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.

All About the BEC Section of the CPA Exam

Editor’s note: This is the third in our five-part series this week on the CPA exam. We’ve already done Audit and Regulation and will finish with FAR tomorrow and an ethics discussion Friday. As always, if you have CPA exam questions for us, get in touch and we’d love to help.

Let’s get into BEC, shall we?

Good news: It’s the smallest section, has no simulations, and requires the least amount of study time. All of these seem like bonuses and many candidates take BEC first because of it but remember that your 18 month window starts from when you sit for and pass the first part so you might want to start with the most difficult, not the easiest.

Bad news: Just because it’s short doesn’t mean it is easy. BEC is the junk drawer of the CPA exam meaning a lot of information that wouldn’t fit elsewhere is stuffed into this section. The other downside to BEC is that many candidates do not take it seriously enough because it is so small; that means it is imperative to give the section the same focus and dedication that you would any other section.


BEC is a 2.5 hour exam (likely 3 hours after the CBT-e changes planned for 2011) and consists of 3 MCQ testlets of 30 questions each. You should allow yourself 1.5 minutes per question (45 minutes per testlet).

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

Communication (0% – 13%)
Research (0% – 13%)
Analysis (8% – 18%)
Judgment (6% – 16%)
Understanding (55% – 65%)

Based on the Content Specification Outlines, Business Environment & Concepts covers the following areas:

Business structures (17% – 23%) This means partnerships and expect to see quite a bit on this.

Economic concepts (8% – 12%) Business cycles, economics (inflation, deflation, interest rate changes), market influences, supply chain, foreign currencies and hedging.

Financial management (17% – 23%) Financial modeling, short and long term financing, loans, cash management.

Information technology (22% – 28%) Role of business IT systems, responsibilities within the IT function, IT fundamentals (hardware/software, networks, systems operation, etc).

Planning and measurement (22% – 28%) Planning and budgeting, organizational performance measures, cost measurement (don’t forget: cost accounting is AWFUL but pretty heavily tested so get on it!)

New Jersey May Limit Pay For Nonprofit CEOs

Nonprofits doing business with government agencies take note, the days of bloated compensation structures may be over.

Starting July 1st, 1200 nonprofit social service agencies contracted by the state of New Jersey’s Department of Human Services with budgets above $20 million will be subject to a salary cap of $141,000 for its top executives. Executives of NFP agencies with budgets from $10 to $20 million will be limited to salaries and compensation of $126,900; those with budgets of $5 – $10 million will be capped at $119,850 and agencies coming in under $5 million will be limited to $105,750.


The limit would affect at least 30 executives who received compensation packages in excess of what is allowed by the new rules.

The state would save about $5 million by paying less money in CEO salaries, as well as cutting back on travel, education, severance, and vehicle expenses for all nonprofit employees, said Nicole Brossoie, a rep from the state’s Human Services office.

“In light of the state’s fiscal challenges, the department has been exploring cost efficiencies in every part of our budget,” Brossoie said. “The department’s continued goal is to ensure that state dollars are being spent in the most efficient ways.”

While that’s an admirable goal, the proposed changes would also impact organizations that do not feature over-paid executives or frivolous waste of precious funding. One CEO of an NJ nonprofit is worried that her organization may be barred from rewarding staff with cheap gifts (think $5 Starbucks cards) under the new rules – though she is not compensated enough to be impacted by any new restrictions on executive salaries.

State may limit pay for top leaders of New Jersey non-profit social service agencies [Press of Atlantic City]

The ECB Doesn’t Like FASB Fair Value Nor Prospects for a Single Global Standard Come 2011

European Central Bank Executive Board member Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerel insists that fair value is useless in illiquid (read: dysfunctional or non-existent) markets, putting forth the all-important query “what is the use of marking-to-market when there is no market?” in a Paris speech yesterday.

Tumpel-Gugerel is also a tad concerned that the push for convergence around the globe by 2011 could mean compromised accounting standards. “The ECB strongly opposes a full fair value approach,” she said. “In this context, convergence should not come at the expense of high-quality accounting standards.”


The ECB has taken the financial crisis as a lesson in valuation, guidance, and a deft accounting system that leaves plenty of slack available for adjustments should the need arise in, say, a crisis situation. That’s all well and good but guidance only gets you so far and without a firm commitment to when and how to use fair value around the globe, we can pretty much keep debating this point indefinitely.

