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Comp Watch ’11: Deloitte’s New Structure Is Taking Shape

A couple of weeks ago, we heard that Deloitte was considering a similar compensation structure as PwC. This would result in Senior Associates making approximately 1.5x their starting salaries in three years, managers making 2x their starting salary and so on and so forth. At the time, it didn’t strike me as surprising that Deloitte would get all monkey-see-monkey-do on its employees simply because the Green Dot is a far more conservative firm than P. Dubs. While the structure at PwC was welcome with largely positive reviews, the Deloitte version was received less warmly.

Today, we have a little bit of an update for you – with slides! – on hure is progressing. From our tipster:

I’m surprised there was no article about this yet. Tuesday we all had a compensation call which went into great detail how raises and bonuses were handled. Here are some slides you might be interested in. It appears PwC scared them and they are copying. These numbers are still not official yet as they “are working out the numbers”…


Here’s a slide from the presentation on Deloitte’s total compensation earnings multiplier that our tipster sent over:

And here’s PwC’s:

So they’re pretty darn close, with Senior Associates doing slightly better at P. Dubs but Senior Managers faring slightly better at Deloitte, thus it ends up as a wash. Granted, the Deloitte slides only present information for AERS Advisory professionals (sorry audit and tax peeps) but it would seem odd if they opted to only change the structure for one group.

Other items worth noting include the 500 promotions for this year and the 3-5% bonus that accompanies the bump.

The pictures on the following pages show merit increases based on ranking (1 to 5 scale) for Consultants, Senior Consultants and AIP – Senior Consultants.


Presumably, in the bad years some high performers may see a paltry raise of around 4% but in the good years, it will push 16%, depending on metrics listed:


And even more impressive for Seniors, with highest performers receiving a merit increase of ~20%:


What’s interesting to note here is that Deloitte claims to have awarded bonuses to 95% of “eligible professionals.” So if I understand that correctly, 5% of those people ranked 3 or higher didn’t get a bonus. It may also get you a little weak in the knees if the AIP pool is already larger than last year’s “highest ever” pool:

Lots to digest and discuss here, so let it rip.

America’s Hottest CPA Goes on Reality TV Looking For Love

Do you guys remember Tripp Davis? Last year, this number-crunching Southern gentleman from Mississippi made Cosmo’s Hottest Single Bachelors List, calling first date sex skanky and girls sans chonies sexy. Our kinda man.

Anyway… Judgmental hater and bad Photoshopper that I am, I made the mistake of publicly rre angle at which his stunningly perfect abs appeared to be cut in the photo Cosmo used. It took a few hours of staring to figure it out but I finally saw that it was just a weird camera trick (part pose, part flowy white shirt they stuck him in) and word is Tripp has been a pretty loyal reader of Going Concern since. Yay kismet (and forgiveness)!

So when he recently got in touch to tell us about his latest adventure, we absolutely had to share it with you all.

What happens when you put 10 “city” guys and 10 “country” guys in a house to battle for the affection of one gorgeous bachelorette? Well, you get Sweet Home Alabama, which debuted last week on CMT. What does this have to do with Tripp’s perfect swimmer’s abs? Well because he’s on the show, obviously.

Raised on fried chicken, turnip greens and grits, it’s no wonder show producers reached out to Tripp to get him on the show after spotting him on Cosmo’s list. He’s actually looking for the love of his life (how cute) and says he won’t date a girl unless he can see himself marrying her down the road. Some of his opponents include a tobacco farmer from Tennessee, a Hollywood financial adviser, a Birmingham bartender named Tribble (first, not last, bitch) and – wait for it – one of Snooki’s ex-boyfriends who calls himself a singer/musician. This ought to be good.

Now I’m not easily swayed by southern manners and ripped abs but I have to say I was charmed by Tripp in our brief phone call for this post. So he may just have a shot to win the heart of Devin Grissom – a student at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa – if he can warm this salty Fedbasher’s cold black heart.

Check out our boy Tripp (he’s the one bawling at 1:55) on the show, which you can catch on CMT Thursdays at 9pm (8 Central).

Sweet Home Alabama: Thursday’s 9/8c on CMT! from Sweet Home Alabama (CMT) on Vimeo.

