Accounting error B.C. Transportation Minister Todd Stone says he is “angry” after learning that an ICBC (British Columbia Insurance Corporation) computer mistake led to billing errors totalling an estimated $110 million in optional insurance coverage. The Crown corporation estimates it owes its customers $36 million and an additional $3 million in interest for overcharging them…. Read more »
Posts Tagged: Income Statement
Google stock breaks $1,000 barrier
Google stock breaks $1,000 barrier Strong third-quarter results have sent Google’s stock past the $1,000 US mark for the first time. Shortly after the markets opened Friday, Google Inc. shares jumped more than 12 per cent to $1,007.40 US in heavy trading before edging back down to $1,000 later in the morning. The Nasdaq-listed stock… Read more »
Happiness is owning a small business!
Small business owners in Canada are a happy group, a new survey says. In fact, 62% of Canadian small business owners would describe themselves as “very happy” with only 1% saying they are “very unhappy.” These are just some of the findings from TD’s Small Business Happiness Index, which examined the attitudes and behaviour of… Read more »
Bank of America: It Depends On How You Define Materiality
Bank of America incorrectly classified as much as $10.7 billion in short-term lending and repurchase deals for mortgage securities as sales. This claim surfaced in a May 13 letter to the SEC where the banking corporation alleges that the transactions were immaterial and that it would be beefing up its internal accounting controls. This letter… Read more »
Risky Medicine for Hospital Financing
In a last-minute change to the financial reforms bill, Congress allowed Wall Street to continue to sell interest-rate swaps directly, rather than isolating these derivatives in separate units. The thinking behind this move is that the interest-rate securities are benign, or at least less dangerous than credit default swaps, which the legislation requires banks to… Read more »
Small Discrepancies Grow Into a Giant Fraud
Satyam Computer Services, a leading Indian outsourcing company that served more than a third of the Fortune 500 companies, was at the heart of a huge 2009 fraud perpetrated through the significant inflation of earnings and falsification of accounts and assets for a number of years. Chairman, Ramalinga Raju, resigned in January 2009 after revealing that… Read more »
Madoff: Freedom in Prison?
In an extended expose, the New York Magazine reported that Bernard Madoff described his scheme as a real nightmare to him, as if he were the real victim, and complained about little old ladies bugging him for money. The article goes on to describe his celebrity in prison among the other inmates and his “freedom”… Read more »
Research and Development (R & D): Does This Indicate a Crack in the Foundation of IFRS Convergence?
When the IASB and FASB began the convergence process in 2002, they considered R & D as a high-priority project, where differences between US GAAP and IFRS were seen as particularly straightforward. However, as this article notes, still no consensus has been reached because IASB’s R&D treatment appears to defeat comparability in the eyes of… Read more »
Donated Inventory
Over the next five years, Wal-Mart plans to donate about 1.1 billion pounds of food to food banks and provide $250 million to help them buy refrigerated trucks, improve storage and develop better logistics. The plan to contribute $2 billion in cash and food to the nation’s food banks is considered to be one of… Read more »
Financial Instrument Accounting
On Wednesday, May 26, 2010, the FASB released an exposure draft for the purposes of improving accounting for financial instruments. The new rules, projected to take effect in 2013, incorporate both amortized cost and fair value information about financial instruments held for collection or payment of cash flows. Questions: 1. According to the article, how… Read more »