Morning, y’all. A few things happening today…
In this news brief
- So We’re Getting Double Screwed on GPU Prices Is What You Mean
- PwC US+PwC India BFFs Forever
- Citrin Cooperman Has a New Hire and a New Practice
- Tell Us How You Really Feel About Intuit
- Deloitte Argues Partner Caps Are Bad For Reasons
- All She Had Was a Pitch Deck and a Dream
- Don’t Sweat the AI-pocalypse, Worry About This Instead
So We’re Getting Double Screwed on GPU Prices Is What You Mean
Let’s start with a lovely headline from POLITICO: Corporate tax payments plunge as AI feasts on new incentives
The tech world is pouring oceans of money into chips, data centers, power supplies and other components of the artificial intelligence infrastructure. And that’s eligible for generous tax breaks on investments Republicans included in their 2025 tax cuts.
The tax incentives weren’t designed with AI in mind specifically — they’re available for all kinds of business investments. But it’s the tech industry that’s making the most of them, putting a major dent in corporate tax receipts.
Budget forecasters say payments are down 25%, or $96 billion, after falling 15% last year. That’s fueling complaints those investment breaks are providing a windfall for the tech world, and giving a bad deal to taxpayers as Google, Microsoft and others would be spending oodles of cash on AI regardless of the tax incentives.
“The notion that they’re doing this because of the tax laws doesn’t pass the laugh test,” said Matt Gardner, a senior fellow at the liberal Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
Sigh. GPU prices are never coming down, are they?
That article links to the Congressional Budget Office’s August budget review [PDF] if you want to dig deeper into the government’s financial situation.
Meanwhile, in Australia: Why big tech will hate the Australian tax office’s latest ruling.
Rather than focusing on the flow of profits offshore, [the ruling] focuses on the character of cross-border payments for software made to overseas entities in the same corporate group. The ruling says some of these payments can be treated as royalties – and therefore taxed in Australia.
Apparently big tech isn’t the only group that hates the ruling:
The US Treasury has already raised objections during a five-year consultation process. Earlier drafts of the ruling were released in 2021 and 2024.
The US Treasury in 2024 urged the ATO to either withdraw the draft ruling or revise it to conform with international tax conventions.
The US position is clear. It argues these payments are not royalties and should be treated as business profits, making them taxable in the US. It views the Australian approach as a departure from international tax norms.
PwC US+PwC India BFFs Forever
PwC is integrating operations in India, reports Bloomberg Tax:
PwC will combine its India-based consulting operations to pool engineers and other professionals as it redesigns its service model around AI and the increasingly global reach of its clients.
The venture will marry certain US-run service centers in India with the consulting practice of PwC’s India affiliate, creating a 40,000-person platform that will serve clients worldwide, the Big Four advisory and accounting firm said Sunday in a statement from both branches.
PwC’s press release includes this quote from Paul Griggs: “The firms that win will be the ones that stop thinking about markets, capabilities, and delivery as separate pieces. That’s what makes this combination so powerful. We’re bringing the full breadth of our advisory talent in India together with PwC US — one team with the relationships, expertise, and scale to deliver for our clients and the PwC network. This isn’t about where work gets done. It’s about building something clients can’t get anywhere else: the best of PwC, brought together around their biggest opportunities, wherever they operate.”
Their press release also makes it sound more extreme than how Bloomberg Tax described it:
PwC US and PwC India today announced a joint venture that brings together the full breadth of their advisory talent and capabilities across India and the US — uniting PwC India’s Consulting business and PwC US Advisory’s India-based capabilities into a single, integrated platform to serve clients in India, the US, and around the world.
That should clear things up if you had any illusions of offshoring slowing down any time soon.
Citrin Cooperman Has a New Hire and a New Practice
In mid-market news, Citrin Cooperman put out a press release announcing the launch of a new practice and the name of the guy heading it so the least we can do is mention it:
Citrin Cooperman, the premier tax, advisory, and accounting provider for private middle-market businesses and high-net-worth individuals, today announced the launch of its Transfer Pricing and Value Chain Optimization Practice, further strengthening the firm’s tax advisory services. The new practice will be led by Sean Trahan who joins the firm as a partner in National Tax Advisory.
Prior to joining Citrin Cooperman, Sean served as the Transfer Pricing (TP) and Value Chain Optimization (VCO) Market leader for the tax practice of a national professional services firm. Prior to that, he spent 22 years with a Big Four accounting firm, where he most recently served as a senior TP and VCO partner in the firm’s New York practice. Earlier in his career, Sean led the Big Four firm’s US TP and VCO efforts across EMEIA from London and built and led a market-leading TP and VCO practice in the Carolinas.
