[T]he tediously-reported proclamation of real convergence commitment has never been more than a smokescreen behind which the divergent interests of the Americans and the Europeans have knocked heads to the point of insensibility. (For which, recall the continued fudging of the SEC as to whether, if ever, that agency is even going to confirm a date certain on which to decide if to weigh in or not […].) Why no-one has called the question on this endless charade reflects the two-level fantasy in the dialog: the IASB and the FASB both pretend to believe in the desirability of fully-converged accounting standards, and the community of financial statement issuers and users pretend to believe them. [Re:Balance]
Related Posts
The IRS’ Most Important Step Ever Has Been to Require Preparer Registration
That’s one man’s opinion anyway! The IRS Oversight Board put out its annual Taxpayer Attitude Survey and while the survey indicates that most people are down with some regulation around preparers, the Oversight Board’s Chairma Paul Cherecwich sees it as being far bigger than that:
“Requiring tax preparers to register and verify their competency may be one of the most important steps the IRS has made in the tax system in our lifetimes,” said IRS Oversight Board Chairman Paul Cherecwich in a statement. “A tax return prepared improperly or fraudulently can have negative ramifications for years for an unsuspecting taxpayer — and it’s clear from the board’s survey that Americans know that.”
Now maybe we’re overstating this a little bit but to say that forcing tax preparers to “register and verify their competency may be one of the most important steps the IRS has made in the tax system in our lifetimes” is um, well, ludicrous. Say it’s an important step, say it’s a good step, whatever but one of the most important things the IRS has done in our f—ing lifetime? Creating additional layers of bureaucracy is not an accomplishment.
Breathe…Since we’re directly affected by this, we thought we should get a practitioner’s point of view. We dialed up our contributor Joe Kristan who is in the throes of tax season for his opinion:
All “issue” polls like that are useless because they never include costs. For example, they never follow up: “would you still support it if it drove 20% of the preparers out of the market and raised your costs by 20%?” They assume that there is no hitch between the regulators cup and your lip, and that all regulators work well. As if.
The regulations will increase costs and do little or nothing to improve tax compliance. Only a better tax law can really do that.
That’s our emphasis but Joe would probably agree with it.
Why Am I the Only Person Under 40 at AICPA Spring Council?
So I’m here in downtown Washington, D.C. for three days of awesomeness that is AICPA Spring Council 2011. While today’s session started just past the asscrack of dawn (breakfast at 7am) and goes through evening, the first day was mostly cocktails and schmoozing, as these events tend to be.
Here’s my question: where the hell are the young CPAs? Of the attendees, every single state is represented, some more than others. CPAs from across the country have descended upon Washington in their best monkey suit to listen to speakers like George Will and Eleanor Clift, as well as to get an update on the legislative issues that impact the profession. On Tuesday, they’ll be taking to the Hill to bring these issues directly to their Congress(wo)men.
But there is only ONE attendee (from Hawaii) who falls into our age bracket (your humble reporter excluded, of course). ONE.
Listen, I get it. You spent your last college years dealing with this kind of shit, putting on a tie and sucking up to partners and recruiters, all the movers and shakers of the industry. You worried about using the wrong fork at banquets and sat through symbolic awards ceremonies just to appear as though you are passionate about your industry. Now that you actually have a job, what’s the point?
The point is that these issues impact the profession which you will inherit one day. I’ve got nothing against middle-aged men in suits (hell, I’ve been dating one for the last two years) but one day soon, they’ll be retired and it will be up to us to take the reins and move the profession forward. How on Earth are we supposed to do that if we don’t figure out how it is done now?
There are endless opportunities here for mentoring and, better, for young CPAs to have a voice. Yes it’s somewhat symbolic. Yes you will have to wear a tie. Yes it can be stuffy and dull and a bit tedious. Guess what? It’s still important and one day, when all the middle-aged men are living their retirements out on yachts in the middle of the Pacific, you’re going to have to step up and do it anyway.
If you’d like to get involved (it’s not too late to start planning for next year), get in touch with your state society of CPAs for more information. You can find out more about AICPA Governing Council on their website.
You can follow #AICPAGC11 hashtag on Twitter to check out what we’re all up to for the next two days and please, don’t make me yell at you again. I didn’t put this monkey suit on this morning for nothing.
Deloitte: Folding Like a Cheap Lawn Chair?
Is it possible that the spinelessness of the FASB is spreading some of the firms?
Motely Foley is reporting that MGM Mirage got the Big D to drop the going concern language from its “financial assessment” which we confirmed with the author, Bob Steyer, that indeed meant the audit opinion.
Doing a little digging on this whole sitch, we found that MGM has done some duct tape repairs to its balance sheet in order to convince its banks and Big D that nothing is fucked.
Deloitte, wanting to be troopers and all, probably just had to step back from the whole thing to get perspective. “Yeah, when you look at it from back here, $14.4 Billion in debt doesn’t really look that bad.”
MGM Back From the Brink — for Now [Motley Fool]