Her views on FASB’s fair value approach are not at all subtle. In short, it appears as though the ECB supports convergence but only if the idiotic American ways are better aligned with the IASB’s. “With regard to recent assertions made by the IASB and FASB that convergence is on track, I would like to highlight that we are not so optimistic,” she said. “In this regard, putting in place a reconciliation mechanism that simply discloses figures at amortised cost and fair value for each item on the balance sheet would certainly not achieve the aim of convergence.”

Well snap, guess she told us.

Elements for intervention on accounting issues [ECB]

All About the Regulation Section of the CPA Exam

Editor’s note: this is the second in our 5-part series this week on the CPA exam. You can find Monday’s Auditing and Attestation breakdown here and stay tuned for the other two parts as well as an ethics wrap-up later in the week. As always, if you have a CPA exam question for us, get in touch.

So, let’s talk Regulation!

Good news: Like Audit, REG tends to have a slightly higher national pass rate than other sections (specifically BEC and FAR) and though business structures can drag, the tax stuff is fairly cut-and-dry. You won’t have to remember tax numbers as most of this information is provided so don’t obsess too much over specific numbers for the year, just stick to the concepts!

Bad news: Business structures can drag and the tax stuff is cut-and-dry. This means Regulation can be one of the most difficult sections to motivate yourself to study unless you are really, really into taxes.


Regulation is a 3 hour exam and is the only section to consist of three testlets of 24 multiple choice questions each (as opposed to other sections which contain 30 MCQ in each testlet). Because it is a shorter exam compared to other sections, that means that you have about 1.25 minutes to complete each question (30 minutes per testlet, leaving you 45 minutes for each simulation).

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

Communication (0% – 14%)
Research (9% – 19%)
Analysis (13% – 23%)
Judgment (8% – 18%)
Understanding (45% – 55%)

Based on the Content Specification Outlines, Regulation covers the following areas:

Ethics and professional responsibility (15% – 20%) Professional conduct, independence, confidentiality, due care… you know, all the good stuff that makes you a CPA. Keep in mind this area will no longer be covered in REG after 2011.

Business law (20% – 25%) Formations and terminations of businesses, authority of agents and principals, debtor-creditor relationships, government regulation (federal securities acts – heavy tested!!), negotiable instruments, insurance.

Federal tax procedures and accounting issues (8% – 12%) Just as it sounds, this area covers federal tax procedures as well as cash, accrual, percentage of completion, contract and installment sales.

Federal taxation of property transactions (8% – 12%) Assets, depreciation and amortization, exchanges, and capital gains.

Federal taxation – individuals (12% – 18%) Gross income, pass-through entities, exemptions, AMT, retirement, estate and gift taxes.

Federal taxation – entities (22% – 22%) S-Corps, partnerships, LLCs, LLPs, and trusts.

Studying for REG should take between 80 and 100 hours depending on how familiar you are with the concepts before you begin studying and your professional experience with the material. Obviously if you work in tax you’ve got a leg up and can spend a little less time reviewing taxation.

Good luck and join us tomorrow as we review BEC!

Utah Accountant Who Filed $393 Million in Fake Tax Refunds Can Never Ever Ever Do Taxes Again

Dick Jenkins is a bad, bad tax accountant; the Justice Department says so.

“Given the sheer brazenness of Jenkins’s conduct, he is essentially stealing … from the U.S. Treasury,” said U.S. District Judge Dale A. Kimball, who entered the civil injuction against him last week. Jenkins was accused of filing $393 million in fraudulent tax refunds, including a single $210 million dollar refund for one customer and $402,920 for himself that he didn’t have coming (I don’t care how good you think you are at deductions, that’s BS).


Jenkins was not barred by the court from doing taxes forever because he screwed his clients (they received $294,292 in fake refunds) but because “Jenkins’s conduct results in irreparable harm to the United States.” You heard right, the Salt Lake Federal Court is pissed because he tried to remove $393 million from the Treasury through tax fraud, who cares about the clients?

Maybe this is what the PCAOB was talking about when they mentioned unusual transactions without giving specifics. I’d say it qualifies.

Salt Lake Federal Court Bars CPA from Preparing Tax Returns for Others [Media Newswire]

Wednesday Addams’ $180,000 Tax Trouble

Go figure, Christina Ricci has been hit with an IRS lien to the tune of $179,568.30 for unpaid 2008 taxes. Though the lien news seems to have taken her quite by surprise, Ricci’s rep told TMZ that she is taking “immediate action to address it in a responsible manner.”