According to LinkedIn the Big 4 firm was EY, which he jumped from to law firm Alvarez & Marsal before landing at Citrin.
Tell Us How You Really Feel About Intuit
Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy has some things to say about Intuit’s taxes:
Three weeks after H&R Block revealed that it paid no federal income taxes on its 2025 U.S. profits, Intuit, another tax-prep giant, released financial statements making H&R Block’s $100 million in tax avoidance look modest. Intuit, the parent company of TurboTax, recorded nearly $6 billion in U.S. income. Rather than paying any federal income taxes on those massive profits, they received a refund check back from the IRS.
This is after Intuit and the tax-prep lobbyists convinced lawmakers to get rid of the IRS Direct File program that allowed people to file their taxes directly online for free with the IRS, in part by making disingenuous claims about how their services helped Black people and women.
Reminder that we may have lost Direct File but we still have VITA thanks to the hard work of the amazing volunteers who give their time to the program.
Deloitte Argues Partner Caps Are Bad For Reasons
Deloitte does not want a cap on the number of partners as proposed by Treasury as part of the KPMG audit scandal fallout:
In its submission to Treasury’s options paper on the regulation of accounting, auditing, and consulting firms in Australia, Deloitte said it is not supportive of an option put forward by Treasury to reduce the partnership limit for accounting firms and require a percentage of partners to be registered to deliver regulated services.
According to Treasury, this option would cut the maximum number of partners (currently 1,000) that could comprise an accounting partnership. It noted that legal partnerships are limited to 400 partners and legal practitioners are also subject to other conduct requirements.
The firm gave a bunch of reasons why they think this is a bad idea, discussed in detail at that Accounting Times link.
All She Had Was a Pitch Deck and a Dream
The Department of Justice reports it has nabbed the owner of a tax startup who allegedly conned venture capital investors and lied about being a CPA:
An Inglewood woman has been arrested on a 15-count federal grand jury indictment charging her with defrauding venture capital funds out of more than $13 million by lying about her credentials and her now-defunct tax compliance startup company’s revenue, then using investors’ money to purchase a home, a Tesla, and pay for her wedding in the Caribbean, the Justice Department announced today.
Shiloh Luckey, 42, a.k.a. “Shiloh Johnson,” was arrested on Sunday in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, before she attempted to board a cruise ship for a vacation. Luckey was released on bond in the Southern District of Florida and is expected to appear in United States District Court in downtown Los Angeles in the coming weeks.
According to the indictment returned on September 1, Luckey founded the Los Angeles-based ComplYant App Inc. in 2019 and presented it as a tax compliance startup company that offered services to small businesses to help them navigate complex tax regulations in exchange for a monthly subscription fee. Luckey was ComplYant’s CEO and exerted managerial control over the company.
Luckey also induced victims to invest by lying to them and representing that she was a licensed certified public accountant (CPA) with deep expertise in tax management, accounting, and compliance, when, in fact, she has never been a licensed CPA.
She claimed ComplYant had monthly recurring revenue of $225,000, the SEC says it never topped $620. This article from Angel Investors Network goes into it more and points out how a simple CPA Verify search could have at least sniffed out one of the big lies.
We’re at the point of investment hype and economic cooling where this will start happening more and more. Just gotta wait for our Madoff.
Don’t Sweat the AI-pocalypse, Worry About This Instead
CPA Canada warns of an under-discussed AI risk: lack of governance.
Public warnings from Anthropic researchers about the risks of advanced AI highlight a growing concern: the governance and oversight systems meant to manage AI are not keeping pace with the technology’s rapid development.
Those public warnings seem to carry the hallmarks of an astroturfed campaign to rush through legislation that would block anyone but current AI overlords from innovation but go ahead.
CPA Canada’s AI and technology lead Melissa Robertson says the gap between innovation and regulation continues to widen.
“Many of the world’s leading AI developers are racing to build increasingly powerful systems, creating pressure to move quickly in a highly competitive environment. At the same time, the controls needed to support AI adoption are lagging behind,” says Robertson.
In its recent pre-budget submission [PDF], CPA Canada called for a clear, risk-based approach to AI governance that includes transparency, accountability, oversight and independent assurance for AI systems.
“The focus can’t simply be on building better AI,” says Robertson. “Equal attention must be paid to how those systems are governed, tested, monitored and assessed for safety, reliability and accountability.”
Well that was plenty for a Monday I’d say. Email or text if you have a tip or story for us, it’s appreciated. Now go forth and make it a good week, you.