Author: Caleb Newquist

Founding editor, Going Concern.

Did KPMG Plagiarize Part of Its Atlantic Yards Market Study?

Back in the fall we told you about a market study that KPMG issued on the Atlantic Yards project.

At that time, we learned that KPMG had done some less-than stellar research on the movement of the units on Prospect Park and it got the attention of some the local blogs covering the massive development project.

Namely, the Atlantic Yards Report blog. It reported:

KPMG’s report has some very shoddy research. Consider that the report (dated August 31) claims that Richard Meier’s On Prospect Park is 75% sold. (Only rental buildings are pre-leased.)

However, the New York Times reported September 27:

While the developers say half of the building’s 99 units have been sold, the real estate Web site StreetEasy.com documents only 25 closings through public records.

AYR didn’t state it so boldly back in the fall but in a post from yesterday (as well as reports in May and June) it isn’t so nice and flat out calls the firm out for lying, “The KPMG report got very little discussion, but it contains lies–blatant, checkable lies–about condo sales.”

But wait! There’s more! We learned today from a friend of GC that not only does AYR call out KPMG for having their pants on fire, it also says that the firm got a little carried away with the copy and pasting:

I discovered when I took another look, it contains more than two pages of shameless borrowing–plagiarism that is not diminished by a vague footnote.

The entire section on New York City Market Dynamics is cribbed from The Corcoran Report(s) for Manhattan and Brooklyn for the second quarter of 2009.

Yes, there’s a footnote to the section headline that cites “The Corcoran Report–2nd Quarter 2009” as a source (click to enlarge), but there’s no indication that nearly all the text–with the slightest of changes–comes from Corcoran.

No quotation marks, no indentations, no italics.

AYR provides several examples that are oddly the same identical. We’ve presented a clip from KPMG’s report here:

And here’s Corcoran’s (apologies for the small type):

Like we said, this is just one example. Our messages (email, voicemail, in a bottle) to KPMG have not been returned at this time.

Accounting News Roundup: IRS Probing HSBC Clients with Accounts in Asia; Saints Deny State Money Was Taxable; Pot Tax Helps Helps Another California Budget | 07.07.10

HSBC Clients With Asian Accounts Said to Face Probe [Bloomberg BusinessWeek]
“The Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation of HSBC Holdings Plc clients who may have failed to disclose accounts in India or Singapore to the Internal Revenue Service, according to three people familiar with the matter.

‘This is a global initiative by IRS and the Department of Justice,’ said Robert McKenzie, an attorney at Arnstein & Lehr in Chicago who said he spoke to two people who got letters.

The probes show how the U.S. is expanding its crackdown on offshore tax evasion beyond Switzerland and UBS AG, the largest Swiss bank, sa tax lawyer at Greenberg Traurig LLP in New York. London-based HSBC is Europe’s biggest lender by market value.

‘It’s clear that the IRS and the Department of Justice are intending to pursue other depositors outside of Switzerland,’ Kaplan said. ‘They’ve announced it before, and they are moving forward in that regard.’ “

A.T. Kearney, Booz Call Off Merger Talks [WSJ]
“A.T. Kearney Inc. and Booz & Co. called off discussions about a possible merger that would have given the two midsize firms greater scale in a highly competitive industry.

The two have flirted with each other multiple times over the years without completing a deal. The most recent talks occurred on and off over the past six months, says a person familiar with the matter.

The combined firm would still have been smaller than market leaders such as Deloitte LLP, McKinsey & Co. and Accenture Ltd in an industry where scale is increasingly important in wooing global business.”


Did Tax Ploy Help Saints Win Super Bowl? [Forbes]
If you feel so inclined, you could probably blame this on Reggie Bush but otherwise it’s probably due to some clever tax attorneys, “In a just-filed U.S. Tax Court lawsuit, the partnership owning the Saints acknowledges that it didn’t treat an $8.5 million annual payment from the state of Louisiana as income and therefore didn’t pay taxes on the sum. Rather, the team said the money was an addition to “working capital” and a nontaxable transaction.

The Internal Revenue Service insists the money should have been included in income by the franchise, owned for a quarter-century by auto dealer Thomas M. Benson Jr. The Tax Court case challenges that position.”