We hear the show includes lots of drama (surprise), douchebaggery and even a fight over the grill. Everyone knows you don’t mess with a man’s meat. Just sayin.

Tripp sums up the plot in words somewhat like this:

City guys are more interested in what they can buy the girl and showing their wealth, it’s all about the bling. They are defined by who they have dated. Country guys are more about who they are and their character, that shows through. Money shows through for city guys.

Good luck, Tripp, we’ll be rooting for you. Seriously. We’re pretty sure “reality star” wasn’t one of the manufactured scenarios many of you fell for when you were seduced into public accounting (much like work-life balance and prestige), which is why our hot little CPA friend here works for an unnamed private firm. Think about that next time you’re having a reality crisis, this guy is off chasing a chick. On teevee.

“It was such an amazing experience!” [Devin] says to a fan. “I’m a lucky girl … All of the guys on the show were so great,” said chick says on Facebook.

Someone has to blaze a trail with his sizzling fried chicken abs, it might as well be this guy. The accountant stereotype has been rewritten in recent years, not everyone is a WoW-playing, Dorito-eating shlub who doesn’t know what business casual actually means. Some are, yes. Some are also ripped. And, uh, on a reality show.

Accounting News Roundup: Big Tax Break or Big Spending?; Ernst & Young Partner Promotions in DC; Friend-on-Friend Fraud | 07.21.11

As debt talks intensify, Obama opens door to short-term deal to buy more time [WaPo]
The contentious budget talks that have dominated Washington for months intensified Wednesday, prompting President Obama to say he would accept a short-term hike in the debt ceiling if it gave lawmakers time to finalize a comprehensive deal. Obama had pledged to veto any short-term measure, but White House spokesman Jay Carney said Wednesday that the president could accept an extension of “a few days” if it allowed a long-term deficit-reduction and debt-ceiling deal to work its way throug>My Big Tax Break Looks Like Your Big Spending [Bloomberg]
There is plenty of spending to cut. For instance, we’ve got one government program that hands people money to buy houses that, in most cases, they would buy anyway. They get even more money if they buy a more expensive house. Over the next five years, that program alone will cost almost $500 billion. Another federal agency will spend more than $400 billion to reward people for making money by investing and earning capital gains and dividends rather than by going to work and taking their income in wages. I like investors and I participate in the market, but is this really the sort of activity that requires a $400 billion subsidy?

Fed planning for potential default [Reuters]
The Federal Reserve is actively preparing for the possibility that the United States could default as a deadline for raising the government’s $14.3 trillion borrowing limit looms, a top Fed policymaker said on Wednesday. Charles Plosser, president of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank, said the U.S. central bank has for the past few months been working closely with Treasury, ironing out what to do if the world’s biggest economy runs out of cash on August 2.

Cisco’s 6,500 Job Cuts Could Hurt Push for Offshore Tax Holiday [Bloomberg]
Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO)’s plan to eliminate about 6,500 jobs worldwide is complicating the corporate lobbying campaign for a tax holiday that would allow multinational companies to return $1 trillion in offshore profits to the U.S. at a low tax rate. The San Jose, California-based company, the world’s largest networking-equipment maker, has been among the most vocal supporters of a repatriation holiday being considered in the U.S. Congress. Cisco chief executive John Chambers has said he wants to return as much as $30 billion in overseas profits to the U.S. The company could increase its headcount by 10 percent, depending on details of a repatriation bill, he said before the job-elimination announcement.

Federal auditors scold IRS for slow notification of security breaches [WaPo]
In a recent report, the Treasury Department Inspector General for Tax Administration reprimanded the Internal Revenue Service for failing to notify taxpayers in a timely way — if at all —when the tax agency inadvertently exposed their personal information. IRS records showed 4,081 inadvertent disclosures of taxpayers’ personal information in fiscal 2009 and fiscal 2010. The IRS sent letters to taxpayers whose privacy was violated 86 days after the fact in 20 percent of the cases auditors examined in a sample of incidents from July 2010 to February 2011.

