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IRS agents are drilling dry holes during corporate audits, the Japanese version of Sarbox, a new spin on insider trading, issuing debt without all the paperwork, and how to keep workers safe, but also help them die.

When Mark Everson took office in 2003 as commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, he promised that collecting underpaid corporate taxes would be a top priority, and backed it up by increasing the number of large corporate audits. Results were quickly realized, with additional recommended taxes doubling in fiscal 2005 compared with the previous year (see “Crackdown,” January 2006). But now Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) suggests the effort may have run out of steam.

CFO.com: Not So Taxing?

Sarbanes-Oxley world continues to turn. And although many claim that it is spinning out of control, signs are beginning to indicate that a move to a more stable and rational environment is pending. Let me highlight just a few of the reasons for the roller coaster ride and some of the relief that is on the way.

Real or perceived drastic events result in drastic measures. The nine?month period that ended with the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was no exception. A quick look at the major headlines during that time tells the tale of a crisis in the making.

• Nov. 8, 2001 — Enron restates earnings for past five years, reports $586 million in losses
• March 27, 2002 — Adelphia says $2.3 billion borrowed by Rigas family not on books
• June 4, 2002 — Tyco CEO indicted on tax evasion charges
• June 12, 2002 –ImClone CEO Samuel Waksal arrested on insider trading charges
• June 25, 2002 — WorldCom admits to inflating earnings by $3.8 billion

LocalTechWire: As the World Turns, Businesses Continue To Struggle With Impact of Sarbanes-Oxley

America’s Most Trustworthy Companies

Alexander the Great is reputed to have said, “Upon the conduct of each depends the fate of all.”

More than two millennia on, the words of the Macedonian king echo true in the boardrooms of America, where the tainted winds of option backdating, insider trading and questionable pension accounting blow fitfully–along with the occasional gust still from the Enron-era corporate scandals.

Trust in free-market capitalism requires that shareholders and other stakeholders in the system have confidence in the probity of companies. Hence accounting standards and governance rules, and the regulators’ requirement that they be transparent.

Forbes: The Good Bookkeepers