Pot Tax Helping Long Beach Plug Budget Deficit Faces Vote in California [Bloomberg]
“The city council of Long Beach, California, voted last night to pursue taxes on medical marijuana dispensaries, part of what may become a wave of communities turning to such proceeds to plug budget deficits.

The Los Angeles suburb with a population of almost 500,000 scheduled a public hearing on the drug levy for Aug. 3. If the council later approves the wording, a ballot initiative establishing a 5 percent tax on the city’s 35 dispensaries could go to voters in November, according to Lori Ann Farrell, Long Beach’s director of financial management.”

IRS Disbars CPA for Relying on Client’s Income and Expense Numbers [Tax Lawyer’s Blog]
How much due diligence should a tax preparer perform to be comfortable with their clients numbers?

Ex-Qwest Accountant Says SEC Should Be Sanctioned [CBS4]
“The SEC has said [James] Kozlowski hasn’t shown that it acted in bad faith. It has accused him of ‘theatrical conduct,’ including filing ‘numerous losing motions.’ Kozlowski’s attorneys dispute that.”

Do You Enjoy Excitement? Following Money? Arresting Tax Scofflaws? The IRS Needs You!

You may think that working for the IRS would involve nothing more than a plethora of bomb and/or white powder scares as well as hassling famous doucebags for their back taxes you’d only be partly correct.


So if you’re looking for job security, the chance to slap some bracelets on those illegally avoiding their patriotic duty and a whole other level of bureaucracy that the Big 4 only wishes it could create, the IRS may be for you!

Of course if danger isn’t your middle name (some are gathering armies after all), there are plenty of other opportunities out there on the new IRS careers website. The only drawback of course is that you probably won’t get to carry any of those shotguns.

Compensation and Promotion Watch ’10: Discussions at McGladrey Starting Soon; Forced Ranking in Effect?

[caption id="attachment_13722" align="alignright" width="260" caption="Has she gotten her updated gear yet?"][/caption]

It sounds like the capital market servants at the firms formerly known as RSM McGladrey/McGladrey & Pullen will finding out their good/bad/tremendously underwhelming news about comp and promotions in the coming week(s).

That and it sounds as though Mickey G’s is warming up to the forced ranking system that has been plaguing the Big 4:

Just wanted to pass a bit of info across to you about McGladrey comp discussions. They communicated to us in an email last week that all ratings and promotion decisions are now final and will be communicated to us no later than July 23rd.

Also, I’m based out of the the southeast and they told us that about 25% of people were initially rated 5s (our highest rating) and that they had to downgrade peoples ratings to in line with the 10% to 15% bell curve range. I have this from a direct source of a director inside the “roundtable” meetings or whatever they’re calling them now. Not sure if this is a nationwide occurrence.

We don’t know if the downgrades are standard operating procedure at the firm but one would think that the layoffs at McGladrey that we reported on last month are over. The problem is that if this is following standard forced ranking procedure, it could be setting up experienced professionals for competitive year ahead.

Keep us updated as you learn merit and promotion news and discuss your thoughts on this year’s prospects and the possibility of downgrades.

Apparently a Few People at PwC Are Feeling Shortchanged

The PricewaterhouseCoopers compensation post is still a hot thread, as the majority of news was about double-digit raises and bonuses have been reported from many although at least one commenter was skeptical that all the news was good in the PwC world:

“[P]robably the people most willing to share are the ones who got the most $.”


That comment was in response to someone who assumed PwC was throwing around “1” ratings (the firm’s highest) like boomies at a Phish show. Of course, not everyone can be so lucky and apparently there are a couple of terms being thrown around by the less fortunate.

Late last week a source close to PwC dropped us the following:

“Fonus”– noun; the much-diminished bonus Big 4 firms give to borderline staff they can’t afford to pay properly, but don’t want to quit.

Not to be confused with the ‘nonus,’ which is no bonus at all.

Apparently these terms have emerged this week as fonuses started appearing in people’s paychecks.

So not to worry “as expected” staff that can’t afford to quit your jobs! If you ended up with the 6%/0% instead of the 14%/10% or whatever, whathaveyou, you’re not alone! Plus, there are some fun terms you can throw around to help you bitch about it. Continue to discuss and keep us updated with any other fallout from the discussions – verbal creativeness or otherwise.