3 Groups Denied Break By I.R.S. Are Named [NYT]
Three nonprofit advocacy groups that were denied tax exemption by the Internal Revenue Service were all units of Emerge America, an organization devoted to cultivating female political leaders for local, state and federal government. The I.R.S. denied tax exemption to the groups — Emerge Nevada, Emerge Maine and Emerge Massachusetts — because, the agency wrote in denial letters, they were set up specifically to cultivate Democratic candidates. Their Web sites ask for evidence that participants in their training programs are Democrats.

Twitter Poised to Close a Two-Stage $800M Funding, With Half Used to Cash Out Investors and Employees [All Things D]
In a move reminiscent of one done by Facebook in 2009, Twitter is close to completing an $800 million funding deal that will include a second part in which around $400 million of the total will be used to cash out current investors and also employees. According to several sources close to the situation, the complex transaction could be completed within two weeks. Along with basic funding needs, this is largely being done this way to give those with stakes in the San Francisco microblogging company an ability to monetize their privately held common stock and also to do this selling in a more organized — and legal — manner.

Ernst & Young’s Greater Washington Office Announces Leadership Promotions [E&Y]
Four new partners in the DC office. If your office has announced promotions, we want to know.

PwC US Appoints Robert W. McCutcheon as New Industrial Products Leader [PwC]
RWM is the Pittsburgh OMP and will continue in that role but now is also responsible for leading the group that services several industries including “aerospace & defense, chemicals, engineering & construction, industrial manufacturing, metals, transportation & logistics, and forest, paper and packaging.”

Friend-on-friend swindles increase as economy flounders: Prosecutors [NYP]
Don’t forget family members.

WFT Names New Chief Accounting Officer Who Will Hopefully Avoid Any More Giant Tax WTFs

Remember Weatherford International? That’s the oil services company that had a ton of material weakness around their tax accounting that led to $500 million error. This resulted in restatements, a humiliated CFO and the Chief Accounting Officer resigning “to pursue other opportunities.”


But now, four months later, everyone has moved on and the company has some new blood:

Weatherford International Ltd. […] announced today that John H. Briscoe has agreed to join the company as Vice President –Chief Accounting Officer. Mr. Briscoe will report to the company’s Chief Financial Officer.

Mr. Briscoe served as Vice President and Controller of Transocean Ltd. from October 2007 to present. He also fulfilled additional roles in internal audit, investor relations and field finance. Prior to joining Transocean in 2005, Mr. Briscoe served as Ferrellgas Inc.’s Vice President of Accounting and served in other senior roles during his eight years with the company. Mr. Briscoe also served as Controller for Latin America for Dresser Industries Inc. Mr. Briscoe started his career with seven years in public accounting beginning with the firm of KPMG and ending with Ernst & Young as an Audit Manager. Mr. Briscoe is a certified public accountant.

Yes, that Transocean.

At Least the Jerks in Your Family Won’t Impersonate an IRS Agent to Swindle You Out of $20k

All families have individuals who seem to rub everyone the wrong way. Whether it’s that deadbeat brother-in-law who seems to owe everyone money or the bratty grandmother that threatens to cut you out of the will if you get another tattoo, there’s always someone who nobody can seem to stand. Despite these and other proclivities of your grade-A dick relatives, they’ve got some work to do to top this guy:

A 48-year-old Hilo man is going to federal prison for 17 months for duping his cousin out of $19,250 in an elaborate swindle involving a fictitious Internal Revenue Service employee in Honolulu and fake correspondence from the IRS in California and Utah.

Hua told his cousin she was being audited by the IRS and that she could pay a lower auditing fee if she hired him to do the audit rather than have the IRS do it when he knew the IRS does not charge taxpayers to audit them, according to federal court records.

At the time, Hua offered professional accounting and tax services under the business name Tri-Y Enterprises.

To persuade his cousin to continue paying him for auditing services never performed, Hua sent his cousin threatening mail and email purportedly from the IRS in Fresno, Calif., and Ogden, Utah, and from a fictitious IRS employee in Honolulu, said Tracy Hino, assistant U.S. attorney.

Hua also had his wife and daughter sign documents stating that they too were auditors working on the cousin’s tax case, Hino said.

Go hug your bitchy grandma.

