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Tiger Woods Mistress: Candidate for IRS Audit?

Maybe! Our imagination tends to run wild so if you’ve got reason to believe that hush money paid to Tiger’s mistresses is of no interest to the IRS, please advise.

TMZ is reporting, based on “sources — and they are good” that Tigger paid Rachel Uchitel $10 million to keep her mouth shut regarding their affair.


Or maybe we’re not giving either of them enough credit. Maybe Rachel has a tremendous business acumen that we’re not aware of and she requested a 1099 from T. Dubs.

Plus, Tiger employs more people than Alaska, so someone on his team may have been looking out for this girl. TW, on the other hand, there’s NFW he considered the problems this could possibly create. Considering the fact that he has trouble communicating, we’re guessing the financial ramifications for his F-buddies slipped his mind.

10 Million Reasons Tiger Was Afraid of Rachel [TMZ]

Job of the Day: Northwest Needs an Accounting Manager

Northwest is looking for an experienced accounting professional to lead a team of approximately twelve individuals. This person needs experience evaluating, creating, and re-working effective controls along with leadership experience.

The position is located in Stamford, CT, requires a minimum of eight years experience, and a CPA license. Get more details after the jump.


Company: Northwest

Title: Manager, Portfolio Accounting (Investment Management)

Location: Stamford, CT

Description: Highly skilled Portfolio Accounting Manager sought to manage/mentor staff, evaluate existing processes/innovate new more efficient ones, create new controls, streamline workflows, etc.

Responsibilities: Responsible for monthly reconciliations, the calculation and reporting of monthly performance, pricing, valuations and NAV’s, and reporting to clients for SMA’s and DFI’s; Take ownership of the portfolio accounting metrics (review existing, create new), build new processes/procedures and controls, streamline/rebuild work flows to ensure efficiency, manage third party relationships, consistently identify areas of improvement within the department, build and execute strategy as well as manage numerous cross-departmental projects. Position will report to the department senior.

Qualifications: Minimum of a Bachelors degree; prefer Masters; CPA; Minimum of 8 years relevant accounting experience (portfolio accounting, fund accounting, partnership accounting, reconciliation/valuation expertise, or CPA out of a Fund Administrator); Experience managing a staff of at least 10 individuals. Experience creating staff performance metrics, evaluating staff performance, hiring; Extensive experience evaluating accounting processes and procedures, creating controls.

See the entire description over at the GC Career Center and visit the main page for all your job search needs.

Here’s Why No One Needs to Get Worked Up Over the Healthcare Reform Earnings Hit

This story is republished from CFOZone, where you’ll find news, analysis and professional networking tools for finance executives.

The brouhaha over the hits to earnings from the new healthcare law that companies are announcing is much ado about very little.

First of all, the charge is an estimate of future costs and will have no immediate impact on cash flow. And the estimate is unusually large because the accounting rules require costs that would otherwise be reported in the future to be reported now, simply because they are the result of a change in tax treatment.


As my former colleague Marie Leone reports at CFO.com, such “true-ups” over differences in tax and book accounting practices are just that. The real cost will be spread out over many quarters.

More importantly, the hit is the result of a loss of a major taxpayer subsidy. Maybe it made sense before to provide that. But given all the concern about the federal deficit, it seems to me that asking shareholders to bear a bit more of the burden for retiree drug benefits is hardly unfair.

And in the greater scheme of things, the hit may be so small as to have little impact on companies’ valuations, as a Credit Suisse analyst pointed out the other day. General Electric didn’t even break out its estimate for that reason, calling the cost “immaterial.”

The question is whether companies will stop paying for the benefits because of the cost, and that’s unlikely unless they’re willing to compensate for the loss with higher wages, as economist Dean Baker reiterated to me in an email late last week.

“The standard economist view is that the cost of health care comes overwhelmingly out of wages,” Baker wrote. “If they have to pay more in taxes, then it will mostly come out of workers’ pay and have very little impact on their costs and ability to compete.”

If on the other hand, a decline in healthcare costs leads to higher wages, that would mean a stronger economy, so I don’t see how either taxpayers or shareholders will lose here in the long run.

Yes, that’s a big if, but as I’ve said before, the new healthcare law is the biggest effort to rein in costs undertaken to date. Of course more must be done, but the law will provide a big impetus to those efforts.

