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ANR: How Andersen Damaged Accounting’s Culture (Not Enron); Time Crunch for Revenue Recognition; Health and Housing Tax Subsidies | 05.02.14

How Accounting, Stop Groaning, Will Save the World [Bloomberg]
Jacob Soll, who wrote the op-ed in the NYT we linked to on Monday, had an interesting interview with Bloomberg that includes this: "In the 1960s, in the U.S., [an accountant] was still a sought-after job. But I think Andersen, by taking accounting out of the Ivy League schools and making it Midwestern and non-elitist, in some ways damaged it culturally. It was no longer this elite thing."

Jeff French to lead Grant Thornton’s Consumer and Industrial Products practice [GT] 
He's replacing 
Wally Gruenes, who is the new OMP in Dallas.
 
Deloitte to visit UI campus week of May 12 [ICPC]
Not to recruit, however: "
The consultants are conducting the first phase of a $2.45 million review of Iowa’s three public universities, which include UI, University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls and Iowa State University in Ames. The Iowa state Board of Regents — which oversees the state’s public universities and two specialty schools — hired Deloitte in February to conduct the largest-ever efficiency study."
 
Changing of the Guard [Accountant By Day]
Kellen is leaving public accounting for an industry gig: "Unfortunately for the firm, in addition to the two manager-level people who left right before busy season, and the one who left at the end of March, we had yet another announce their departure at the same time as mine. I'm not quite at that level yet, but the vacuum left in their wake would have meant a lot of opportunities for me. This also almost convinced me to stay, but by the time I knew about it, I had already made my decision. "

Revenue recognition: Do companies have enough time for implementation? [JofA]
General Electric's Controller and Chief Accounting Officer Jan Hauser doesn't think so: “I think we’re going to need potentially more time than what we’re being allotted in implementing the standard,” Hauser said at the [Financial Reporting Conference at] Baruch conference. “We thought we would have had it out quite a while ago and had a lot of time. And particularly for companies that actually want to think about full retrospective or are needing to change systems … it’s a huge undertaking.”

Tax Subsidies for Health and Housing Top $600 Billion [Tax Policy Center, PDF]
Total tax expenditures for fiscal year 2014 are $1.4 trillion. 

The heavy hand of the IRS seizes innocent Americans’ assets [WaPo]
I can't stand George Will but his post on civil forfeiture is excellent.

Bill Clinton: 'I Thank God Every Day That Hillary and I Live in NY and Pay the Highest Aggregate Tax Rate in America' [TaxProf]
#Blessed

The Best Google Docs Features You're Probably Not Using [Lifehacker]
No Office necessary.

 

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