Category: News

Some Behind the Scenes Details on the Ernst & Young “We Are Las Vegas” Video

On Tuesday we briefly shared a video that was put together by the E&Y Las Vegas office that involved a large pair of headphones (Koss perhaps?) an Elvis impersonator, plenty of off-key singing and out-of-sync choreography.

Unfortunately, the video didn’t last and AG piped in only to replace the singalong with another video that had – ugh – subtitles but at least it was a little better rehearsed.

Anyway, we did some poking around and we found out a little back story on this whole “We are Las Vegas” production.


Apparently, the video had its non-GC debut at a townhall meeting in LV last night that was relatively uneventful, according to an accountant close to the sitch:

It was basically a loyalty pep rally. They told us that we would be getting raises, but of course said we would “follow the market.” That’s ironic from a firm that strives to be the “market leader.”

Sounds like the typical yarn but it sounds like it was followed by mucho boozing so that made up for it… Anyway, what about that video?!?

What’s with the ginormous headphones?

Headphones guy was just asked to wear them as a prop. Stevie Wonder did, why not somebody else???

Was the whole office in on this thing? Were accountants forced to participate against their will?

There were people from all service lines. I would say tax and audit were both represented equally. Amazingly, there WERE people who were excited about singing the song.

How was the video received?

I was amazed how the upper level management at the town hall (from various west coast cities) was impressed with the song. The overwhelming response at town hall was “that was a good video.” I think a training at our Times Square office might be in place.

Why on Earth did someone decide to put this on YouTube?

The world may never know.

Strip Club Owner, Sans High School Diploma, Blames His Accountant for Tax Troubles

When you own a strip club there are certain things that you understand. Things like, knowing that there is large portion of the male species that will pay women to take off their clothes regardless of the fact that sex is not happening. And while this is going on, they’ll imbibe lots of booze. And eventually, they may get hungry and with the last sliver of will power they have left, pull themselves away to pay $5.99 for a prime rib buffet. AND since there’s no windows in the place these men will stay in your strip club and spend money until you throw them out or they’ve spent every last dime. Oh, and poles are imperative.

On the other hand, there are things that strip club owners are less savvy about. One of these things may be tax compliance. Accordingly, many proprietors find a local accountant, they swap services, everyone wins.


However, every once in awhile this traditional arrangement may run awry. Kevin Moury, owner of Kittens (NSFW), is suing his accountant, Michael Walsh, for negligence in preparing his returns that resulted in “criminal charges, penalties, costs, fines, loss of income, medical expenses, loss of life’s enjoyments, emotional distress and mental anguish.”

Okay, before we continue, we have to ask – “loss of life’s enjoyments” and “medical expenses” because of a CPA? Where do we draw the line people? Next thing you know, accountants will be blamed for the collapse of the entire financial system…

Anyhoo, Moury pleaded guilty in October to “federal charges of falsifying tax returns and failing to report substantial cash income.” He spent one night in jail, got nine months of house arrest and had to pay back taxes of $88k, etc. etc.

This all came up because Moury apparently thought it was a-okay to deposit money from various revenue streams like fining dancers for tardiness or bolting early, massages for customers, and Jell-O shots (you know, the usual stuff) and then not report it as income. Obviously the IRS was not cool with this, prosecutors threatened to go after his wife and daughters (all employees at Kittens, btw) and that got him to plead guilty.

As a result of his guilty plea, Moury lost a sweet $90k/year gig as a “superintendent of environmental management” (which sounds a lot like “boss of the garbage collectors” but whatevs) and this resulted in lost future earnings of $1.3 million, allegeth the lawsuit.

Regardless, this shit ain’t fair and the accountant needs to be held responsible (his attorney the allegations or “groundless”) and Moury’s attorney isn’t shying away from the stupidity defense:

The lawsuit claims Moury’s lack of formal education — he didn’t finish high school and has a high school equivalency certificate — led him to rely on Walsh to accurately report his income and prepare his tax returns.

“Mr. Moury gave his accountant anything and everything for his business, his real estate and the salary from his job with Methuen,” Cote said. “He signed the returns, but did he looked at them? No. Is he responsible? Yes.

Strip club owner blames accountant for his tax woes [Eagle-Tribune]

Cash-strapped Clients Could Force Accounting Firms to Come Up with Creative Cost Savings

Because times weren’t already cheerful enough around GT, they recently released a study which found that businesses are generally pessimistic about raises and bonuses this year.


From the press release:

The firm surveyed 496 U.S. CFOs and senior comptrollers from March 22 through April 5, and found that 53% plan no salary changes in the next 6 months, while 32% plan to decrease and 15% plan to increase. On the bonus front, there is also equal pessimism, 47% plan no change, 44% plan to reduce, and only 8% plan to increase.

Well – that certainly sucks.

We know raises are the last thing on the minds of higher-ups at GT, but come on, really? Imagine being a no-name staffer at GT grinding away on a report about how your clients are a collective group of Negative Nancy’s. With headcount discussions ongoing in several GT offices, one would be – and should be – concerned.

The freezes in salary and bonuses don’t really apply to the accounting firms because – as it has already been discussed here in great length – money should be flowing your way this summer. The underlying concern with this report is this – if your client isn’t giving its own employees a bump in pay, there’s no bloody chance your firm is getting a bump in fees, either.

Any and all resources will be applied to minimizing any talent exoduses from occurring.

So how will the firms find enough cookies in the jar to “support the current pipeline?” I checked in with a Big 4 auditor in New York who had this to share:

During casual conversation with my mentors, word is the firm will be pushing for leaves of absence again this summer for everyone who has not completely passed the CPA. The hope is for a decent percentage of staff members to do this to save on salaries.

Makes sense-ish. Temporarily cut staff salaries during a relatively quiet audit period. Will this be enough to cover raises and bonuses while client fees remain stagnant? Heavens no but it’s a start. As always, let us know if you learn of ways your firm plans to pinch pennies.

Web CPA Breaks Down the Latest AICPA Survey So You Don’t Have To

Writing and covering accounting isn’t the easiest thing in the world. Trying to communicate complex accounting and taxes issues without sound like the latest edition of Kimmel, Weygandt, and Kieso is no small feat.

So when the AICPA released results of a survey that showed that half of Americans are able to save money while the other half are unable to save, the gang at Web CPA decided that this particular bit of data needed to be further broken down for those accountants whose brains are complete mush post-busy season.


Accordingly, they presented this story with the following headline:

“Half of Americans Save, Half Don’t”

Now you may be asking yourself, can this be possible? Is there some way that this equation be disproven? That is, can Americans somehow save and not save at the same time and thus the 50/50 split is rendered ludicrous? We’ve searched the entire Internet and unfortunately this is the only thing we’ve found, and since we’re not engineering experts it’s not so helpful.

One can safely assume that most of Web CPA’s visitors are accountants and, as mentioned above, now that busy season is over, asking them to crunch any more numbers would be a disservice to the readership.

Half of Americans Save, Half Don’t [Web CPA]

Grant Thornton Employees Can Expect Handwritten Thank You Notes Any Day Now

It’s been awhile since we shared some of Stephen Chipman’s blog musings (mostly because we were too busy watching dust accumulate) but he was probably saving the more interesting stuff for post-April 15th.

“Interesting” obviously being a relative term but in his latest epic, he was not short on praise for those of you that remain with the firm:

Having just passed April 15, the first words I want you to read are “Thank you!” As we move through our busiest season, I continue to be impressed by the long hours, personal sacrifices and collaboration I read about in my e-mail, on our home page and by special letters and words of praise and thanks from our clients. As I’ve met with clients recently, one after another client executive raves about our people. It’s customary in the firm to say that clients rave about “our service,” but what they’re referring to is “you.” They are raving about each of you. The individuals for whom you work and with whom you have formed strong relationships based on excellence and trust are taking the time to tell me how valuable you have been to their respective businesses. Every time you show up, speak up and stay up late, you are demonstrating our global values: collaboration, leadership, excellence, agility, respect and responsibility. You are making a difference.

