Author: Adrienne Gonzalez

Adrienne is a 15-year veteran of the accounting industry, if by "veteran" you mean "vulture prowling the periphery of the profession waiting for something exciting to happen." She has been spewing vitriol on Going Concern since the site was founded in 2009. A former CPA review employee, she has sat through more FAR classes than any CPA exam candidate ever could -- even one who has failed FAR seven times -- and can still recall most of the mnemonics all these years later.

The IRS Would Like to Remind You That They are Not Spammers

With tax season over, scam season has begun and the IRS wants to be sure that you know they will never send you unsolicited e-mails or request identifying information about you a la PayPal scams. Because, you know, they’re helpful like that. Since many of you are waiting patiently by your mailbox (or bank statement if you E-filed for direct deposit) for your refund checks, it’s all that much more important to be on the lookout for these kinds of tricks hitting your inbox.

Protect yourself, little taxpayer, and know that the IRS is here to help make sure you don’t get scammed by unscrupulous impersonators:

The IRS does not send taxpayers unsolicited e-mails about their tax accounts, tax situations or personal tax issues. If you receive such an e-mail, most likely it’s a scam.

IRS impersonation schemes flourish during filing season. These schemes may take place via phone, fax, Internet sites, social networking sites and particularly e-mail.

Many impersonations are identity theft scams that try to trick victims into revealing personal and financial information that can be used to access their financial accounts. Some e-mail scams contain attachments or links that, when clicked, download malicous code (virus) that infects your computer or direct you to a bogus form or site posing as a genuine IRS form or Web site.

Some impersonations may be commercial Internet sites that consumers unknowingly visit, thinking they’re accessing the genuine IRS Web site, IRS.gov. However, such sites have no connection to the IRS.

IRS Spokesperson Jennifer Henrie-Brown gave us a few tips for avoiding scams and reporting sketchy e-mails to the Service to combat the spamming problem: “The IRS does not initiate taxpayer communications through e-mail and does not request detailed personal or financial information through email. If you receive an e-mail from someone claiming to be the IRS or directing you to an IRS site, you should not reply. Do not open any attachments or click on any links. Doing so may download malware that can damage your computer or allow remote access to your hard drive,” she told us.

What do you do if you get one of these weird, misspelled, bad-grammar-infested fake e-mails claiming to be from the IRS? “If you receive a suspicious email claiming to be from the IRS, or Web addresses that do not begin with http://www.irs.gov, you can relay that email to IRS mailbox phishing@irs.gov. IRS can use the information URLs and links in the suspcious emails you sent to trace the hosting Web site and alert authorities to help shut down the fraudulent sites.”

Suggested reading: Online Scams that Impersonate the IRS [IRS]

(UPDATE) Friendly Reminder to TierOne Bank: Today Is the Last Day to Get Your Act Together

Catch up, we covered this on Sunday night: In a bizarre piece of auditing news released late on a Sunday night, KPMG has verbally resigned as Nebraska-based TierOne Bank’s independent auditor, withdrawn its audit opinion for 2008 and taken back its review of TierOne’s financials for the quarter ended March 31, 2009. Citing risk of material misstatement, KPMG has also warned the audit committee that TierOne’s financials are not to be relied upon by investors.


Well today is April 30th and that means TierOne has run out of time to get its shit together to please the OTS. Meanwhile, KPMG is still paddling away in the lifeboat before the ship sinks but with a week’s head start, we’re sure they’ve gotten far enough away from the scene of the crime to be entirely unaffected by the outcome, whatever it may be.

In a textbook case of he said/she said, TierOne is a little butthurt that KPMG would suddenly change its tune and bail on the bank so close to such an important deadline. Adding insult to injury, KPMG claims that TierOne destroyed a document on specific reserves required by the OTS, even though the auditors had requested the document more than once. TierOne claims that it gave the document to both the OTS and KPMG as requested. TierOne also enthusiastically states that not once did KPMG express any concerns about the bank’s condition until just before bailing on the bank and resigning from the audit.

We’ll update if the FDIC moves in later this afternoon and takes down TierOne.

UPDATE: TierOne tried to sell itself to Great Western Bank but the deal was shot down by the OTS. The $2+ billion bank is sort of just sitting there exposed in the open without an auditor and no real plan, you can pretty much guess what happens from here. Meanwhile, it was a busy Bank Fail Friday but TierOne was not among them. See you next week?

TierOne sale plan due today [Lincoln Journal Star]

All About the 4.5th Section of the CPA Exam: Ethics!

We covered Ethics before but since this is the last in our daily columns this week on the CPA exam, it’s a good way to wrap things up. Once again, if you are looking for CPA exam tips, tricks, hints or just have an idea for a topic you’d like to see addressed here, get in touch with us.

Last time we talked about the ethics exam, we suggested the following:


Speak to your state society of CPAs to find out if they offer some kind of ethics exam support. Helplines exist but you’ll never find them if you don’t look.

Because the ethics exam is open book, not timed, and allows potty breaks (unlike, say, FAR), take your time and don’t rush through it. You have more than 1.5 minutes to read through and answer the questions, take advantage of this fact.

If all else fails, try to find a lifeline. The CalCPA Education Foundation gives you a “lifeline” if you have unsuccessfully attempted their ethics exam three times.

A few more things to keep in mind:

If possible, choose the Online version of exam materials in searchable PDF form so you can search for keywords that will answer the questions. It beats flipping through a book and is often cheaper than the book version of the exam anyway.

Don’t take the ethics exam too early or you may have to take it again. If you decide to take the ethics exam before you have completed all four parts of the CPA exam, be sure you know how long your score is good for (probably a year max). You don’t want to have to take it twice so wait until you are at least 3/4 of the way through the exam or completely finished to tackle ethics.

Though review courses don’t have coursework on ethics, there are tons of resources available that consist of tips from others who have taken and passed the ethics exam. Start with the CPAnet forums, plenty of candidates and would-be CPAs have shared their experiences and many are happy to help if you have specific questions about how they did it.

Hope that helps and thanks for joining us for this week of CPA exam goodness!

You Can’t Force Convergence According to the IASB (Allegedly)

IASB member Phillippe Danjou would be happy to see convergence go well and according to schedule but like most of Europe, he’s concerned that what’s good for America may not be good for the rest of the world.

Earlier in the week, the European Central Bank said nearly the same thing, going so far as to call out FASB for its archaic fair value rules that disregard liquidity (or lack thereof) in markets.


“Can we converge on everything? What’s good for America is not always seen as being good for the rest of the world, and vice versa… Convergence is the aim. It is a very desirable goal, but you cannot force it.

“If our stakeholders say we should take slightly different solutions, we will have to accept that,” he said. “If we can’t reach a solution, we can bridge.”

This brings us right back to the question of the IASB’s independence and the announcement by the SEC that funding the IASB would be a priority moving forward. Maybe that’s the bridge to which Danjou was referring; America buying its own piece of international accounting standard influence. 20% won’t cut it, people, where did the SEC get those bribe numbers from anyway?

It looks like Plan B for accounting convergence [Reuters]

The SEC Wants to Help the IASB Meet its ‘Arbitrary Deadline’

The SEC is interested in securing capital markets and protecting the interests of investors by putting a new level of priority on accounting standards setters… European accounting standards setters, that is.

SEC Chief Accountant James “P is For Principles” Kroeker announced today that the SEC’s new project will revolve around securing funding for the gatekeepers of IFRS, the IASB. “A stable broad based funding system with a diversity of capital market participants providing ‘no strings attached’ funding is of great importance to establishing a structurally sound international standards setter,” he said at a Baruch College accounting conference. Earlier in the week, JP was defending GAAP and calling the planned June 2011 adoption of IFRS in the US an “arbitrary” target but this leads us to believe that he’s since changed his mind and would like to see this convergence thing get rolling once and for all.


About 20 percent of the IASB’s funding is expected to come from US sources this year – the largest chunk of funding from any single source.

While Kroeker was busy cheerleading the IASB telethon this week, SEC Chair Mary Schapiro was off doing a little fundraising of her own, except hers failed miserably when the Senate rejected a request by Schapiro and several former SEC leaders to self-fund the agency. As everyone knows, the SEC has been plagued recently with accusations of regulatory laziness, not to mention problems with employees sitting around watching porn all day when they should be guarding capital markets. No increase in allowance for you, Mary!

Anyway, the main concern is – as always – independence. Without secure funding, the IASB is exposed to excessive political pressure and if you recall the fair value debate, you have already seen what happens when standards setters cave in. With secure funding, the IASB can be bought and sold as easily as some companies A/Rs so it makes sense that Kroeker would shift the SEC’s focus from begging Congress for a raise to funneling in cash to the IASB. You know, for convergence’s sake.

US seeks secure funding of global accounting board [Reuters]

Barry Minkow Would Like to Remind Everyone, Especially PwC, That InterOil Has Never Found Any Oil or Gas

Barry Minkow has a message for InterOil auditors at PwC and it appears as though he would really, really like for P. Dubs to remember its fiduciary responsibility. So much so that he even made a video to help drive the point home so let’s hope this lands where it is supposed to and PwC considers Barry’s friendly suggestions.

Peep the press release:

“InterOil and its CEO have shown a troubling pattern of behavior that goes back to the company’s founding in 1997,” Minkow said. “We’ve seen inflated assets, a missing report from world-class Netherland Sewell, no major partners willing to put up cash for its proposed LNG plant, a recent bad-faith bankruptcy filed by CEO Phil Mulacek for a company he controls, and unreported $5.7 million commission, insiders dumping tons of stock last month, hyped press releases, and the list goes on. In fact, the only thing we haven’t seen from InterOil is any commercial oil or gas.”

Previously: Let’s Take a Closer Look at This Shia LaBeouf and InterOil Situation

All About Financial Accounting for the CPA Exam

Editor’s note: You can find our Audit, Regulation, and BEC outlines posted earlier in the week and expect an ethics review tomorrow to wrap things up.

Good news: Chances are you took most of this stuff in school so while it’s a lot of information to get through, most of it should be somewhat familiar.

Bad news: As the largest section, FAR covers a lot of ground and a lot of it isn’t very pleasant (like government, pensions, bonds and leases – all fairly heavily tested and all awful to get through when you’re studying) so prepare yourself accordingly and don’t take too much of it in at once.


FAR is a 4 hour exam and you will run out of time. Do not spend more than 1.5 minutes on each MCQ (FAR has 3 testlets of 30 questions each) and be sure to give yourself at least 45 minutes per simulation. If you run out of time towards the end, be sure to at minimum complete the written communication for both sims as only one is tested and you don’t know which one it is. It’s an easy 10 points and you don’t want to blow it.

The AICPA BoE has set the following target weights for skills testing:

Communication (6% – 16%)
Research (11% – 21%)
Analysis (13% – 23%)
Judgment (10% – 20%)
Understanding (35% – 45%)

Based on the Content Specification Outlines, Financial Accounting and Reporting covers the following areas:

Concepts and standards for financial statements (17% – 23%) Financial accounting, consolidated and combined financial statements, balance sheet, income statement, notes to financial statements, financial statement analysis.

Typical items in financial statements (27% – 33%) Typical items: recognition, measurement, valuation and presentation in financial statements according to GAAP. Cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities, inventory, PP&E, investments, intangibles and other assets, payables, deferred revenue, notes and bonds payable, equity and revenues.

Specific types of transactions and events (27% – 33%) Accounting changes and corrections of errors, business combination, contingent liabilities, discontinued operations, earnings per share, foreign currency transactions and translation, taxes, interest cost, leases, R&D costs, segment reporting, subsequent events.

Accounting and reporting for governmental entities (8% – 12%) Government accounting concepts (fund accounting, budgeting, and notes to financial statements), net assets, capital assets, transfers, financing sources, expenditures, encumbrances, etc etc. And of course governmental non-profit accounting is in this.

Accounting and reporting for nongovernmental (8% – 12%) Accounting and reporting for non-profit organizations, typical items for non-profits.

Studying for FAR should take between 100 – 150 hours regardless of whether or not you took multiple financial accounting classes in school. The key to FAR is taking it in small chunks to prevent being overwhelmed by information so don’t spend more than 3 hours per day studying and break each section into smaller subsections to retain your sanity through the process.

Good luck and see you tomorrow with ethics!

Georgia Voters Will Decide on the Use of Accrual Accounting by the Department of Transportation

Interestingly enough, Caleb just covered accrual vs cash here on Going Concern the other day. Not interestingly enough, as a subsection of the Georgia state government, the Georgia DOT’s only option is government accounting and that sure as hell ain’t accrual. Apparently Georgia governor Sonny Perdue is hip to this accounting trick that just can’t be tapped and is questioning whether or not the DOT has the legal authority to use accrual for multi-year state funding commitments.

The short answer, without being an authority on matters of accounting legality, is HELL no. They better stick to fund accounting like every other government agency but that comes with its own set of flaws. See also: 49 of 50 states facing massive budget deficits.


