Cpa Journal: 2009

Resources that can help you master the simulations part of the CPA Exam...

Communications part:

Choose any of the above books and videos to refresh your GPS, Grammar punctuation and spelling ...
And master your business writing skills...

Finally I received a reply from NASBA about my 6 month free subscription to online professional literature .

This is the reply

You need to submit another Request Form.
Go to www.cpa-exam.org
Move your mouse over PREPARE FOR THE EXAM
Scroll down to Access to Prof Literature and Click on it
Under the paragraph describing the Online Access, there is a link Click here to subscribe
This will take you to the Professional Literature Request form
Only use your current Exam Section ID#
Fill out the rest of the form as specified and Submit

I overlooked the information when I browsed these websites. I sent my request hope this information helps you too.
For direct link click here

GAAP Hierarchy

When preparing financial statements in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) there may be times when GAAP standards do not specifically address your situation, and other times, there might be conflicting standards. To make matters worse, the growing body of complex standards has resulted in standards overload. These facts make it difficult to determine which standard to follow. As an accountant, remember that the Statement of Accounting Standard Number (SAS) 69 establishes a hierarchy to follow. SAS 69 establishes five levels of GAAP; the highest level in the hierarchy that specifically addresses the issue establishes GAAP. The five levels of hierarchy for nongovernmental entities are:

Level A Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) Statements of Financial Standards

FASB Interpretations

APB Opinions

AICPA Accounting Research Bulletins (ARBs).....

Rest of the article is here

OCBOA Financial Statements

One of your small business tax clients asks you to prepare and report on a set of financial statements. Because you’re familiar with the company, you know it has entered into an interest rate swap to lock in a low rate. The company also has a significant amount of goodwill and other intangible assets that may be subject to impairment as well as considerable fixed assets still subject to depreciation. It wants financial statements the company’s owners and executives can easily understand. You wonder whether there is a way to comply with the client’s request that is both cost-effective and less complicated than GAAP-based financial statements. Before you turn down the engagement, you might want to consider preparing and reporting on the financial statements using an “other comprehensive basis of accounting” (OCBOA). In situations where GAAP-basis statements aren’t necessary because of loan covenants, regulatory requirements or similar circumstances, an OCBOA may just be the answer........

Rest of the article is here

Videos

Fighting Procastination

“Procrastination is the thief of time.” - Edward Young (1683-1765)

The pain of procrastination affects students in many different ways. Every time you feel guilty of it, the best thing to do it fight it. Feeling worried causes stress and further affects us.

I deeply digg into the basics of unwanted behaviors and I recommend you to do a basic research on things that disturb you and waste your time. I am only dealing with one problem I face, but it may differ with you. Reaching the goal we planned for is the priority and this should be a boosting thing too.

I was observing myself and when I understood the problem I researched on why I behave in a particular way. Yes, though it is strange we don't know in many ways why we behave in a particular way. The hidden reasons amazed me and I want you to read this article.

Discussion

Procrastination is a complex psychological behavior that affects everyone to some degree or another. With some it can be a minor problem; with others it is a source of considerable stress and anxiety. Procrastination is only remotely related to time management, (procrastinators often know exactly what they should be doing, even if they cannot do it), which is why very detailed schedules usually are no help.

Characteristics

The procrastinator is often remarkably optimistic about his ability to complete a task on a tight deadline; this is usually accompanied by expressions of reassurance that everything is under control. (Therefore, there is no need to start.) For example, he may estimate that a paper will take only five days to write; he has fifteen days; there is plenty of time; no need to start. Lulled by a false sense of security, time passes. At some point, he crosses over an imaginary starting time and suddenly realizes, "Oh no! - I am not in control! There isn't enough time!”............
The rest of the article is here
You can also download this useful article on procrastination. Click here

Securities Act of 1933

Section 1 -- Short Title

Section 2 -- Definitions; Promotion of Efficiency, Competition, and Capital Formation

