Procrastination
In a recent speech, SEC Deputy Chief Accountant Sagar Teotia had some advice for companies that have been dragging their feet on the new accounting standards:
For those companies that may be in the earlier stages of your implementation efforts, I would encourage you to significantly ramp up your efforts. There is still time for developing an approach to achieve successful implementation but the time to get going is clearly now.
Given the effective dates, I expect companies’ implementation activities related to the revenue standard to be much further along relative to implementation activities related to the other new GAAP standards.
That has to be the most polite articulation of “GET YOUR ASSES IN GEAR” that I’ve ever heard. I’m sure Going Concern readers are the type to be wholly prepared for significant financial reporting changes such as these. At the very least, you’ve given your implementation project a decent nickname.
How’s tax reform coming along?
Well, there’s supposed to be an announcement about a plan today, and our birdbrained Supreme Leader claims that it’s “totally finalized” and will be “a very, very powerful document.”
Except, no. Richard Rubin and Michael Bender report in The Wall Street Journal that most meaningful details “won’t be on display” and GOP leaders “don’t plan to reveal a more detailed tax bill before the budget is passed.” And there’s a very good reason: they don’t want anyone to know those details!
“They know the more details they give, the more likely [they] open up Pandora’s box and the attacks will begin,” said Stephen Myrow, a former Treasury official and managing partner of Beacon Policy Advisers LLC.
Who wants to invite scrutiny when you can just throw a political rally instead?
Previously, on Going Concern…
I wrote about the results of our recent survey of Los Angeles accountants. Traffic seems to be a theme.
In Open Items, a new senior auditor is wondering about staying in Big 4 or taking a role in fund services.
In other news:
- S.E.C. Hacking Response Provides Road Map for Compromised Companies
- Twitter’s gonna try 280 characters.
- Microsoft Excel is about to get a lot smarter
- “I have all the Teslas.”
- “Cereal. It’s just one of the funnest things. It’s candy masquerading as food. What a racket.”
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