the Finance and Accounting Outsourcing (FAO) is an expanding sector in the Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) market. Approximately 70 percent of the 108 multi-process FAO contracts have been signed since 2001 according to the report. Industry analysts estimate in the current edition of Tekrati that the value of current FAO contracts have reached $12 billion.
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Education & Careers

Katrina Exodus Proves Just How Mobile Americans Are

America is a mobile society. A fact demonstrated by the 1.3 million households from the Gulf Coast communities affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita that USA Today reports have dispersed to every state in the nation.
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A&A

Canadian CFOs Forecast Fourth Quarter Hiring

Thirteen percent of Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) at Canadian companies expect to add staff during the fourth quarter of 2005 according to the latest Robert Half International Financial Hiring Index. Only 2 percent of those surveyed expect to reduce staffing levels while 82 percent do not expect any change to current staffing levels.“Businesses are adding accounting and finance personnel to support new system upgrades and business expansion,” Jeff Holloway, a vice-president of Robert Half International said in announcing the findings.
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A&A

Telework Seen as Important Perk, Especially for Women

Hurricanes, high gas prices, soaring office rents, stressful commutes. While telecommuting has been growing more popular in recent years, events of the last several weeks may prompt even more companies to jump on board.Technology businesses pioneered flexible work arrangements in the 1990s. Service firms, such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, followed. Now, wide use of mobile phones, broadband and wireless Internet access has made working out of the office even easier, and employees consider it an important benefit.
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Technology

Senate Approves Second Accounting Rules Exemption for E-Rate

The U.S. Senate approved a second temporary exemption for Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) E-Rate program last week Reuters reported. The exemption, according to Reuters, eases the accounting rules governing the funds subsidizing Internet connections to libraries and schools. “This is merely a short-term solution to a problem that must be resolved.
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Education & Careers

Middle Managers Carrying Companies Through Rocky Times

With companies increasingly looking outside their own ranks for top talent, the ability of the middle managers to quickly adapt during the transition is critical.While the CEOs enjoy high profiles, big salaries and generous bonus packages, middle managers are often the forgotten heroes of big-business transformations. And CEOs who recognize this can themselves enjoy greater success.The Wall Street Journal reported that dozens of CEOs have been ousted in the last 12 months.
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A&A

Unemployment Insurance Celebrates 70 Years of Assistance

Created by the law that created the Social Security system, Unemployment Insurance is celebrating an anniversary. The Social Security Act of 1935 set up the federal-state partnership for the unemployment insurance (UI) program and Michigan was the first state to adopt their own UI law.“Citizens really need this program. There are thousands and thousands of workers all across the nation that depend on this program,” said Ron Macksoud, a public information specialist of the Alabama Department of Industrial Relations speaking with the Auburn Plainsman.
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Education & Careers

Massive Unemployment and Relief in the Wake of Katrina

Forecasts by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) are putting unemployment at 400,000 in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The CBO released a report on the nation’s worst natural disaster and its economic impact last week. Although Katrina caused a “significant but not overwhelming"impact to our economy, recession is not expected as a result of the storm. Estimates of pre-Katrina payroll job growth were set at between 600,000 and 800,000 and those numbers will be be reduced by the 400,000 in the final quarter of the year.
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Community News

UPDATE: Website Dedicated to Small Business Jobs for Katrina Evacuees

A website at www.KatrinaDisplacedJOBS.com dedicated to listing job openings specifically for evacuees of areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina, has been created by Ascent Business Systems, Inc. and Intelligent Netware. The web site will be available on Tuesday, September 13, 2005.
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Education & Careers

Starting Salaries Increase for Accounting Grads

Accounting firms lead all other employers in hiring new college graduates according to the summer 2005 issue of Salary Survey of the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), the Westchester County Business Journal reports.
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Education & Careers

UTPA Accounting Team Brings Home National Audit Case Title

Making the case for how auditors should handle renewable gambling licenses, the five-woman University of Texas-Pan American (UTPA) accounting team brought home the national title for the second straight year in the ALPHA/KPMG Audit Case Study competition.
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Education & Careers

Teaching Financial Independence to the Next Generation

While some young adults know how to make money, they might not know how to manage it. Parents still usually control, or have a hand in controlling, their children’s personal and even their business finances. Protecting a grown child’s money may seem natural but with education costs, spiking home costs, not to mention rising loan and credit card debt, transitioning control might be the best idea.“What is new is the increasing number of young adults unable to succeed financially on their own,” said John Gallo, an estate-planning attorney speaking with the Associated Press.
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Pages

Voice of the Editor

Even though any accounting auditor would tell you it seems like there are an awful lot of tax accountants out there, surely one-third of the country isn't made up of tax preparers, so it's rather startling news to learn that one-third of Americans like to do their taxes. Who knew?
Read more
Gail Perry, CPA
Publisher/Editor-in-Chief, AccountingWEB
editor@accountingweb.com
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