Hilo man sentenced in scheme to cheat cousin [HSA]

Happy Birthday to Us! Going Concern Enters the Terrible Twos

Yes, today happens to be the blogoversary/birthday/whatever of this here fine publication. Back on this date in 2009, I woke up unusually late on a Monday only to discover that the site was live. I somehow was able to pull myself together and bang out a few posts sans pants without anyone – including David Lat – noticing that I was officially late for my first day of work (not the first time) day since then we’ve managed to come up with enough content to distract/keep you occupied throughout the week.

What have we learned in the past year? Let’s take a quick look back.

Well, for starters an email at PwC Ireland got a little out of hand. Adrienne’s lack of a CPA has come up a few times. Ernst & Young got sued over that Lehman Brothers thing. KPMG got sued for being a boys club. Lots of partners at Deloitte are unhappy. We learned that Rothstein Kass is officially the coolest accounting firm. BDO pays snitches in caffeinated beverages. And we gave lots and lots and lots of career advice. (Jesus, that Dear Abby must have wanted to keel over.) There was also de-pantsing by an accounting professor and now an accounting student. That doesn’t cover everything, obviously – Grover Norquist and Susan Coffey obsessions, Adrienne tells EVERYONE what they’re doing wrong on Twitter, DWB’s scotch-fueled advice, etc.

UPDATE:
I shamefully forgot this:

It’s all been pretty fun and we have you, dear readers, to thank. We really appreciate every single one of you. Especially you, John Veihmeyer. If you don’t email us, Tweet us, FB us, we don’t hear about these funny, disturbing and sometimes pathetic stories. KEEP IT UP. Thanks again for your support!

But now that we’re 2, where do we go from here? We’ve already managed to go from crawling to toddling, learned a bunch of naughty words (okay, we knew those) and quit drooling on ourselves. Basically, as Grover is fond of saying, ONWARD!

Comp Watch ’11: Someone at Ernst & Young Wasn’t Too Discreet with Sensitive Info on Their Commute

From the mailbag:

Happened to be sitting behind someone on my NYC commute this week who was reading a deck (in font large enough for me to read) on EY’s salary ranges etc. Didn’t see any $ numbers and most was hard to see without context or the full page but I did see this:

(I don’t know ey terms – apr = annual performance rating?)

APR 3 4 5
S. Mgr 1% 2% 3%
Mgr 2% 3% 4%

Our tipster stated that the percentages were supposed to represent “minimum raise.” Hard what to make of this as rumors have been all over the board from “They told us not to have very high expectations,” to ” Per my discussions with an Office Managing Partner and a National Practice Leader …. raises should be close to (if not the same) as prior year.” But considering there’s an expensive legal battle on the horizon, maybe this isn’t so crazy? Discuss.

(UPDATE) Ernst & Young Auditor Area Man Takes His Crush for Co-worker Ernst & Young Auditor to Craigslist Missed Connections

Don’t you just love missed connections? Maybe you’re more of a casual encounters person but there’s something to be said for someone that is experiencing such infatuation that dropping a post on Craiglist seems like the best thing to do. Of course, it’s another thing entirely when you are infatuated with someone at work and you conclude that your best way to tell them that they are the most beautiful creature on Earth is by posting on missed connections. Apparently, UPDATE: some dude crushing on an Ernst & Young auditor did just that.

Dating Fails: Dating, Breakup, Boyfriend, Girlfriend - Office Romances Don't Count Online, Right?
see more

Okay, a few notes:

1. For a lot of reasons, personal and professional, there’s no way I can say anything to you. – What exactly are the “personal” reasons? You can’t speak in coherent sentences? You have awful body odor? You’re actually a serial killer? As for “professional” reasons, we all know that auditors are banging auditors all over the place (SEE UPDATE BELOW), so if you’re simply saying that this can’t happen because it’s against your professional morals then fine but other people around you are getting busy and you will not.

2. I can’t believe you don’t hear that all the time. You probably do. – You’re right. She probably does hear it all the time. But not from anonymous people on the Internet.

3. I wish I could tell you and not come across as a sleaze! – You’re not “coming across,” broski. You’re already there.

This was posted in NYC (expired now) so maybe we can track this guy down and help him with his game.