In case you missed it, your mere ability to drag yourself out of bed every morning, get to work at a decent hour, manage to utter a coherent sentence, and sacrificing your own health by depriving yourself of sleep you are making a difference. Your clients have noticed this by way of your wrinkled clothes, scuffed shoes, that expanding paunch, and your the all around zombie-esque qualities you exhibited every day during busy season (never mind this was all done for very little money).

And because of all those raving clients, Steve-o sent a little nudge to GT partners to make sure that they know, that you know, that they appreciate it because as it stands, they’re not doing that bang-up of a job:

Thank you.

These two simple words make a profound difference.

Feedback from the Voice Your Experience survey indicated that we need to continue to improve how we recognize our people. Interestingly, research shows recognition is not only about money and that a personal acknowledgement is especially powerful in motivating people to achieve exceptional results.

Please use the enclosed stationary to write your people notes of appreciation. By modeling this behavior, you play a key role in perpetuating a spirit of acknowledgement that benefits both our people and our business.

As always, thank you for all you do to make a difference every day.

/s/ Stephen

Okay people, illegible thank you notes (on extra-special stationary!) should be coming your way. Gratitude by way of money is cold and impersonal anyway.

KPMG Got Fired by North American Savings Bank After Six Months on the Job

Technically, if you count the days (based on the 8-K) it’s less than six months.

The reason? Without getting too wonky, it appears NASB wasn’t thrilled that KPMG challenged their valuation method of a real estate investment, Central Platte Holdings, LLC.

Klynveld had been engaged to audit the September 30, 2010 financial statements of NASB but things managed to get confrontational right off the bat as KPMG raised questions about the Company’s valuation methodology of Central Platte in its first quarter review.


This must have made NASB a little uncomfortable since KPMG’s methods might not paint as rosy as a picture and could have resulted in a restatement. Per the 8-K, “KPMG also informed the Company that if the investment was determined to be impaired, evidence existed which indicated that such impairment may have occurred in a prior period.”

Obviously the mere idea of a restatement was completely unacceptable for NASB but when KPMG requested that the Company engagement a third party appraisal, they really freaked. Either the bank didn’t want to pay for said third party’s services, or they were worried that the appraisal would show that Central Platte wasn’t worth squat.

More from the 8-K filing:

At KPMG’s request, management estimated the fair value of the investment in Central Platte. After reviewing management’s estimate of fair value, KPMG requested the Company obtain an independent third party appraisal of the fair value of the investment. KPMG did not complete their review of the fair value of the investment in Central Platte prior to their dismissal.

While the Company continues to evaluate whether it should change its accounting method in measuring impairment of the investment in preparing the financial statements for the quarter ended December 31, 2009, the Company disagrees with KPMG that its method of evaluating potential impairment of the investment in such period or in any prior
periods was in error.

For those of you unfamiliar with SEC filing lingo, the statement “the Company continues to evaluate whether it should change its accounting method,” actually means “We’re not changing shit.” Luckily, NASB knew that it can rely on their old auditors to give the thumbs up to their preferred method so they ran back (weeping and arms flailing no doubt) to BKD.

Maybe KPMG’s Kansas City office needed business but something tells us they’re better off.

Real estate dispute leads NASB Financial to switch auditors [KC Star]
8-K [SEC.gov]

Layoff and Exodus Watch ’10: Grant Thornton Chicago and New York Seeing Movement

Two weeks ago, we heard that Grant Thornton’s Cleveland office started their layoffs a little earlier than what on might expect that was followed by an emergency meeting that the content of which is still a mystery.

Now we’ve received word on Chicago and New York who are rumored to be having layoffs and some quitters respectively.