That’s funny, I thought a responsible manner would have meant paying the IRS $179,568.30 before April 15th, 2009 when it was due but maybe that’s just me.


Oddly enough, if you’ve ever been hit with an IRS lien (hello, Nic Cage) you know that the Service doesn’t just one day decide to slap a lien on you without first attempting to give you a hint that the proverbial shit is preparing to hit the fan. Generally this comes in the form of correspondence (lots of it) indicating that there is an issue.

Helpful bunch that they are, the IRS will almost always work with tax delinquents as long as said delinquents return their letters and get in touch to say “Hey, sorry, totally forgot to give you that $180,000 that I owe you.” In the case of Christina Ricci, we’re pretty sure her IRS letters must have gotten lost in the fan mail and creepy stalker packages. Yeah, that must it.

Christina Ricci — Ya Got $179k Layin’ Around? [TMZ]

John Veihmeyer Gets a Little Mysterio About His Path to the Top of KPMG

New KPMG Chairman (and US CEO since 2008) John Veihmeyer told the Washington Post about growing up to ascend the public accounting ladder and if that’s something you’re looking to do with your life, be sure to check it out.

Since some of us would rather sip on Molotov cocktails and scratch our eyeballs out with sharpened #2 pencils, we can merely press our faces to the glass to see how public accounting really works. According to J Veihm, it’s something like this: once you’re jumped in, there’s no getting out.

One of the very best pieces of mentoring advice I ever received was to “view a challenge as an opportunity” and then “take it on and do it better than anybody else.” I recall one specific moment, when KPMG’s leadership asked me to consider accepting a particular position that, at the time, I thought would be something of a roadblock to achieving one of the goals I had set for my career in public accounting. I shared my concerns with a trusted colleague, who I have long considered to be my professional mentor, and his response has stayed with me over the course of my 33 years with KPMG. He said, “look at this challenge as an opportunity, accept it, and then do it better than anybody before you ever has.” I took his advice, and he was right. In hindsight, the experience I gained in that role did more to prepare me for the rest of my career than anything else I could have done.

Translating that, if you express concerns about the gang shoving you up the corporate ladder by sending you on your own drive-bys or whathaveyou, one of the higher officers will reassuringly pat you on the shoulder and remind you that there’s one way to go and that’s up. Accept it, there is only one way out (for gang members, that usually means getting shot to death; in public accounting, it might mean a heart attack at 45). Creepy.

KPMG knows all about challenges so it’s probably a good thing that Johnny V was groomed in advance for his duties as KPMG Chair.

Britain’s Singing Accountant Got Bullied Big Time

There’s finally some video of the new Britain’s Got Talent star, 28 year-old Christopher Stone. An accountant, Stone showed up at his audition with his Mom and Dad who sold their house to pay for music lessons when Chris was little.


Tortured as a kid for his love of music (they apparently called him a “poof” though we aren’t sure what that translates into over on this side of the pond), Stone suffered through beatings and taunting for much of his young life. “Bruises heal but the pain from mental bullying doesn’t just go away,” he said, later giving Simon Cowell a reason to criticize for the sort of nervous hand-wringing that can only come from someone who spent half their life getting chided by bullies.

The roar from the crowd when Stone admits to being an accountant pretty much sums it all up but he knocked Maria out of the park and boasts 12:1 odds to win the show (that’s some sweet action).

Hey E&Y, we’re sure you are desperate for IFRS experts AND singing talent for your excellent videos, how’s about a Visa for this dude?”

School bully torment of singing accountant [The Sun]

All About the Audit Section of the CPA Exam

Editor’s note: Since I’m guest editing this week, we decided to do a 5-part feature on – what else – the CPA exam. I’ll be covering tips and tricks for each section and ethics on Friday so check in with us this week for the full breakdown. – JDA

So you’re taking Audit? Great.

Good news: traditionally, Audit tends to have a higher national pass rate than the other sections (only by a half a percentage point or so on average so don’t go getting excited that you can pass this one if you don’t study at all) and doesn’t require nearly as much effort as, say, FAR.

Bad news: chances are you didn’t take Auditing in college unless you’re planning on being an auditor so you have no idea what any of this stuff is about but like the rest of the exam, you don’t need to be an expert, you just need to know enough to get a 75. Yay!