UPDATE:
After reader input and discussing it with my partner in crime, it’s clear that this is a client leering at the E&Y auditor and AG and others are postulating that our Craiglist creeper is either married or in a committed relationship. If this is the “personal reasons” he spoke of, it’s far less interesting and funny than some kind of social anxiety disorder that renders him a stuttering love-sick fool. But it does begs several societal questions among them: 1) does posting a missed connection constitute cheating? or 2) do we applaud his self-control (until he gets home of course). Discuss.

Cut, Cap and Balance Is Just More of the Same Glut, Crap and B&#$^*!

The plan approved by the House last night traded $2.4 trillion for both the Senate and House approving a balanced budget amendment, though I’m not quite sure how borrowing more money is going to help us get our financial house in order.

If I were a legislator, I’d suggest avoiding the “Let’s pay the Visa off with the Mastercard” tactic if at all possible but that’s just me.

David Brooks broke down the Republican theatrics into four categories: “Beltway Bandits,” the “Big Government Blowhards,” the “Show Horses,” and the “Permanent Campaigners.” FYI for Caleb’s knowledge, Grover Norquist was the one named as a Beltway Bandit, though in fairness to this town, anyone could be considered that.

“The Democratic offers were slippery, and President Obama didn’t put them in writing. But John Boehner, the House speaker, thought they were serious. The liberal activists thought they were alarmingly serious. I can tell you from my reporting that White House officials took them seriously,” Brooks wrote in the NYT.

“House Republicans are the only ones to put forward and pass a real plan that will create a better environment for private-sector job growth by stopping Washington from spending money it doesn’t have and preventing tax hikes on families and small businesses,” said John Boehner in a statement.

Really? So how is it that this includes an increase in the debt ceiling?

Meanwhile, this is what Ron Paul had to say in a statement:

I have never voted to raise the federal debt limit, and I have no doubt that we face financial collapse and ruin if we continue to grow our debt. We need to make major spending cuts now, in this budget, and we can no longer afford to allow more deficit spending based on promises of future cuts.

“The CCB act would add $2.4 trillion of new debt to our gargantuan $14.4 trillion debt. CCB would also only cut $111 billion from this year’s budget, allowing a deficit of nearly $1.5 trillion. This is far from the Pledge’s call for ‘substantial’ cuts. And, CCB locks us into current levels of overseas welfare, which will continue to endanger America’s security by forcing us to subsidize other wealthy nations.

See, that’s pretty much where I’m at with this. The debt trap is impossible to get out of, anyone who has gotten trapped in a pay day loan can tell you all about that.

That’s exactly where we are. That’s where we’ve been. And where we’ll continue to be unless we get the debt monkey off our back. I’m not as concerned about subsidizing China’s explosive growth as I am about compromising our national security by letting those assholes at the Fed run the show. We owe them more than we owe China.

So Norquist may be a tax troll and I’m fine with that but this Dog and Pony Debt Show has got to stop, it’s old and it’s not doing us any good.

Anyone got a better plan?

Accounting News Roundup: IRS Denies Tax-Exempt Status for Political Groups; Ernst & Young’s Disabilities at News Corp.; Apple’s Big Bank Balance | 07.20.11

Obama Backs Latest Bargain [WSJ]
President Barack Obama, in a last-ditch bid for a bipartisan “grand bargain” on the budget, threw his weight Tuesday behind a $3.7 trillion deficit-reduction plan unveiled by six Republican and Democratic senators. The plan, which would span a decade, has scant chance of passing intact as the solution to the current debate over raising the government’s borrowing limit. Some Republicans were wary of the plan’s changes in tax rules. Democrats said it would be near impossible to draft legislative language and pass it quickly.

Political Advocacy Groups Denied Tax-Exempt StatusNYT]
Copies of the letters informing the groups of the decisions were heavily redacted by the I.R.S. when it released them last week, so it was impossible to know the names of the organizations involved, or which political party they might have worked with. “You are not operated primarily to promote social welfare because your activities are primarily for the benefit of a political party and a private group of individuals, rather than the community as a whole,” the I.R.S. wrote in the letters. “Accordingly, you do not qualify for exemption.”

