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Monday Morning Accounting News Brief: CPAs Are Overworked (Duh); EY’s New Toy; Metaverse Party! | 10.24.22

alarm clock and full bowl of pet food

From last Friday’s Footnotes ICYMI: Deloitte is delaying offers in India, KPMG flunks audit inspections at twice the rate of other firms, PwC is hiring more minorities, and EY is putting out press releases about all the hiring it is doing in the UK. Speaking of press releases, EY announced that it has expanded its technology ecosystem with the launch of business transformation platform, EY Nexus, which is optimized for financial services and designed for rapid deployment of new products and solutions. Q&A With Tetsuya Mogi, the new head of Japan Institute of CPAs. 16% of companies have gone fully remote post-pandemic and that brings some tricky tax issues the AICPA is keeping an eye on. Related to that, the digital nomad lifestyle is a myth thanks to taxes: “It’s a bit of a myth that this digital nomad thing really, really works in the long term,” said Sam Ross, a Remote vice president and general counsel. “This whole idea of an employee kind of moving from one country to the other and updating the employer as they go—in my opinion, it’s not actually realistic.” According to the 2022 Virginia Society of Certified Public Accountants Future of Work Survey, more than half of respondents say they are constantly dealing with understaffing and overwork issues; “With this data, we’ve found that capacity is the top concern and benefits like flexibility and remote work are just as important as salary in attracting and retaining staff,” said VSCPA President & CEO Stephanie Peters, CAE. Apparently it’s easier to get a response from clients than coworkers.

A tax manager at a small firm decided to start responding to all the desperate recruiters in her inbox and wrote an op-ed in AT about why nO oNE wAnTS tO WoRk ANyMoRE:

It’s not that there’s a lack of credible, successful and even intelligent candidates out there looking for work. It’s the fact that CPA firms haven’t changed their models. OK, I’ll give them that they are willing to give you a laptop and let you work from home at least a few days each week. But those at the helm of these firms are not willing to acknowledge that a 60-hour week is not conducive to a happy, healthy lifestyle.

Speaking of tax managers looking for a new gig, we have a couple fully remote tax jobs for you to check out:

https://www.accountingfly.com/job/senior-tax-manager-remote-telecommute/

https://www.accountingfly.com/job/tax-manager-telecommute/

A couple things we’re working on this week:

  • Something really strange is happening at BDO, we’re continuing to dig into it and will share what we find as soon as we are able to
  • Civilians still think robots are going to take all your jobs
  • The accounting profession is incubating the next big tech boom
  • Carry over from last week: let’s talk about why EY is going to have some recruiting problems for at least the next year

A few weeks back a reader wrote in to say we should review “Bean Counters: The Triumph of the Accountants and How They Broke Capitalism” by Richard Brooks. I finally cracked it open yesterday on the train to DC and MAN, Richard Brooks really hates Big 4 firms. Anyway, review forthcoming shortly.

Prager Metis held a launch party for its metaverse space (did you know Prager Metis has a metaverse space??), we got the same press release Accounting Today did but I didn’t want to publish a story about it without PICTURES. Lots and lots of pictures. In lieu of pictures, please accept this embedded YouTube video:

Reddit discusses accounting degrees. IMO the profession has one great recruiting tool in its toolbox that isn’t promoted to students nearly as much as it should be: unlike other professional services fields like law, you don’t need to go to a top school to get into Big 4 and go on to make that big Big 4 alum money in industry. Yeah you’ll eat dirt for a couple years but who cares, at least you won’t be paying off your student loans until you make partner.

That’s all we’ve got for today. My inbox is always open if you want to chat, complain, or have something interesting to share. Get on our newsletter list if you want headlines twice a week and be sure to swing by every Friday at 5pm Eastern on the dot for Footnotes, a weekly linkwrap of all the other stuff happening in and around the accounting profession.