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Footnotes: Dewey Get to See the Books?; EY Snags an Ex-Booz Hire; Benihana in This What? | 08.11.14

Posted on by Adrienne Gonzalez

SEC Charges Kansas for Understating Municipal Bond Exposure to Unfunded Pension Liability [SEC]

U.S. Postal Service posts $1.96 billion loss No thanks to Grant Thornton's attempt to help 'em out with some business [MW]

How the hell does a single accountant owe over $400 million in taxes? The installment plan is $1000 a week [The New Zealand Herald]

Three accounting blunders and embarrassments ONLY three? [Telegraph]

Indicted Dewey Brass Win Access To Firm's Books Dewey & Leboeuf LLP’s disgraced leaders have won permission to examine the accounting system within the defunct firm ahead of a criminal trial on the Manhattan district attorney’s charges that they cooked the books to keep Dewey afloat, according to court records. [Law360 (sub)]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is all about… taxes? [Forbes]

IRS put lien on ex-Mich. housing chief's home for unpaid taxes The state housing authority director who abruptly resigned last week amid a political furor over his eye-popping travel expenses was slapped with a lien on his house for about $105,000 in unpaid taxes in late 2012 while serving in the position, records show. [The Detroit News]

MF Global would appreciate if the judge doesn't dismiss lawsuit against PwC kthx [Bankruptcy Beat via WSJ]

EY hires former Booz & Co exec to lead public sector practice [Reuters]

Congressman's Office Admits "Benihana in This Bitch" Tweet Was Mistake No, having to admit it was a mistake is the mistake [Gawker]

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Deloitte Study: Your Boss Wants to Know About Your Trite Status Updates

facebook at work.jpgA study put out by Big D states that 60% of business executives believe that they have every right to know how you portray yourself and the organization you work for.
And while they’re checking that out, they’ll probably go ahead and sneak a peek at your photos from your friend’s bachelorette party where phallic hats and straws were passed out to anyone who would accept them.
Not surprisingly, the study also states that the majority of 18-34 year old employees want The Man to BTFO of their online social networking. While this demand for privacy may exist, apparently you’re still aware that the power of rumor mill known as the Internet can still take your employer down like Nixon Dick Fuld Arthur Andersen.
While less than 20 percent of the overlords out there actually have Big Brother in place, almost half of employees say that they will still flagrantly update their status as “I hate Mondays” or “The weather is way too nice to be working!”
Deloitte’s 2009 Ethics & Workplace Survey Examines the Reputational Risk Implications of Social Networks [Deloitte Press Release]

SHOCKER: Audit of the Defense Department Had Serious Problems

Thumbnail image for DoD.pngWe’re pretty surprised that the Defense Department has an audit of its contracts at all but since they do, we’ll give them credit for at least setting up some faux-oversight. That’s where the credit stops however, since the auditors work for “The Pentagon’s Defense Contract Audit Agency” (“DCAA”) which just reeks of independence.
As we mentioned, the fact that anyone would attempt to audit the Defense Department is laughable at best. Some problems that the General Accounting Office found, according to Web CPA:

The problems uncovered by the investigation included waste of time and resources by the audit agency. As an example, the GAO noted that DCAA auditors spent 530 hours to support an audit of the cash management system at a research and development grantee, only to discover that the billing system was non-existent.

Awesome. Three months of work to discover a phantom billing system. Oh, but there’s more:

During a separate billing system audit of a supplier of combat systems, “Auditors deleted key audit steps related to the contractor policies and internal controls over progress payments without explanation.” One DCAA auditor told the GAO he did not perform detailed tests because, “The contractor would not appreciate it.”

Testing is rather inconvenient when accountability is involved. Especially in the name of national security.
For one of the 69 reviews the GAO performed, the audit report cited eight significant deficiencies in the contractor’s accounting system but since the contractor wasn’t really cool with that, the auditors dropped five of the SD’s and recommended that the other three be “improved without additional work”.
Buckling to clients isn’t as unusual so we’ll let this one slide and considering the DoD’s track record, they’ll continue doing whatever they hell they want. We just thought we’d bring it up here for the record.
GAO: DOD Audit Oversight Has “Widespread Problems” [Web CPA]

Footnotes: Manipulation; Fake IRS News; A Bad Startup CEO | 10.16.14

SEC Charges New York-Based High Frequency Trading Firm With Fraudulent Trading to Manipulate Closing Prices […]