Hopefully, all this will become clearer as a result of the hearings Rep. Henry Waxman plans to hold next week on this issue, but I’m not holding my breath.

Professor David Albrecht: IFRS Will Make Financial Statement Comparison an Impossibility

Ed. Note: This is the second installment of our dialogue with experts on International Financial Reporting Standards. See our first post with IFAC President Bob Bunting here and if you are an IFRS expert interested in joining the discussion, please contact us at tips@goingconcern.com

It’s appropriate to disclaim that The Summa’s Professor David Albrecht is a friend of Going Concern and for the most part he and I share similar views on the US conversion to IFRS. If you have not read any of our previous rants

It Literally Took an Act of God* for the IRS to Do Something Nice

There’s a slew of “reasons” that people have for hating on the Internal Revenue Service. They’re responsible for discourse on television, they don’t observe Shabbos, perverts (alleged!), etc.But every now and again the IRS gives you a reason to say, “well, that’s nice of them,” even if it takes rainfall that makes you consider cobbling an ark together and rounding up the animals in the neighborhood.


The Service is not unreasonable. Apologetic? Never. But not unreasonable. Accordingly, if you live in eastern Massachusetts or Rhode Island the IRS took notice of the rising waters and is extending the April 15th deadline to May 11th (?).

It’s unlikely that this will garner much favor with the IRS haters outside of the Northeast but at least the Service won’t have to ignore the flood of calls from Bay State and Ocean State residents about whether they’ll still be expected file on time. Grab a bucket.

IRS will delay April 15 deadline for many in Mass. [Boston Globe]
Flood weary Rhode Islanders get tax extension [AP via Globe]

*For the militant atheists – Calm down, wouldja? It’s a religious week. Just sub “Nature” and move on.

Accounting News Roundup: KPMG Dodges Madoff Feeder Fund Lawsuit; SEC May Disclose More Details in Settled Lawsuits; Tax Code? Now There’s an App for That | 04.01.10

• KPMG wins dismissal of Madoff feeder fund lawsuit [Reuters]
A class action lawsuit brought against KPMG by Meridian Horizon Fund, L.P. and other investors in Tremont Partners was dismissed yesterday in New York. Tremont had more than half of its assets were Berns andKPMG audited Tremont funds in 2006 and 2007.

Judge Thomas Griesa ruled that the plaintiffs’ case did not show that KPMG had any intent to deceive the investors in Tremont. Emily Chasan reports that Judge Griesa wrote, “Merely alleging that the auditor had access to the information by which it could have discovered the fraud is not sufficient,” and that the firm would have had to botch the engagements so badly that it would have amounted to “no audit at all.” He did not rule out the possibility of Meridian re-filing their lawsuit in the future.


• SEC may require more details of wrongdoing to be disclosed in settlements [WaPo]
The SEC is thinking about disclosing more details in their civil action settlements; a move that would do away with the quick and dirty “neither admitted nor denied the charges.” This could result in a more transparent process where violations of the law are — God forbid — disclosed in detail.

Securities lawyers said a more detailed public record of cases could make defendants less likely to settle and make it easier for shareholders to file class-action lawsuits piggybacking on the SEC’s claims. It could also lead to embarrassment for executives if the agency publicized their roles in violating securities law, even if they are not personally charged.

God knows we can’t have executives embarrassed.

• The Tax Code and Regs for Your iPhone [TaxProf Blog]
Who wants to schlep around the physical tax code?

Apparently the Porn Problem Has Spread from the SEC to the IRS

This is the last thing the IRS needs. Well, maybe next-to-last.


“An IRS employee is charged with having child pornography on a laptop computer that police said he left in a garbage bag in a wooded area in Sterling Heights. Alan E. Erickson, 45, of Sterling Heights is charged with one count of using a computer to commit a crime and five counts of possession of child sexually abusive material, officials said.”

Dumping a laptop in the woods? And child porn to boot? Jesus. You thought the death threats against IRS agents were bad before…

IRS employee charged in porn case [Detroit Free Press]

Image source: Sterling Heights Police via DFP

Overstock.com Turns a Profit; Patrick Byrne Writes a Very Un-Patrick Byrne Letter to Shareholders

This morning we thought the KPMG audit team working on Overstock.com would continue slaving away through the extension deadline tomorrow to get that beast of 10-K finished. Well! Turns out they’ll bet of you tonight because the OSTK 10-K has been filed and, as promised Overstock shareholders, your humble servant Patrick Byrne and Co. are reporting an annual profit for the first time ever!


