Accordingly, Dixon Mayor Jim Burke is putting the brakes on any investigation because "[it] would cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars" and the woman who had the magic credit card is in a bit of trouble. Hey, someone had to apply the tourniquet after the city bled out. [WAND]
Related Posts
Is There Any Subtle Indication of the Dixon Fraud in the Names of Rita Crundwell’s Horses?
The Associated Press reports that some property of alleged Dixon, Illinois sticky fingers Rita Crundwell […]
The Latest Developments in the Overstock Accounting Mess
In case you haven’t been paying attention, this has been a banner week for the alleged but fairly obvious and ongoing Overstock.com accounting drama (aka “The Quarterly Lie”) and now’s your chance to get caught up. Thank me later (unless you are Patrick Byrne, in which case you are welcome to trash me later out of pure, outraged butthurtedness).
Gross violations of the sanctity of GAAP are not the largest of Overstock’s numerous accounting issues. I know, how could it get any worse? Sam Antar discovers GAAP violations both new and old in this, the latest hilariously fraudulent SEC filing by our friends at OSTK. What makes it even funnier is that they apparently attempted to slip in the new violations with old ones in the hopes that the SEC (and those of us paying attention) may not notice.
Overstock.com nonchalantly lumped in its latest GAAP violations with other GAAP violations previously disclosed by the company on January 29, rather than separately disclosing them. Those newly identified GAAP violations add to a long laundry list of other violations.
Well that’s cute. Now I may not be an SEC filing savant like some among us but, um, something smells wrong here. I’d say I can’t put my finger on it but I can, the only problem is I can’t seem to wash the stink off my finger.
Gary Weiss is also all over it (naturally) and is equally shocked that OSTK would attempt to casually insert new, previously undisclosed accounting violations in with the old, previously disclosed accounting violations as if, you know, it’s a good idea to just lump them all in together while we’re on the subject of violating GAAP accounting. I’m no CPA but if I were advising Overstock on its accounting practices, I might warn against netting its creative accounting in SEC filings for starters. Separately stated items, people, come on.
Do you think it’s merely a coincidence that Overstock has burned through two audit firms in a year’s time? Perhaps not and maybe KPMG has the magic touch that will turn Overstock’s straw financials into gold but if we were the betting type, we’d put our money on indictments and a really messy fall for the Salt Lake City outlet.
We’re all calling bullshit, Overstock. Your turn.
Utah Accountant Who Filed $393 Million in Fake Tax Refunds Can Never Ever Ever Do Taxes Again
Dick Jenkins is a bad, bad tax accountant; the Justice Department says so.
“Given the sheer brazenness of Jenkins’s conduct, he is essentially stealing … from the U.S. Treasury,” said U.S. District Judge Dale A. Kimball, who entered the civil injuction against him last week. Jenkins was accused of filing $393 million in fraudulent tax refunds, including a single $210 million dollar refund for one customer and $402,920 for himself that he didn’t have coming (I don’t care how good you think you are at deductions, that’s BS).
Jenkins was not barred by the court from doing taxes forever because he screwed his clients (they received $294,292 in fake refunds) but because “Jenkins’s conduct results in irreparable harm to the United States.” You heard right, the Salt Lake Federal Court is pissed because he tried to remove $393 million from the Treasury through tax fraud, who cares about the clients?
Maybe this is what the PCAOB was talking about when they mentioned unusual transactions without giving specifics. I’d say it qualifies.
Salt Lake Federal Court Bars CPA from Preparing Tax Returns for Others [Media Newswire]