From a Chipman Blog Reader:

I work in audit at Grant Thornton and have heard through the grapevine that offices are trying to keep staff. With the job market improving, it seems like other offices are looking to see if staff/seniors voluntary leave before making any final decisions pre-promotion day. Chicago has let go a partner and 2 senior managers in the audit practice and rumors are swirling of a few staff reductions, which seems crazy given that the current A1 class and the incoming class are so small. For other offices, national is working to roll out a benefit plan practice similar to what Chicago has to help keep staff busy during the summer months but it looks like this is not moving quickly enough….[T]he GT wire is that NY saw 10+ individuals put in their notice recently.

We left messages with both the Chicago and New York offices, neither of which have been returned.

An accountant close to the situation indicated that the partner and senior manager layoffs are part of those mentioned by Stephen Chipman back in January.

At that time, SC said that many of those partners and senior managers were already being notified, so since these most recent cuts knew that this day was coming, it was awfully generous of them to stay on for this busy season (we’re guessing there was money involved).

As far as the the staff situation in Chicago is concerned, cuts at the staff level do seem crazy if the classes are small. Meanwhile, although some attrition in New York was probably expected, at this point, it’s not clear whether 10+ leaving in mid-April is a lot or a little. Keep us updated.

The FASB Punts Repo Accounting to the SEC

It’s not surprising that FASB’s Bob Herz was called to submit comment on the House Financial Services Committee’s hearings on Lehman – more specifically, Public Policy Issues Raised by the Report of the Lehman Bankruptcy Examiner – and it’s even less surprising that Herz stated that the FASB will be ready when the SEC is to alter repo accounting rules should this be, you know, a big deal going forward.

As many of you already know, the FASB has a history of taking a reactive stance to accounting issues during the financial crisis (case in point: mark to market) and repo accounting is no exception. Sort of like the SEC cracking down on Madoff-esque Ponzi schemes after Madoff, it defeats the purpose as financial criminals very rarely repeat techniques that have already been uncovered and prosecuted. But oh well, showing up late to the party is still showing up and proves FASB is at least paying attention.


Herz’s testimony reinforces FASB’s position as standards setter, not regulator. Working with the SEC will allow the regulators to put together a case for accounting standards that could address repo accounting should the SEC discover it is widespread among financial firms but for now, FASB will be sitting back and waiting to see what the SEC comes up with.

As it turns out, FASB isn’t nearly as reactive as it appears on the surface: plenty of guidance already exists for handling these transactions and perhaps had Ernst & Young been looking hard enough, they would have easily found something amiss.

Said Herz:

When developing the guidance for determining whether a company maintains effective control over transferred assets, the FASB noted repo transactions have attributes of both sales and secured borrowings. On one hand, having a forward purchase contract is not the same as owning the asset. On the other hand, the contemporaneous transfer and repurchase commitment entered into in a repo transaction raises questions about whether control actually has been relinquished. To differentiate between the two, the FASB developed criteria for determining whether a company maintains effective control over securities transferred in a repo transaction.

Control? Is that was this about?

Regardless, FASB is prepared to offer even more guidance on the matter should current guidance not be sufficient to make sense of future contracts that could be used in a fraudulent manner. Of course, the financial criminals have likely already discovered a new, innovative way to hide liabilities or stash nasties off-sheet but instead of looking for those, the SEC will be working closely with FASB in the future to prevent another Lehman. History always repeats itself but, sadly, financial crimes rarely do. It appears our friends at FASB never got that memo.

Source: Discussion of Selected Accounting Guidance Relevant to Lehman Accounting Practices

Despite Past Investigations and Borderline Childish Behavior, McGladrey & Pullen Takes Medifast Audit

McGladrey & Pullen/RSM McGladrey has been named the new audit/tax firm of Medifast, the company announced in a filing last Friday. The Company dropped Bagell, Josephs, Levine and Company LLP of New Jersey who was purchased by Friedman LLP, citing/blaming Sarbanes-Oxley for reducing the number of accounting firms that have the “extensive resources and experience with public companies on a national and regional basis to better serve Medifast.”

