Government's money laundering strategy focuses on role of accountants and other professionals; legislation pending. (news update).The Bush Administration recently released its 2001 strategy for combating money laundering The process of taking the proceeds of criminal activity and making them appear legal. Laundering allows criminals to transform illegally obtained gain into seemingly legitimate funds. in a report required to be submitted to Congress annually (www.treas.gov/press/releases/ po625.htm). As in prior strategy reports, the Bush report associates accountants (without singling them out from lawyers or bankers) with money laundering. The association is either by "being employed by criminals to disguise unlawful monies" or by having a role in detecting and deterring money laundering (as CPAs are "gatekeepers" to the domestic and international financial system). One of the five major goals of the strategy is to continue cooperative private/public sector efforts and "necessary regulatory measures." One of the goal's objectives is to increase the usefulness of reported information to law enforcement agencies A law enforcement agency (LEA) is a term used to describe any agency which enforces the law. This may be a local or state police, federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) or the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). and the financial industry, with a priority given to continuing to address the role of legal and accounting professionals in fighting money laundering. Last year AICPA AICPA See American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). representatives met with federal government representatives on the "Gatekeepers" Working Group of the National Money Laundering Strategy Implementation Group. That dialogue is expected to continue. In addition, the Institute has communicated money laundering issues and CPA (Computer Press Association, Landing, NJ) An earlier membership organization founded in 1983 that promoted excellence in computer journalism. Its annual awards honored outstanding examples in print, broadcast and electronic media. The CPA disbanded in 2000. responsibilities in The CPA Letter, the Journal of Accountancy (June 2001 feature article), annual audit risk alerts and conferences. Furthermore, in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, legislation addressing money laundering appears likely to be included in Congress's overall response to the current terrorism situation. A provision in a Senate bill would have required an annual review of a financial institution's money laundering program as part of an independent audit required by the Securities and Exchange Commission. However, that provision was deleted Deleted A security that is no longer included on a specified market. Sometimes referred to as "delisted". Notes: Reasons for delisting include violating regulations, failing to meet financial specifications set out by the stock exchange and going bankrupt. during Senate Banking Committee markup (text) markup - In computerised document preparation, a method of adding information to the text indicating the logical components of a document, or instructions for layout of the text on the page or other information which can be interpreted by some automatic system. . The AICPA Washington office will closely monitor developments in this area. imackay@aicpa.org, Professional Standards & Services (DC) pkravitz@aicpa.org, Congressional and Political Affairs Political Affairs has several meanings:
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion