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Footnotes: KPMG Gets Blowed; We Love Confetti Drops; The Future of Audit | 08.04.14

Posted on by Adrienne Gonzalez

LinkedIn Pays $6M in Unpaid Wages, Damages Guess that isn't going on the ole profile, eh? [AP]

Court Deals Blow to KPMG, Others Marketing Bond-Linked Tax Shelters Bond Linked Issue Premium Structure (BLIPS) investment products marketed by KPMG LLP and multiple other investment funds lacked economic substance, a federal court ruled, granting the IRS summary judgment in the case [Bloomberg BNA]

Treasury Increases Quarterly Borrowing Expectations The U.S. Treasury Department raised its borrowing expectations for the third quarter of the calendar year, but is still issuing far less debt than in recent years. The Treasury Department estimated Monday that it will issue $192 billion in net marketable debt from July through September, $22 billion more than projected three months ago. Still, officials said borrowing remains low, with the lowest third-quarter debt issuance since 2007. [WSJ]

We're only making fun of this because we are bitter and jealous [Twitter]

A former traffic court accountant in NOLA took more than originally thought [NOLA Defender]

Let's talk about the future of audit [Forbes]

HP, Autonomy trade barbs as lawsuit against ex-CFO looms [Reuters]

Deloitte confirms 1,000 new jobs in Lake Mary Dateline: Florida [Orlando Sentinel]

KPMG Acquires Workday Consulting Practice From AXIA Consulting Stephen Lis, KPMG's U.S. leader for Management Consulting, commented on the acquisition, stating, "We are very pleased to welcome AXIA's Workday consulting team members to the KPMG family. Their team has quickly become a 'go-to' partner for payroll, data conversion and integrations with Workday services, and we are looking forward to leveraging their expertise as we continue to bolster our strong position in the important Finance and HR Transformation market." [MW]

PwC US Appoints Rod Adams as US Recruiting Leader Congrats, bro. [MW]

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Chicago Learns the Importance of Public Comment

parking meter.jpgWe haven’t seen outrage like this since FASB bent over and rewrote mark to market!
Denver is now considering taking a cue from a Chicago plan that basically pimped out the city’s parking meters for a lump-sum lease payment instead of relying on a constant stream of unknown revenue in quarters. Genius… sort of.
More, after the jump

Councilman Doug Linkhart would like to solve the city’s $120 million budget shortfall with quarters. But instead of fixing the deficit one quarter at a time — about $9 million in revenue from parking meters per year — the councilman would like to sell the city’s parking meter revenue stream to a private firm for one lump sum — as much as $430 million — and then use some of the money to close the budget gap. “It’s got some potential,” Linkhart told the Denver Daily News on Friday. “It sounds like a good idea … by no means is it perfect, and by no means is it exactly what I would do … but the concept is certainly worth looking into.”

That’s all well and good and on the surface it appears as though this plan cannot possibly go wrong, right? I hope Denver is watching how this unravels before jumping prematurely on the parking meter pawn shop bandwagon.
Hmm:

Clint Krislov, a Chicago attorney for a group of taxpayers, said on Thursday that a Cook County Circuit Court judge on August 28 will hear their petition to allow the lawsuit challenging the deal to proceed. “The contract is illegal so we’re asking (the court) to block spending tax dollars on it,” Krislov said. “After the transaction closed, the city continued to expend public funds to maintain and repair CPM’s privately controlled meters based on complaints that a number of CPM’s parking meters were disabled, would not take coins, did not properly recognize the coins placed in the meters, and displayed inaccurate parking rates and times of enforcement,” the lawsuit stated.

Chicago taxpayers have a point. You cannot use city streets as a private pawn shop and then apply taxpayer money to pay interest on your pawned items. Perhaps someone can point to the FASB that says as much?

Deadline Watch: Porsche Suing Crocs For ‘Cayman’ Use

crocs533.jpgAs we warned last week, today is the filing deadline of 3rd Quarter 10-Qs for accelerated filers. While many of you may be coming down to the 5:30 deadline, just as many have probably hit the button long ago and the filings are now getting scoped.
Michelle Leder over at Footnoted.org has one interesting Q that tells us about the fashion eyesore company Crocs, who is being sued by Porsche in Germany over the use of the name “Cayman”:

Now few people would probably confuse Crocs’ Cayman sandal for the Porsche Cayman. After all, one sells for $29.99 and the other starts at $51,000. And if this had been filed in the United States, instead of in Germany, we’d be even quicker to dismiss it. But at the very least, it’s got to be an expensive distraction for Crocs, which had to find a law firm in Germany to represent its interests. In the filing, Crocs says it plans to “vigorously defend” itself against the claims. But vigorous defenses rarely come cheaply. It’s not clear from the filing whether Crocs has already stopped selling the Caymans in Germany or not.

Crocs has survived plenty of near-death experiences already so we’re not getting our hopes up. Besides, if the First Lady wears them, is there really any hope for rubber shoe extinction?
Porsche vs. Crocs… [Footnoted.org]

Grant Thornton Loses Its Fire in Letter to the SEC

Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Grant-thornton-logo.JPGDespite getting all bent out of shape in their earlier statement:

“The fraud was apparently conducted by a longtime, trusted senior financial executive who was hired and supervised by senior management,” a Grant Thornton spokeswoman said Tuesday. “The company (Koss) did not engage Grant Thornton LLP to conduct an audit or evaluation of internal controls over financial reporting. Establishing and maintaining effective internal control is management’s and the board’s responsibility.”

Grant Thornton is less enthused in their letter to the SEC:

We have read Item 4.01 of Form 8-K of Koss Corporation dated January 4, 2010, and agree with the statements concerning our Firm contained therein. We have no basis to agree or disagree with the statements and conclusions in Item 4.02(a), some of which were not disclosed to Grant Thornton LLP prior to receipt of this filing.

The only thing we read here that might be a dig at Koss is “some of which were not disclosed to Grant Thornton LLP prior to receipt of this filing.” If this is intended to be the firm’s version of the finger — straight up, at you Koss — the passive-aggressiveness is at a level that even impresses us.
At least in the Overstock letter the firm flat out called Pat Byrne and his company liars. This latest opportunity to lay the smackdown on a client in a regulatory filing seems to have been squandered.