Section 2A -- Swap Agreements

Section 3 -- Classes of Securities under this Title

Section 4 -- Exempted Transactions

Section 5 -- Prohibitions Relating to Interstate Commerce and the Mails

Section 6 -- Registration of Securities

Section 7 -- Information Required in Registration Statement

Section 8 -- Taking Effect of Registration Statements and Amendments Thereto

Section 8A -- Cease-and-Desist Proceedings

Section 9 -- Court Review of Orders

Section 10 -- Information Required in Prospectus

Section 11 -- Civil Liabilities on Account of False Registration Statement

Section 12 -- Civil Liabilities Arising in Connection with Prospectuses and Communications

Section 13 -- Limitation of Actions

Section 14 -- Contrary Stipulations Void

Section 15 -- Liability of Controlling Persons

Section 16 -- Additional Remedies

Section 17 -- Fraudulent Interstate Transactions

Section 18 -- Exemption from State Regulation of Securities Offerings

Section 19 -- Special Powers of Commission

Section 20 -- Injunctions and Prosecution of Offenses

Section 21 -- Hearings by Commission

Section 22 -- Jurisdiction of Offenses and Suits

Section 23 -- Unlawful Representations

Section 24 -- Penalties

Section 25 -- Jurisdiction of Other Government Agencies over Securities

Section 26 -- Separability of Provisions

Section 27 -- Private Securities Litigation

Section 27A -- Application of Safe Harbor for Forward-Looking Statements

Section 28 -- General Exemptive Authority

Source :http://www.law.uc.edu/CCL/33Act/

Securities Exchange Act of 1934

Section 1 -- Short Title

Section 2 -- Necessity for Regulation

Section 3 -- Definitions and Application

Section 3A -- Swap Agreements

Section 4 -- Securities and Exchange Commission

Section 4A -- Delegation of Functions by Commission

Section 4B -- Transfer of Functions with Respect to Assignment of Personnel to Chairman

Section 4C -- Appearance and Practice Before the Commission

Section 5 -- Transactions on Unregistered Exchanges

Section 6 -- National Securities Exchanges

Section 7 -- Margin Requirements

Section 8 -- Restrictions on Borrowing and Lending by Members, Brokers, and Dealers

Section 9 -- Manipulation of Security Prices

Section 10 -- Manipulative and Deceptive Devices

Section l0A -- Audit Requirements

Section 11 -- Trading by Members of Exchanges, Brokers, and Dealers

Section 11A -- National Market System for Securities; Securities Information Processors

Section 12 -- Registration Requirements for Securities

Section 13 -- Periodical and Other Reports

Section 14 -- Proxies

Section 15 -- Registration and Regulation of Brokers and Dealers

Section 15A -- Registered Securities Associations

Section 15B -- Municipal Securities

Section 15C -- Government Securities Brokers and Dealers

Section 15D -- Securities Analysts and Research Reports

Section 15E -- Registration of Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations

Section 16 -- Directors, Officers, and Principal Stockholders

Section 17 -- Records and Reports

Section 17A -- National System for Clearance and Settlement of Securities Transactions

Section 17B -- Automated Quotation Systems for Penny Stocks

Section 18 -- Liability for Misleading Statements

Section 19 -- Registration, Responsibilities, and Oversight of Self-Regulatory Organizations

Section 20 -- Liability of Controlling Persons and Persons Who Aid and Abet Violations

Section 20A -- Liability to Contemporaneous Traders for Insider Trading

Section 21 -- Investigations and Actions

Section 21A -- Civil Penalties for Insider Trading

Section 21B -- Civil Remedies In Administrative Proceedings

Section 21C -- Cease-and-Desist Proceedings

Section 21D -- Private Securities Litigation

Section 21E -- Application of Safe Harbor for Forward-Looking Statements

Section 22 -- Hearings by Commission

Section 23 -- Rules, Regulations, and Orders; Annual Reports

Section 24 -- Public Availability of Information

Section 25 -- Court Review of Orders and Rules

Section 26 -- Unlawful Representations

Section 27 -- Jurisdiction of Offenses and Suits

Section 27A -- Special Provision Relating to Statute of Limitations on Private Causes of Action