Audit is the most expensive section as it is the longest at 4.5 hours and Prometric charges by the minute. Despite its length, you will still probably run out of time so time management is especially important with AUD. Do not spend more than 2 minutes on each MCQ, you’ve got 90 of them to get through and will need at least 45 minutes for each simulation.

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

Communication (10% – 20%)
Research (6% – 16%)
Analysis (12% – 22%)
Judgment (12% – 22%)
Understanding (35% – 45%)

Based on the Content Specification Outlines, Audit covers the following areas:

Planning the engagement (22% – 28%) Determine scope and nature of engagement, Generally Accepted Audit Standards, assessing engagement risk, communications, formulating audit objectives, etc.

Internal controls (12% – 18%) Understanding of business processes and information flows, limitations of internal control, tests of controls and control risk.

Obtain and document information (32% – 38%) Performing planned procedures, audit sampling, substantive tests, contingencies, identifying control deficiencies, attestation engagements.

Review engagement and evaluate information (8% – 12%) Performing analytical procedures, evaluation of audit evidences, work reviews and reasonable assurance.

Prepare communications (12% – 18%) Reports, reports, reports! This section covers all kinds of reports, footnotes, disclosures, as well as required communications based on discovery of illegal acts, errors and fraud, and communications with audit committees.

Studying for AUD should take between 60 and 90 hours depending on what review course you are using and whether or not you have experience in this area. Obviously if you took Auditing in school you will need less time to review some of these areas.

Good luck and see you tomorrow with Regulation!

Help the IRS Improve Its Service on the Taxpayer Advocacy Panel

If you are some kind of tax activist, not a felon and ready to serve your country, we may have the volunteer opportunity of a lifetime for you: Serving on the IRS’ Taxpayer Advocacy Panel (TAP). The deadline for applications is this Friday and we’re pretty sure the Service has been swamped with would-be heroes vying for a chance to provide a voice to the poor, abused little taxpayer.


“TAP members represent the typical taxpayer and provide the IRS with invaluable insights that are crucial to sound tax administration,” said IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman.

To qualify, you must pass an FBI fingerprint check (sorry, Lone Wolves, you’re pretty much disqualified right off the bat and will have to stick to crashing planes into IRS buildings if you want your voice to be heard), not be a lobbyist, and of course be caught up on your own tax bills.

Think of it like a focus group for taxes except unlike traditional focus groups, you won’t be getting $75 for an hour’s worth of opinions. TAP members serve a 3 year term and are expected to commit 300 – 500 hours per year serving the Service taxpayer. Members are required to attend a yearly meeting in Washington, DC each fall, at least one face-to-face subcommittee meeting with other members in their region and must participate in a monthly conference call.

So go on, little taxpayers, give the IRS a piece of your mind. And 500 hours of your time, of course.

Three Social Media Trends That Will Never Catch on with Accountants

CPAs have pretty much dominated social media and infested the blogosphere to the point that when I tell people that I cover accounting news for a living, I don’t have to explain just what on Earth accounting news is. That’s a step in the right direction but the reality is, some web and/or social media trends may never catch on with accountants. I’m suggesting three but fairly sure there are plenty more; if you know of one, do share.


Foursquare Paranoid stoners and anti-Big Brother types aren’t hip on it either but I guarantee you Foursquare will not catch on among CPAs. Who is dumb enough to track their own billable hours where everyone (and the boss) can see? What fun is checking in at the office day in and day out?

Get Satisfaction Listen, I know the smaller firms and personal, hometown CPAs are all about client satisfaction. Some of the mid-tier firms might also give some type of shit about the level of service they provide to their clients and how effective they are in doing it. But as a general rule (and especially for the larger firms), they really don’t actually want to know if they are delivering it or not in the direct manner that Get Satisfaction provides. If you aren’t familiar with how the site works, check out Comcast (several Comcast agents, actually) against the pissed off subscribers who lost their digital channels after the 2009 conversion but as a direct result of Comcast’s decisions. Can CPAs handle that sort of brutal, misspelled, angry honesty? Doubt it.

Blippy Though most CPAs love to hear the promise of yet another tool meant to make their lives easier, the remote chance that their credit card information may accidentally, kinda sorta end up on Google might make them a tad Blippy-adverse. And hey, while you’re at it, see what your friends are buying (while exposing what you are at the same time), what fun! I think they’ll pass. Hell, who would want Facebook for their bank statement, CPA or not?