If you aren’t familiar with government accounting, let me make it very simple: in regular accounting, balance sheets balance. Companies shoot for assets to outweigh liabilities and if they don’t for an extended period of time, shareholders bail and the company goes under.

In government accounting, there is no real concept of “balance” and it’s all about expenditures and estimates of spending that have little connection with actual money coming in. Most government agencies would be crippled if they were forced to institute GAAP, even with the magic of government accounting we have already witnessed from the smallest municipality to entire sovereign nations.

Anyway, in 2008, an audit of DOT practices concluded that accrual accounting was a violation of Georgia’s constitution (and the sanctity of government accounting fortheloveofsweetbabyJesus) but DOT officials claim that sweating their questionable accounting methods prevents the state from funding important road projects.

Again, magic on paper, garbage in practical application. Accounting methods are not meant to turn insolvency into funding, they are merely options and their use should not be abused for users. Seriously.

Georgia voters will be trusted with resolving the issue. Better start reading some Advanced Accounting textbooks, Georgia voters, you’ll need them to pick the right door on this little game show.

Voters to weigh on DOT accounting system [Atlanta Business Chronicle]

Believe It or Not, There’s a Millionaire Accountant Love Triangle

I know, I had to read it twice. First of all, millionaire accountant?! Second of all, the guy was ancient and probably hasn’t calculated depreciation since 1971. Whatever, he was depreciating some hot assets and I guess that’s all that matters.


Here’s the sitch:

Millionaire UK accountant Peter Rust is being sued by both the wife and the mistress as they apparently both share a piece of his £3.2million [$4.86 million US] property portfolio. What kind of firm did this guy work for amassing a portfolio like that?! Patricia Rust (the 58 year old wife who has stood by his side for 40 years, even through jailtime Peter served for money laundering) and Virginia Madden (the 38 year old mistress who claims dibs on some of his property) are both claiming that part of Rust’s assets are theirs and theirs alone.

The problem is that he didn’t exactly tell his estranged wife that he was going to get some property with the new chick. Oops. The Daily Mail has the scoop:

In a statement provided to the court, Mr Rust said that in 2000 he and his wife agreed to start investing in property – using joint funds – even though they had separated.

“Although we were living apart at this time, Pat agreed I could do this providing she had an equal share in the properties,” he said.

But he added: “But I did not tell Pat that I intended to buy these properties in the joint names of myself and Ginny Madden.”

Listen, dude, you need to read a book on keeping mistresses. Property?! Come on, everyone knows you are supposed to rent them a pad or maybe get taxpayers to pay for it or claim nonprofit status to house the hoes at your “church”, whatever, you don’t actually buy property with her.

Anyway, as if it couldn’t get worse, Madden was paid over the years as “stable girl” with investment income from the properties (and, presumably, action from Mr Rust but there is not IASB guidance on how to classify affairs in the books and records) and claims a 50% share on five homes. Mrs. Rust claims 50% rights to her house and 6 others.

The millionaire, his stable girl mistress and her £3m property battle with the betrayed wife [Daily Mail]

SEC’s No Rush Stance on IFRS Means a Nice Stroll Towards Convergence, You Know, Whenever

All the SEC foot-dragging on IFRS may end up benefiting adopters, if only by buying them a little extra time to get things in order and figure out how on Earth to converge the encyclopedias worth of GAAP rules with IFRS’ pamphlet of principles. At a discussion on global standards hosted by the Pace University School of Business. WebCPA’s Debits and Credits shares some excellent talking points, like this winner from IBM director of IFRS policy and implementation Aaron Anderson:

“We know we have time between now and when the SEC mandates it. We can do a brisk walk instead of a sprint.”

Speaking of the SEC, Chief Accountant James Kroeker is offended by the insinuation that IFRS is more principled-based than our precious GAAP, noting in his speech that “U.S. GAAP is founded upon principles, that’s what the P is supposed to stand for.” GAAR just doesn’t have the same ring to it and it’s a tad too late to be debating semantics if you ask me.

The SEC is understandably cautious, especially having to contend with criticisms in the media over regulatory mishaps that allowed for the unchecked misdeeds of Bernie Madoff, Allen Stanford, and of course Goldman Sachs (oops). Still, full-on adoption of IFRS implies a complete departure from GAAP and it doesn’t look like Kroeker is comfortable with that idea, even if companies looking to divert the estimated $32 million cost to convert to IFRS totally are.

IFRS Delay Helps Some Companies [WebCPA]