Section 28 -- Effect on Existing Law

Section 29 -- Validity of Contracts

source: http://www.law.uc.edu

Regulation References

INTERNAL REVENUE CODE

Federal tax law begins with the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), enacted by Congress in Title 26 of the United States Code (26 U.S.C.).
The Internal Revenue Code (or IRC; more formally, the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended) is the main body of domestic statutory tax law of the United States organized topically, including laws covering the income tax (see Income tax in the United States), payroll taxes, gift taxes, estate taxes and statutory excise taxes. The Internal Revenue Code is published as Title 26 of the United States Code (USC), and is also known as the internal revenue title. Its governing authority is the Internal Revenue Service.

Subtitle A—Income Taxes

Subtitle B—Estate and Gift Taxes

Subtitle C—Employment Taxes

Subtitle D—Miscellaneous Excise Taxes

Subtitle E—Alcohol, Tobacco, and Certain Other Excise Taxes

Subtitle F—Procedure and Administration

Subtitle G—The Joint Committee on Taxation

Subtitle H—Financing of Presidential Election Campaigns

Subtitle I—Trust Fund Code

Subtitle J—Coal Industry Health Benefits

Subtitle K—Group Health Plan Requirements

Source :
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode26/usc_sup_01_26.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Revenue_Code
http://www.irs.gov/taxpros/article/0,,id=98137,00.html#irc

Sign up for free demos

Consider signing up for free demos offered by Gleim and Bisk CPA reviews.
When you sign up online Gleim provides you with free chapters and Bisk will send you a demo version of their software, which comes with few chapters of study notes.
Both the study materials are really good and helpful. If they give study materials that covers from 10 to 20 per cent of your exam, why don't you go for it?

https://www.gleim.com/account/register.php

http://www.cpaexam.com/Content/demo.asp

Balancing Wants and needs

The journey of any exam never ends with out encountering battles, to fight and win. It is never easy to win this battle. Though the desire to become the CPA is a want, it becomes a need, once we start preparing for an exam. And then the battle of our petty wants and the needs start.
Sometimes we sit to watch TV or visit friends home, we cannot be sure when we are going to be back on track. From my experience I understand that till we become a qualified CPA we must always remind ourselves that our time is precious at this point of time and we are investing our time to reap our returns later.
I'm not saying that we have to completely sacrifice all our movie times and friend's time. It is very important that we should have entertainment also but that entertainment should rejuvenate and help us to make a productive preparation.

Entertainment to rejuvenate is the motto.
Best Wishes

Ethics and professional and legal responsibilities

A. Code of Professional Conduct
B. Proficiency, independence, and due care
C. Ethics and responsibilities in tax practice
D. Licensing and disciplinary systems imposed by the profession and state regulatory bodies
E. Legal responsibilities and liabilities

Common law liability to clients and third parties
Federal statutory liability

F. Privileged communications and confidentiality

AICPA Code of Professional Conduct

Download full version of AICPA professional Ethics

Source: http://www.aicpa.org/About/code/index.html

Posts on Contracts

Business law

A. Agency (Click here to see posts on this topic)
1. Formation and termination
2. Duties and authority of agents and principals
3. Liabilities and authority of agents and principals

B. Contracts (Click here to see posts on this topic)
1. Formation
2. Performance
3. Third-party assignments
4. Discharge, breach, and remedies

C. Debtor-creditor relationships (Click here to see posts on this topic)
1. Rights, duties, and liabilities of debtors, creditors, and guarantors
2. Bankruptcy