Accounting News Roundup: E&Y to Appoint Non-Exec Directors to Global Board; Accounting Remains a Hot Post-College Job; Barclays Calls New Loan Valuation Proposal ‘Potentially Misleading’ | 07.06.10

‘Big four’ auditors bring in independent directors in response to regulators [Guardian]
The Financial Reporting CouncCAEW, issued a new audit governance code back in January that recommended audit firms appoint non-executive directors to their UK firm however, Ernst & Young will go so far to appoint them to their global advisory boards.

“Although the code technically applies only to our UK business, as a globally integrated organisation, we believe it is most appropriate for us to implement the code’s provisions on a global basis also,” said Jim Turley, global chairman and chief executive of Ernst & Young. “Including individuals from outside Ernst & Young on the global advisory council will bring to the senior leadership of our global organisation the benefit of significant outside perspectives and views.”

BP Won’t Issue New Equity to Cover Spill Costs [WSJ]
But if you want to pitch in, they are happy to take you up on an offer, “BP would welcome it if any existing shareholders or new investors want to expand their holding in the company, she said. BP’s shares have lost almost half their value since the Deepwater Horizon explosion that triggered the oil spill April 20.

BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward is visiting oil-rich Azerbaijan amid speculation the company may sell assets to help pay for the clean-up of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The one-day visit comes a week after Mr. Hayward, who has been criticized for his handling of the devastating oil spill, traveled to Moscow to reassure Russia that the British energy company is committed to investments there.”

Looking for a post-college job? Try accounting [CNN]
Happy times continue for accounting grads, according to the latest survey on the matter, this time from the National Association of Colleges and Employers. The average salary listed for an entry-level accounting major is just over $50k and the article also notes that most accounting jobs go to…wait…accounting majors.


FASB, IASB Staff Describe Plans for New Financial Statements [Compliance Week]
As always, the two Boards are hoping that bright financial statement users will chime in with their suggestions but they’ve got the basic idea down, “The FASB and IASB are rewriting the manner in which financial information is presented to make it more cohesive, easier to comprehend, and more comparable across different entities. The proposals would establish a common structure for each of the financial statements with required sections, categories, subcategories and related subtotals. It would result in the display of related information in the same sections, categories and subcategories across all statements.”

Accounting rules “practically impossible to implement”, Barclays claims [Accountancy Age]
Barclays’ finance director, Chris Lucas isn’t too keen on these new loan valuation proposals. Besides the ‘practically impossible’ thing, he says, “The sensitivity disclosures…are highly subjective, difficult to interpret, and potentially misleading, particularly when the underlying data is itself highly subjective,” Lucas said.

“It is hard to see how sensitivity disclosures could be aggregated by a large institution to provide succinct data that avoids ‘boilerplate’ disclosure.”

Asking The Difficult Questions [Re: The Auditors]
“Audit committees too often rely on the auditors’ required disclosures without comment. They sometimes lack the independence, experience, or determination to ask the probing questions. It’s critical, however, that committees seek answers to vexing questions and not accept the response, ‘But that’s the way management has always done it.’ “

Buffett Donates $1.6 Billion in Biggest Gift Since 2008 Crisis [Bloomberg]
WB continues his plan of giving away 99% of his fortune, “[Buffet] made his largest donation since the 2008 financial crisis after profits at his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. jumped.

The value of Buffett’s annual gift to the foundation established by Bill Gates rose 28 percent to $1.6 billion from $1.25 billion last year. The donation, made in Berkshire Class B stock, was accompanied by gifts totaling $328 million in shares to three charities run by Buffett’s children and another named for his late first wife, according to a July 2 filing.”

The case for cloud accounting [AccMan]
Dennis Howlett continues to provide evidence that switching to the cloud provides benefits that are simply too big to ignore, “This 2min 1 sec video neatly encapsulates why this is something you should be considering, especially if you are operating electronic CRM or e-commerce for front of house activities.”

An Accountant’s 4th of July Weekend Reading | 07.02.10

Happy 4th of July capital market servants, tax wonks and accountants of all stripes. Get out there and make some bad decisions (responsibly of course!) this weekend. We’ll see you on Tuesday unless we get word of another good time gone wrong.

CIT Names Former Cerberus Exec CFO [FBN]
And your winner is Scott T. Parker.

