Category: News

Accountant Mugshot of the Day

An accountant for a Jersey City church was arrested today on charges he swindled the house of worship out of more than $40,000 by pocketing tax payments and spending some of the money in casinos and restaurants, officials said.

“A bond of trust has allegedly been broken with these parishioners,” said Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio of the charges against Hector L. Sanchez, 59, of Jersey City.

The accountant for the Fountain of Salvation Christian Church on Communipaw Avenue was arrested in South Orange this morning and charged with theft by failure to make required disposition, DeFazio said.

Wouldn’t think it to look at the guy.

Jersey City man accused of stealing $40K from church funds [NJ.com]

Deadline Watch ’10: Happy October 15th!

Along with AG’s friendly reminder about the drop-dead deadline for nonprofits today, we’d be remiss if we didn’t call attention to the significance of October 15th deadline.

Maybe you finished things up earlier in the week and today is simply a formality but for many, today is a frantic mishmash of signatures, phone slamming, desperate, last minute emails and – for the holdouts on electronic filing – trips to the post office.


Sure you’re not getting the attention bestowed on April 15th or Chilean miners but – hey! – we remembered you and that should count for something.

So whether you’re finishing up a 1040, a benefit plan’s Form 5500 or converting some poor sap’s IRA, finish up ASAP and go blow off some steam. Another year down.

Earlier:
Deadline Watch ‘10: Happy September 15th!
See also:
Don’t miss these Oct. 15 tax deadlines! [DMWT]
Extended 1040s and Individual NOL Carryback Elections Are Due Today! [Tax Update Blog]

Items Up for Bid at the IRS’s Young Buck Auction: ‘Marijuana Leaf Picture,’ Royal Copenhagen White Bear Figures, Three-foot Santa Claus

[caption id="attachment_19427" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Could be yours"][/caption]

Plus the Scarface poster, natch. The good news is that lots of this stuff is probably affordable. Not like some auctions.

From the Tennessean:

• Several gold and platinum records for his own work and collaborations with 50 Cent – Yawn.

• Several pieces of fine art – Fine art according to whom? The IRS or the reporter? OR Young Buck?


• Multiple LCD and plasma televisions – Shock.

• Designer watches and an assortment of faux-fur coats – Again, floored.

• Pictures of Al Pacino and rapper Tupac – Lover of legends, obviously

• A “marijuana leaf picture” – Bid increments are 25¢.

• Three Royal Copenhagen white bear figurines – These? Really, Young Buck?

• A 3-foot white and silver Santa Claus decoration – Never too early to start the Christmas shopping!

IRS to auction off rapper Young Buck’s property on Oct. 28 [Tennessean]

Layoff Watch ’10: KB Home Offers Denver Accounting Department a Free Trip

To Phoenix. If you’re not interested, well that’s probably TFB.

In a cost-cutting move, builder KB Home (KBH) said Thursday it is consolidating its two accounting and administrative services centers into one Phoenix office.

The Los-Angeles based builder said it will move the Denver operation to Arizona during the next few months. The Phoenix office will manage accounting-related operations for its 30 markets nationwide.

The builder, one of the nation’s largest, did not say how much money will be saved.

Some of the 66 affected Denver-based employees will be offered positions in Phoenix.

KB Home Consolidates Accounting Centers [Dow Jones]

Accounting Student Turned Stripper Not Too Familiar with Independent Contractor vs. Fulltime Employee Issues

The following post is republished from AccountingWEB UK, a source that delivers topical, practical content to accountants and accounting professionals.

Forget Patmore, a former accountancy and finance student is starring this week in what must surely be the employment and tax case of the year.

Lapdancer Nadine Quashie allegedly earned more than £1,000 a night dancing at the Stringfellows (NSFW) club London and is now trying to pursue an unfair dismissal through the Employment Tribunal after being fired in December 2008 following allegations of drug use and dealing.


On behalf of the club, Caspar Glyn argued that the dancer was not entitled to rights under the tribunal as she was self-employed. “To take off your clothes and be paid to do that, it is a curious, unusual situation… which is perhaps in itself unsuited to an employment relationship,” he told the tribunal.

Aiming another blow below the belt, he added that Quashie should be disqualified from having her case heard because she had misrepresented her tax affairs – in spite of having studied accountancy and finance at Thames Valley University for a year.

She took two years off her studies to hold a full-time position as women’s rights officer for the student union, but instead of returning to the course she turned to lapdancing.

She has told the tribunal that conditions at the club effectively meant dancers were employees and she should be entitled to a full tribunal hearing. Like other dancers, she was required to give up 25% in commission, with an additional £85 deducted for nightly fees.

While Stringfellows insisted she was self-employed, Quashie said she did not learn of her self-employed status until another dancer told her of the situation five months after she started working there.

This case has everything for employment and tax advisers, HMRC investigators and retired colonels from Tonbridge. In addition to the lurid claims of private, late night sessions with Peter Stringfellow and his friends, it presents a classic challenge for the badges of employment tests and some messy tax implications for all sides.

Purely hypothectically, how would you advise the participants in such a case? Back at the central London tribunal, meanwhile, judgment in the case has been reserved.

Vault’s Best Accounting Firms To Work For (Continued): Cube Farms, Selectivity, Tolerance for Stupid Questions

This morning we rolled a few more Vault rankings that gave you an idea of why they could be decent place to hold down a job.