D. Government regulation of business (Click here to see posts on this topic)
1. Federal securities acts
2. Other government regulation (antitrust, pension and retirement plans, union and employee relations, and legal liability for payroll and social security taxes)

E. Uniform commercial code (Click here to see posts on this topic)
1. Negotiable instruments and letters of credit
2. Sales
3. Secured transactions
4. Documents of title and title transfer

F. Real property, including insurance (Click here to see posts on this topic)

Uniform Commercial Code

The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC or the Code), first published in 1952, is one of a number of uniform acts that have been promulgated in conjunction with efforts to harmonize the law of sales and other commercial transactions in all 50 states within the United States of America. This objective is deemed important because of the prevalence of commercial transactions that extend beyond one state (for example, where the goods are manufactured in state A, warehoused in state B, sold from state C and delivered in state D). The UCC deals primarily with transactions involving personal property (movable property), not real property (immovable property).

The UCC is the longest and most elaborate of the uniform acts. It has been a long-term, joint project of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) and the American Law Institute (ALI).^[1] Judge Herbert F. Goodrich was the Chairman of the Editorial Board of the original 1952 edition,^[2] and the Code itself was drafted by some of the top legal scholars in the United States, including Karl N. Llewellyn, William A. Schnader, Soia Mentschikoff, and Grant Gilmore. The Code, as the product of private organizations, is not itself the law, but only recommendation of the laws that should be adopted in the states. Once enacted in a state by the state's legislature, it becomes true law and is codified into the state’s code of statutes. When the Code is adopted by a state, it may be adopted verbatim as written by ALI and NCCUSL, or it may be adopted with specific changes deemed necessary by the state legislature. Unless such changes are minor, they can affect the purpose of the Code in promoting uniformity of law among the various states.

The ALI and NCCUSL have also established a permanent editorial board for the Code. This board has issued a number of official comments and other published papers concerning the Code. Although these commentaries do not have the force of law, courts interpreting the Code often cite them as persuasive authority in determining the effect of one or more provisions. Courts interpreting the Code generally seek to harmonize their interpretations with those of other states that have adopted the same or a similar provision, except where specific aspects of the Code were changed by that state when adopting it, or where other aspects of state law require a different decision.

The Code, in one or another of its several revisions, has been enacted in all of the 50 states, as well as in the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Louisiana has enacted most provisions of the UCC with the exception of Article 2, preferring to maintain its own civil law tradition for governing the sale of goods.

Although the substantive content is largely similar, some states have made structural modifications to conform to local legislative customs. For example, Louisiana jurisprudence refers to the major subdivisions of the UCC as “chapters” instead of articles, since the term “articles” is used in that state to refer to provisions of the Louisiana Civil Code. Arkansas has a similar arrangement as the term “article” in that state's law generally refers to a subdivision of the Arkansas Constitution. In California, they are titled "divisions" instead of articles, because in California, articles are a third- or fourth-level subdivision of a code, while divisions are always the first-level subdivision. Also, California does not allow the use of hyphens in section numbers because they are reserved for referring to ranges of sections; therefore, the hyphens used in the official UCC section numbers are dropped in the California implementation.

More about this article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Commercial_Code

Statute of Frauds

Other Links:

http://www.expertlaw.com/library/business/statute_of_frauds.html
Statute of frauds -- Contracts to be written.
http://ask.reference.com/related/Statute+of+Frauds+in+Contracts?qsrc=2892&l=dir&o=10601
http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/content.aspx?activeTextDocId=1518462
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_frauds

REG exam structure and weightage

I. Ethics and professional and legal responsibilities (15%–20%)
II. Business law (20%–25%)
III. Federal tax procedures and accounting issues (8%–12%)
IV. Federal taxation of property transactions (8%–12%)
V. Federal taxation—individuals (12%–18%)
VI. Federal taxation—entities (22%–28%)

Managing Stress

After my Last exam experience.I included stress management as one of my important course, In addition to my regular study course.
As I am not a qualified person to write articles on what stress is, I read some wonderful articles and watched good videos that helped me.