IRS agent: Blagojeviches spent $400,000 on clothes [AP]
Is anyone surprised by this? “Next to their mortgage payments — $392,000 — their second-biggest payment from 2002 to nearly the end of 2008 was $205,000 on Tom James/Oxxford custom clothes, revenue agent Shari Schindler said.”

France Calls Google a Monopoly [Floyd Norris/NYT]
They would.

Couple Accused of Stealing $2M From Veterans [FN]
A couple of septuagenarians no less!


Researchers: Regions’ religiosity cuts down on accounting scandals [Nashville Business Journal]
Bible belt = less accounting scandals? Texas A&M says Hallelujah!

How Bad is the Budget Outlook? [TaxVox]
In a word: prettyfuckingbad.

Governor puts 200,000 state workers on minimum wage [Sacramento Bee]
In the battle between Sacramento and Albany for the most incompetent/corrupt/helpless state government, it appears that Arnie has kicked the efforts up a notch.

Some NY hedge fund execs may escape new tax [Reuters]
Speaking of Albany, the hedge fund manager tax that David Paterson & Co. were kicking around is as good as dead now that Hizzoner got a word in on the matter. Back to the drawing board.

Apple Acknowledges Flaw in iPhone Signal Meter [NYT]
How they got Steve Jobs to cave on this is anyone’s guess.

KPMG Has Gotten Tired of KV Pharmaceutical’s Financial Reporting Side Effects

Last week we ran a post courtesy of Sheryl Nash at CFOZone that discussed the tough 2010 that KV Pharmaceutical was having. Well, it’s getting worse. KPMG, not completely adverse to risk,ps and has dropped KVP like a sack of spuds.

In an 8-K rammed through just before quitting time yesterday, “On June 25, 2010, KPMG LLP (“KPMG”) notified K-V Pharmaceutical Company (the “Registrant” or the “Company”) that it had resigned from its engagement as the Registrant’s principal accountant. KPMG’s resignation was not recommended or approved by the Audit Committee of the Registrant’s Board of Directors.”

What was the problem, you ask? Where do we start? There’s a lot in this 8-K so we’ve bolded the good parts for you:

KPMG’s report on the consolidated financial statements of the Registrant and subsidiaries as of and for the year ended March 31, 2009 contained a separate paragraph stating that “As discussed in Note 3 to the consolidated financial statements, the Company has suspended the shipment of all products manufactured by the Company and must comply with a consent decree with the FDA before approved products can be reintroduced to the market. Significant negative impacts on operating results and cash flows from these actions including the potential inability of the Company to raise capital; suspension of manufacturing; significant uncertainties related to litigation and governmental inquiries; and debt covenant violations raise substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern.”

The audit report of KPMG on the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting as of March 31, 2009 did not contain any adverse opinion or disclaimer of opinion, nor was it qualified or modified as to uncertainty, audit scope, or accounting principles, except that KPMG’s report indicates that the Registrant did not maintain effective internal control over financial reporting as of March 31, 2009 because of the effect of material weaknesses on the achievement of the objectives of the control criteria and contains an explanatory paragraph that states “Material weaknesses have been identified and included in management’s assessment in the areas of entity-level controls (control awareness, personnel, identification and addressing risks, monitoring of controls, remediation of deficiencies and communication of information), financial statement preparation and review procedures (manual journal entries, account reconciliations, spreadsheets, customer and supplier agreements, stock-based compensation, Medicaid rebates and income taxes) and the application of accounting principles (inventories, property and equipment, employee compensation, reserves for sales allowances and financing transactions).

We’ll interject here with…why didn’t they just admit, “We have internal controls in place but they suck. Every last one of the controls is ineffective and we’re really not sure they’re being performed anyway. In fact, we don’t even employee people with accounting degrees. We have a weekend COSO crash course to get temps up to speed.” ?

Back to the filing:

As of the date of their resignation, KPMG had not completed the audit of the consolidated financial statements and the effectiveness of the internal controls over financial reporting of the Registrant as of and for the year ended March 31, 2010. KPMG had informed the Audit Committee prior to the date of their resignation that upon completion of their audit of the consolidated financial statements as of and for the year ended March 31, 2010 they expected their audit report would contain a separate paragraph expressing substantial doubt about the Registrant’s ability to continue as a going concern and their report on internal controls over financial reporting would indicate that the Registrant did not maintain effective internal control over financial reporting as of March 31, 2010 because of the effect of material weaknesses reported as of March 31, 2009 that had not been remediated.