Round two involves more categories for the bestest of the best, kicking off with your office digs:

Offices (don’t need a key for the john, “nap” rooms, The Onion and porn aren’t blocked)
1. Marcum
2. Kaufman, Rossin & Co.
3. Elliott Davis
5. Deloitte
7. Rothstein Kass
8. PwC
16. Moss Adams


Satisfaction (with relative lack of sexual harrassment? This seems unfinished.)
1. Armanino McKenna – San Ramon, CA
2. Berdon – NYC
3. CBIZ & Mayer Hoffman McCann – Cleveland, OH
5. Deloitte
13. Moss Adams
15. PwC
17. Rothstein Kass

Selectivity (ratio of hotties?)
1. PwC
2. Dixon Hughes – High Point, NC
3. Marcum
5. Deloitte
13. Rothstein Kass
14. Moss Adams

Formal Training (aka watching PowerPoint presentations to be followed up by heavy drinking)
1. Kaufman, Rossin & Co.
2. Marcum
3. Elliott Davis
10. Rothstein Kass
14. Deloitte
16. PwC
20. Moss Adams

Informal Training (aka your direct superior rolling their eyes at you before answering your question)
1. Marcum
2. PwC
3. Kaufman, Rossin & Co.
5. Deloitte
12. Rothstein Kass
15. Moss Adams

Best Accounting Firms for Comp, Treatment by Managers, Green Initiatives, Hours and More

Catching our breath from our series of Vault posts from last month, we return with their latest offerings – Best Firms to Work For. Now, if you’re confused as how this is different from their featured column, this series looks at specific areas where firms thrive (methodology here). No prestige debate here. These are some of the areas that factored more heavily into Vault’s featured ranking.

There are several lists so we’ll break them up into two posts. Each list features 20 firms so we’ll share the top three in each and point out where some notables rank.

Starting with everyone’s favorite:

Compensation
1. Marcum – Melville, NY
2. Goodman & Co. – Virginia Beach, VA
3. Elliot Davis – Greenville, SC
10. Rothstein Kass – Roseland, NJ (#1 last year)
17. Deloitte – NYC
18. Moss Adams – Seattle
20. PwC – NYC


Treatment by Managers
1. Kaufman Rossin, & Co. – Miami
2. Marcum
3. Elliot Davis
10. Rothstein Kass
14. Deloitte
16. PwC
20. Moss Adams

Culture
1. Kaufman, Rossin & Co.
2. WithumSmith+Brown, PC – Princeton, NJ
3. Eide Bailly – Fargo, ND
8. Rothstein Kass
13. PwC
14. Deloitte
20. Moss Adams

Business Outlook
1. Marcum
2. Kaufman, Rossin, & Co.
3. Goodman & Co.
6. PwC (#1 last year)
9. Deloitte
11. Rothstein Kass
18. Moss Adams

Green Initatives
1. Goodman & Co.
2. Kaufman, Rossin & Co.
3. Rothstein Kass
4. PwC
6. Deloitte
14. Moss Adams

Hours
1. Marcum
2. Kaufman, Rossin & Co.
3. Elliott Davis
10. Rothstein Kass
16. Moss Adams
19. Deloitte
20. PwC

Dive in. Debate. Debunk.

BREAKING: California Manages to Approve a Budget Before Electing a New Governor

Which is significant because A) neither of the current candidates has cyborg abilities that would allow them to go back in time to fix anything and B) some people were getting antsy:

“You’ve got to get things moving. You’ve got to patch something together to keep operations going,” said John Moorlach, an Orange County supervisor.

Having a state budget in law is “extraordinarily important,” added Mayor Chuck Reed of San Jose, California’s third-largest city.

Yeah, after 100 days, you figure you should slap something together. A sorry-ass $87.5 billion budget for one of the largest economies on EARTH is better than no budget at all, amiright?

California budget approved 100 days late [Reuters]

Some People Are Really Excited That MarcumStonefield Is the Auditor of Fuqi International

That or it’s because they managed to not have an adverse opinion.

Fuqi International, Inc. (FUQI) gained more than 14 percent this morning. After the close yesterday, the seller of precious metal jewelry in the People’s Republic of China filed an 8-K form with the SEC where it disclosed that:

“The principal accountant’s reports of Stonefield on the financial statements of it as of and for the years ended December 31, 2008 and December 31, 2007 did not contain any adverse opinion or disclaimer of opinion and were not qualified or modified as to uncertainty, audit scope or accounting principles. During the years ended December 31, 2008 and December 31, 2007 and through October 1, 2010, there were no disagreements with Stonefield on any matter of accounting principles or practices, financial statement disclosure, or auditing scope or procedure, which if not resolved to Stonefield’s satisfaction, would have caused it to make reference thereto in connection with its reports on the financial statements for such years.”

That emphasis is the orig. Supposedly that justifies the stock being up ~17%. Personally, we feel that it’s pretty snooze-worthy but maybe people get really amped when a Chinese company actually complies with the regulations.

Or maybe everyone is gaga over the MarcumStonefield marriage. Could be anything, really.

There Are Some Cranky McGladrey Mofos in Minneapolis

Last week McGladrey announced the promotion of 21 lucky ducks to the big kids’ table. Mining the comments, you would find some indication that even with the 21 newbies, the number of partners is probably a net negative due to “laid off and departing partners.”

We received a tip recently that seems to echo these thoughts, telling us that a number of managers and partners have left the Minneapolis office, including a “head partner.”

We asked around and discovered through another source that this “head partner” was a gentleman by the name of Will Roche, a veteran of the firm:

I am not saying but just saying no one in is happy in Minneapolis. Will Roche was forced out after 34 years

And through another non-McG source we were able to confirm that Mr. Roche is no longer with the firm. So! Maybe it’s a simple case of out with the old, in with the new at Mickey G’s? If that’s the case, is C.E. Andrews next? Dude is pushing 60. Discuss below.