So I thought why don't I refer them to you? Here are few links which can help you.

http://helpguide.org/mental/stress_management_relief_coping.htm
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~acskills/videos/video_sm.html

FAR study notes

Source :http://cpacfa.blogspot.com/

Notes Chapter 1 FAR

Notes Chapter 2 FAR

Notes Chapter 3 FAR

Notes Chapter 4 FAR

Notes Chapter 5 FAR

Notes Chapter 6 FAR

Notes Chapter 7 FAR

Notes Chapter 8 FAR

Notes Chapter 9 FAR

Formula Sheet Mini Test FAR

Regulation Study notes

Source :http://cpacfa.blogspot.com/
Notes Chapter 1 REG

Notes Chapter 2 REG

Notes Chapter 3 REG

Notes Chapter 4 REG

Notes Chapter 5 REG

Notes Chapter 6 REG

Notes Chapter 7 REG

Formula Sheet Mini Test REG

Become a student member

Every state has a society of CPA's which conduct various seminars and share different resources with members. In many states students are offered free membership till they complete their studies. This helps to develop relationships among members and opens up many opportunities. Some CPA reviews like Becker and yaeger give discounts to these society members.

Please check these websites to get an idea about them

http://incpas.org/Home.aspx
http://www.icpas.org/
http://www.calcpa.org/Content/home.aspx
http://www.mocpa.org/Content/Home.aspx

Sarbanes- Oxley Act of 2002

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) is the public company accounting reform and investor protection act. It was passed in response to high-profile business failures, such as Enron and WorldCom, in order to reinforce investment confidence and protect investors by improving the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosure.

Click here to accesss to A to Z of this act.

Why my request denied?

Well the news is the request to free subscription denied. When we register for the next exam and receive the NTS we should proceed and request for the subscription. This must be done before sitting for the exam. Otherwise our NTS is no good for subscription, it is deemed expired.

As I wrote the BEC exam I thought I don't need the subscription then because it may save the expiry time. Gotcha?

Area V – Planning and measurement

Group A – Planning and budgeting
Group B – Performance measures
Group C – Cost measurement

Area IV – Information technology

Group A – Role of business information systems
Group B – Roles and responsibilities within the IT function
Group C – IT fundamentals
Group D – Disaster recovery and business continuity, including data backup and data
recovery procedures, alternate processing facilities (hot sites), and threats and risk
management
Group E – Financial statement and business implications of electronic commerce,
including electronic fund transfers, point of sale transactions, Internet-based
transactions and electronic data interchange

Area III – Financial management

Group A – Financial modeling, including factors such as financial indexes, taxes and
opportunity costs, and models such as economic value added, cash flow, net
present value, discounted payback, and internal rate of return
Group B – Strategies for short and long term financing options, including cost of capital
and derivatives
Group C – Financial statement implications of liquid asset management

Area II – Economic concepts essential to understanding the entity’s business and industry

Group A – Business cycles and reasons for business fluctuations
Group B – Economic measures and reasons for changes in the economy, such as
inflation, deflation, and interest rate changes
Group C – Market influences on business strategies, including selling, supply chain, and
customer management strategies
Group D – Implications to business of dealings in foreign currencies, hedging, and
exchange rate fluctuations

Area I – Business structures

Group A – Advantages, implications, and constraints of legal structures for business
Group B – Formation, operation, termination of businesses
Group C – Financial structure, capitalization, profit and loss allocation, and distributions
Group D – Rights, duties, legal obligations, and authority of owners and management

Regulation Study Guide

I. Ethics and professional and legal responsibilities
II. Business law
III. Federal tax procedures and accounting issues
IV. Federal taxation of property transactions
V. Federal taxation—individuals
VI. Federal taxation—entities

P.S. Click on these topics to see the posts relating to them.

Financial Accounting and Reporting Study Guide

FAR Study notes