We’d continue but it’s probably not necessary.

Comp Watch: Sit Downs Starting at Deloitte; Anxiety Over Raises Picking Up

Lots of news this week on the compensation and promotion fronts with Grant Thornton, KPMG and PwC all making announcements or soon-to-be making announcements (that we’ve heard; are you holding out on us, E&Y?).

The latest out of Deloitte is that the discussions are starting (although maybe not today since it sounds like most are off) but the news on yay or nay on promotions is starting and now the anxiety around comp will increase over the next two month:

The year-end ratings and promotion decisions have been approved by National; so the process of communicating both to Deloittians is starting…At a high-level, I heard that promotions this year were tough – that being said, plenty of people made it through. For the most part, people are now waiting to hear about comp – scheduled for communication the last two weeks of August.

We did hear one rumor about the number of new partners expected, “at a recent partner meeting, it was announced that there will be more than 60 new PDPs nationally, with more than 10 being in the Northeast,” so you can toss that around your meat-ingestion fest this weekend if you so choose.

Discuss your epic/tragic news re: your new promotion if you’ve received word and keep us updated on the comp rumors.

Accounting News Roundup: Are “Tax-Aware” Juries the Solution to Deductible Punitive Damages?; Financial Fake Twitter Feeds; Deloitte’s Czech Problem | 07.02.10

Damages Control [NYT]
Because BP could end up paying a metric asston in punitive damages over the Deepwater Horizon whathaveyou, the Senate recently approved a repeal of punitive damages awarded in civil disputes being deductible for tax purposes.

The problem is that it probably won’t work, as Gregg Polsky and Dan Markel, two law professors at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Florida State University write in an op-ed in today’s Times:

“When plaintiffs and defendants reach a settlement before a trial, which happens in most cases, they aren’t required to specify which parts of the settlement are punitive and which are compensatory; therene number. That allows defendants to disguise the amounts that they would have paid as punitive damages as additional compensatory damages.

And because the measure maintains the deductible status of compensatory damages, nearly all punitive damages will remain, as a practical matter, deductible. This easy circumvention surely explains the meager revenue projections from the measure: $315 million over 10 years.”

The solution, according to Polsky and Markel is to make juries “tax aware” so that they may adjust their findings appropriately, “the prospect of tax-aware jurors would also raise the amounts of settlements before trial — when, again, most cases are actually resolved. This is because the amount of a settlement depends on the amount that a jury is expected to award after a trial. If tax-aware juries became the norm, plaintiffs would push for higher settlements, and thus both settling and non-settling defendants would bear the correct amount of punishment. Under the Senate’s approach, in contrast, only the very few non-settling defendants would bear that punishment.”

Five Fake Finance Twitter Feeds [FINS]
These are far better reasons to be on Twitter than Ashton Kutcher or Kim Kardashian.


Charities fail to communicate in annual reports: Deloitte [Accountancy Age]
Whatever they are communicating, it’s still more informative than a “Transparency Report.”

More cloud accounting benefits [AccMan]
“It is becoming increasingly obvious that clouding computing benefits as they apply to the accounting arena stretch way beyond the ability to save time, effort and cost. As I meet with more customers, I am discovering benefits that only customers can express.”

Apollo Said to Hire PricewaterhouseCoopers’s Donnelly as CFO [Bloomberg BusinessWeek]
“[Gene] Donnelly, who starts in his new role today after 29 years at New York-based consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, fills a vacancy left by the departure of Kenneth Vecchione in January, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the hiring wasn’t announced. Barry Giarraputo, the company’s chief accounting officer, had been serving as interim CFO.”

Deloitte answers fraud reports [The Prague Post]
Francine McKenna tweeted about this story yesterday, where Deloitte has been cited by one Czech newspaper as being investigated by Czech anti-corruption police.

“Deloitte has been put on the defensive since the June 28 report in the daily Lidové noviny (LN) that quoted unnamed sources alleging a slush fund used to bribe public officials and fraudulent accounting that gave clients better financial results. Deloitte says the results of an internal review highlighted ‘certain deficiencies in management reporting,’ but considers the results an internal matter and will not make any comments.”