Minnesota lawmakers approve budget deal; governor’s signature will end 20-day state shutdown [WaPo]
Minnesota’s state government is poised to re-open for business after lawmakers worked through the night and agreed on a budget plan early Wednesday to end a nearly three-week shutdown. The last votes came around 3:30 a.m. during a special session that begun Tuesday afternoon, and Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton was expected to sign it later in the morning. His signature will formalize an agreement he reached with key Republican legislative leaders last week and likely mean that most of the idled 22,000 state workers could be back to work by Thursday.

‘Going Concern’ Concerns Fall Again: Report [CFOJ]
The report by Audit Analytics found that the number of audits that included a “going concern” warning declined in 2010 for the second year in a row. Auditors are required to include this warning when they have doubts about a company’s ability to stay in business for another 12 months. The study found that the number of going concern qualifications fell to 2,636 last year from 2,994 in 2009. The number peaked at 3,179 in 2008, with the onset of the financial crisis. Audit Analytics started studying the issue in 2000.

Ernst & Young Deaf, Dumb, And Blind About News Corp. [Forbes]
Hear none. Speak none. See none.

Paying taxes your employer keeps [Reuters]
[I]n Illinois the state income taxes withheld from your paycheck may be kept by your employer under a law that took effect in May. Continental Corporation (CONG.DE), the big German tire maker; Motorola Mobility (MMI.N), the cell phone maker; and Navistar (NAV.N), the maker of diesel trucks for industry and the military, are in on the deal. State officials say a fourth company is negotiating a similar arrangement. Chrysler and Mitsubishi arranged deals with the state in the depths of the Great Recession in 2009; Ford got one in 2007, since revised to let it keep half of its Illinois workers’ state income taxes.

Apple’s Cash Hoard Tops $76 Billion [CFOJ]
Apple’s cash stockpile is growing again, up about $10.4 billion in the last quarter to a whopping $76.2 billion at the end of June, said Peter Oppenheimer, CFO of the iPhone and iPad maker on its earnings call Tuesday. Oppenheimer said he was “thrilled to report the highest quarterly revenue and earnings in Apple’s history.” Oppenheimer was in fine fettle; in response to a question from Wedge Partners analyst Brian Blair about the company’s ability to fend off competitors, Oppenheimer responded in his understated manner that, “we are certainly very, very good with the Internet, with telecommunications and delivering content. I think we have proven that for a decade.”

Murdoch foam protester charged with public order offence [Independent]
Jonathan May-Bowles, 26, of Edinburgh Gardens, Windsor, was bailed to appear before City of Westminster Magistrates Court next Friday, July 29. He is charged with behaviour causing harassment, alarm or distress in a public place under Section 5 of the Public Order Act, Scotland Yard said.

Romney as Job Creator Clashes with Bain Record of Job Cuts [Bloomberg]
“You’d have a president who has spent his life in business — small business, big business — and who knows something about how jobs are created and how we compete around the world,” he said at a campaign stop last month at Buddy Brew Coffee in Tampa, Florida.
What Romney skips is his experience in eliminating jobs. It’s a facet of his career that presents a particular challenge for the Republican primary frontrunner: Tough business decisions don’t necessarily translate into good politics.

Promotion Watch ’11: Grant Thornton Admits 26 New Partners and Principals

Apparently everyone’s email at the Purple Rose of Chicago is broken because I had to learn about this from a press release.

Grant Thornton LLP, the U.S. member firm of Grant Thornton International Ltd, one of the six global audit, tax and advisory organizations, admitted 26 new partners and principals to the firm, effective August 1. These partners and principals are based throughout the firm’s offices across the country.

Partners and principals admitted to the firm are thought leaders upon whom the firm relies to provide personalized attention in serving clients. These professionals have demonstrated consistently their extraordinary ability to understand and meet the needs of client companies and industries. They have also demonstrated long-term leadership in the accounting profession and the community.

“These professionals have demonstrated extraordinary client service, driving value for the dynamic firms we serve,” said Stephen Chipman, Grant Thornton’s CEO. “These leaders exemplify Grant Thornton’s mission of making a difference – to our colleagues, our clients, our profession and our communities.”

It’s also strange that no one from GT has dropped any news regarding compensation discussions as this is about the time we should start hearing it or sayeth comments from the last post on the subject. Anyway, give the new partners a slap on the back or at least a nice note.