After such a high, restatement or not, we’re guessing Sam Antar definitely won’t be getting an apology but Gary Weiss has already noted a couple of things:

First–stop the presses! Overstock’s auditors at KPMG says that Overstock has insufficient internal controls.

Second, the Marin County District Attorney and four other DAs in northern California want the company to fork over $8.5 million to settle consumer ripoffs by Overstock. The company disagrees and is fighting it, so …. No, wait a moment, make that read “$7.5 million.”

First off, we share Gary’s shock — SHOCK! — on the insufficient internal controls revelation. Second – AUDITORS! We talked about this, remember? Read the 10-K carefully. Overstock’s “Risk Factors” section runs 25 pages for crissakes. A million fucking clams can’t get missed!

You know what though? Mistakes happen, so we’ll let it slide.

Oh, and about that letter to shareholders. Patsy doesn’t bring up former auditor Grant Thornton once, doesn’t quote Nietzsche, compiain about short sellers, bring up Facebook, or say anything remotely antagonizing (although on page 32, the Company’s states he still might).

This makes think: 1) Is he not feeling well? 2) We want the old Patrick back! Read for yourself:

Dear Owner:

In Q4 our revenues grew 27%, twice the ecommerce industry’s rate, and we earned $12.7 million in net income. In 2009 we grew revenues 6%, earned $7.7 million in net income, generated $46 million in operating cash flow, and generated $39 million in free cash flow. It’s nice to be profitable.

I am proud that, for the second year in a row, we rank number 2 in the NRF/Amex survey of American consumers, behind only LL Bean and ahead of Amazon, Zappos, eBay, Nordstrom, and many other fine firms.

As you may know, at the end of Q4 we engaged KPMG as our independent auditors, and announced that we were restating our FY 2008 and Q1, Q2 and Q3 2009 financial statements. I thank you for being patient with us as we worked through the questions raised by the SEC, the transition to the KPMG team, and the extra time it took to ensure that our financial statements are accurate.

I look forward to our conference call next Monday. Until then, I remain,

Your humble servant,

Patrick M. Byrne

KPMG Gets a Less Than Desirable Photo Op

This month students around the world have been celebrating spring break. That usually means one thing – young people get cop-slugging drunk and maybe, if you’re really unlucky ruin your chances of employment.


The Daily Mail reports that 5,000 British students descended upon the seaside Spanish town of Salou, getting over-served, running around in their birthday suits and pissing off the townies. The gem above is one of several photos that accompanies the article.

The tipster that sent us the link wondered if Phil Mickelson would approve of this. Other than the obvious, “OH HELL NO!” We think Mick’s response would be something to the effect of, “Those little bastards are lucky they aren’t wearing my hat otherwise I’d rearrange their face with my LW.” But forget Lefty for two; now that Tim Flynn is focusing his efforts on being the international chair of KPMG this is the type of crap that causes T Fly to grit his teeth into dust.

“Saloufest” is described as a “sporting event” so maybe these shirts/jerseys are KPMG giveaways and no one is in danger of poorly representing the House of Klynveld. That being said, this probably isn’t what TF and Co. had in mind when they slapped the four squares on a shirt. Btw, if you’ve happen to have some extras, get in touch.

SEC Deadline Watch: Try Not to Make a Scene

So today marks the last major deadline for those working on SEC filers and that could mean that your life belongs to you once again. We should also mention that March 31st is a major deadline for many non-SEC clients so there are a lot auditors rejoicing today (or completely losing their shit).


Whether you plan on celebrating the end of your busy season by drinking yourself blind or sleeping at home rather than the office, is matter of personal choice. There will be no shortage of celebrations anyway – clients, team members and if you’re lucky, a firm-wide celebration after the tax trolls cross their finish line.

This also means that the talk of merit increases, promotions and layoffs will start swirling. PwC and E&Y have already re-reassured their troops that raises are coming this year. Some offices have seen the exodus begin so things will remain interesting and we definitely want to know about it.

Not everyone will be raging however. The aforementioned tax return jockeys still have two weeks of listening to ball-baby clients. For those that are still chasing their CPA, maybe you take a breather or maybe you just keep killing yourself and granted, some audit teams (e.g. Overstock.com) are still working but if you passed the finish line today, congrats, well done, yada yada yada.