For those of you not familiar, Medifast is “an amazing weight loss program” whose products “are formulated with a

Yet Another Case of an Accountant Taking Out Adolescent Frustrations on an Athlete

Obviously it’s pigskin Monday here at GC. This afternoon we touch on washed-up linebacker turned D-Actor, Brian Bosworth who is suing his former agent for hooking him up with a shiesty accountant.


B-squared alleges that the accountant was arrested for “and pled guilty to crimes related to misappropriating the funds of clients.” The Boz’s claims that his former agent, Gary Wichard, was getting a cut of the earnings from the investments that the accountant, Judd Rothman was putting his Bozness into.

While a couple of business savvy types taking advantage of an athlete is nothing new, this may be the first case that we can remember where we feel it’s totally justified based on past hairstyle mistakes.

Ex-NFL Star Sues Agent Over Bad $$$ Advice [TMZ]

Despite Endless Tweets to the Contrary, Recent Poll Debunks “Accounting Is Boring” Stereotype

Unbeknownst to us (until a little bit ago), Ajilon Finance has declared April as Accountant Appreciation Month and has marked the occasion by encouraging displays of appreciation through the most official of means: Facebook.

And that’s not the all! A recent poll done by Ajilon says that 88% of respondents don’t believe the stereotype that accountants are boring. The same poll found that 84% of the respondents don’t think the profession is boring. These findings contradict a constant Twitter feed so you’ll have to make your own conclusions on the validity of the poll.


In other mind-blowing results from the poll, 98% of those surveyed “recognized that accountants work hard all year round and not only the months during tax season.” The other 2% obviously assume that your 8 month vacation started last Friday.

In other developments, 100% of Big 4 auditors get annoyed when their family, friends, and other non-accountants (like the ones surveyed by Ajilon) ask how their tax season went.

Accountants Can Celebrate: Tax Day is Over & Americans are Seeing the Profession in a New Light [Ajilon Press Release]

Marcum Officially Announces Purchase of UHY New England Locations

Marcum officially announced its take over of the UHY Advisors locations in New England that we mentioned last week.

We can only assume that the 150 employees at new Marcum offices passed the due diligence with flying colors. According to the press release, the new locations will make 15 total for Marcum with over 950 total employees and 117 partners.

Marcum LLP Expands Practice into New England

Members of New England Practices of UHY Advisors and UHY LLP Join Marcum

April 16, 2010, New York, NY- Marcum LLP, one of the largest independent public accounting and advisory services firms in the nation, announced that it has acquired the New England practices of UHY Advisors and UHY LLP effective April 16, 2010. Marcum will now have offices in three of New England’s major business markets – Boston, Massachusetts, and New Haven and Hartford, Connecticut.

The members of the New England practices of UHY Advisors and UHY LLP who are joining Marcum have a 30-year history in the New England market providing audit, tax and business consulting services in the construction, high technology, financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, not-for-profit and higher education arenas. Marcum LLP, with its outstanding reputation at the national and regional levels, has strong service niches in SEC registrants, alternative investment partnerships, family office services, business valuation, bankruptcies and receiverships and services for the government and public sector.

“Expansion into the New England region increases Marcum’s presence in the Northeast and offers our clients greater resources and new areas of expertise,” stated Jeffrey M. Weiner, Managing Partner of Marcum LLP. “The new locations tie in directly with our growth plan and will help us meet the changing accounting, tax and consulting needs of our clients.”

The entire 150 plus team from the New England practices of UHY Advisors and UHY LLP will join Marcum. With this latest development, Marcum now has more than 950 professionals, including 117 partners, in 15 locations throughout New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Florida, Massachusetts and Grand Cayman.

“The members of the New England practices of UHY Advisors and UHY LLP are looking forward to the growth opportunities this transaction will bring in New England and beyond,” stated Anthony Scillia, who will serve as Managing Partner of Marcum’s New England Region. “Marcum’s geographic footprint, devotion to technical excellence and extensive range of professional services will bring added value to our existing clients and increase our ability to serve new clients in the New England area.”