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Friday Footnotes: Australia as Punishment; SEC Takes on GE; Some Generic Awards | 10.9.20

Posted on by Going Concern News Desk

KPMG bank auditor avoids prison for ‘regulatory corruption’ [Reuters] A Manhattan federal judge sentenced former KPMG audit partner David Britt to home confinement on Friday over his role in a scheme to get access to a regulator’s audit inspection plans, saying his deportation to Australia after living for decades in the United States was itself a form of punishment.

GE Says It Has Received ‘Wells Notice’ From SEC Relating to Accounting Investigation [Wall Street Journal] Federal securities regulators have warned General Electric Co. of a civil-enforcement action over its accounting for a legacy insurance business, adding a fresh hurdle to efforts to turn around the once-mighty manufacturer.

CPAs Urged to ‘Reimagine What’s Next’ During Innovation Summit Keynote [CPA Practice Advisor] It’s hard to reimagine the future when we’re mired in a pandemic and face the prospect of a global recession. But that’s exactly what we must do — and the time to do so is now. That message was driven home with noticeable urgency on Oct. 2 during “Anticipate and Reimagine What’s Next,” an hour-long interactive program that kicked off the 2020 CPA Innovation Summit, a virtual series of 18 live webcasts presented by the Maryland Association of CPAs.

Updating Accounting Education for the ‘CPA Evolution’ [The CPA Journal] The CPA Evolution initiative is a joint effort between the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) and the AICPA that seeks to align the CPA licensure model with the changing landscape of the accounting profession. Responsibilities previously performed by CPAs are increasingly outsourced, automated, or completed by paraprofessionals. Today’s CPAs complete tasks that require deeper critical thinking, problem solving, and professional judgment. Changes to the CPA licensure model necessitate changes in accounting education.

7 IRS Tax Lessons From John McAfee’s Tax Evasion Indictment [Forbes] Colorful tech figure and sometimes taunter of the IRS John David McAfee has been indicted for federal income tax evasion. Given his profile, particularly such antics as proclaiming that he isn’t filing tax returns but the IRS can come find him, it may not seem a surprise that McAfee is in some serious hot water.

Accounting worker claims ‘Office’-inspired prank got department shut down for 3 hours [Fox News] Fox nabs a TIFU post from Reddit that claims a prank in the accounting department led to colleagues thinking a cat was trapped in the ceiling.

EisnerAmper Earns 2020 “Best of Accounting” Award for Client Service Excellence for 4th Consecutive Year [ABL Advisor] EisnerAmper, one of the largest accounting, tax and business advisory firms in the U.S., announced that it has earned ClearlyRated’s “Best of Accounting” Award for excellence in client service for the fourth consecutive year.

Deloitte Wins 2020 ‘Audit Innovation of the Year’ at the Digital Accountancy Forum & Awards [PR Newswire] Omnia DNAV, the latest feature of Deloitte Omnia, was named “Audit Innovation of the Year.” This marks the third time since 2015 that Deloitte has been recognized by The Accountant and International Accounting Bulletin for delivering innovative and transformative technologies to the audit profession.

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Grant Thornton Employees Can Expect Handwritten Thank You Notes Any Day Now

It’s been awhile since we shared some of Stephen Chipman’s blog musings (mostly because we were too busy watching dust accumulate) but he was probably saving the more interesting stuff for post-April 15th.

“Interesting” obviously being a relative term but in his latest epic, he was not short on praise for those of you that remain with the firm:

Having just passed April 15, the first words I want you to read are “Thank you!” As we move through our busiest season, I continue to be impressed by the long hours, personal sacrifices and collaboration I read about in my e-mail, on our home page and by special letters and words of praise and thanks from our clients. As I’ve met with clients recently, one after another client executive raves about our people. It’s customary in the firm to say that clients rave about “our service,” but what they’re referring to is “you.” They are raving about each of you. The individuals for whom you work and with whom you have formed strong relationships based on excellence and trust are taking the time to tell me how valuable you have been to their respective businesses. Every time you show up, speak up and stay up late, you are demonstrating our global values: collaboration, leadership, excellence, agility, respect and responsibility. You are making a difference.

In case you missed it, your mere ability to drag yourself out of bed every morning, get to work at a decent hour, manage to utter a coherent sentence, and sacrificing your own health by depriving yourself of sleep you are making a difference. Your clients have noticed this by way of your wrinkled clothes, scuffed shoes, that expanding paunch, and your the all around zombie-esque qualities you exhibited every day during busy season (never mind this was all done for very little money).

And because of all those raving clients, Steve-o sent a little nudge to GT partners to make sure that they know, that you know, that they appreciate it because as it stands, they’re not doing that bang-up of a job:

Thank you.

These two simple words make a profound difference.

Feedback from the Voice Your Experience survey indicated that we need to continue to improve how we recognize our people. Interestingly, research shows recognition is not only about money and that a personal acknowledgement is especially powerful in motivating people to achieve exceptional results.

Please use the enclosed stationary to write your people notes of appreciation. By modeling this behavior, you play a key role in perpetuating a spirit of acknowledgement that benefits both our people and our business.

As always, thank you for all you do to make a difference every day.

/s/ Stephen

Okay people, illegible thank you notes (on extra-special stationary!) should be coming your way. Gratitude by way of money is cold and impersonal anyway.

Accounting News Roundup: Senate Starts Voting on Financial Reform; Risk Management Succumbs to Risk Intelligence; Six Flags Emerges from Bankruptcy | 05.04.10

Voting begins in Senate on Wall Street reform [Reuters]
The latest partisan bickering effort in Congress will get underway today, although the first votes are not likely to be controversial. The first amendment to Senator Chris Dodd’s (D-CT) 1,600 page epic has been proposed by Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and it state “that no taxpayer funds could be used again to bail out financial institutions,” something that anyone up for reelection will likely get behind.

PwC partner Colin Tenner sues over redundancy [Times Online]
Mr Tenner claims that he was let go because of his suffering from depression and anxiety. He claims “mismanagement at PwC and bullying by a client led to him to take sick leave in September 2007. He alleges that he approached PwC in spring 2008 to arrange a phased return to work but says that these discussions broke down, leading to his redundancy.”

Of interest is how the tribunal will decide, “what responsibilities partners at a professional services firm have when one of their number displays signs of stress or becomes mentally ill but wishes to remain in the partnership.” This seems odd primarily because most partners are constantly showing signs of stress and if they’re not, one just assumes they’re mentally ill.


Picower Estate to Pay Billions to Madoff Investors [WSJ]
The estate of Jeffery Picower, a Madoff investor who drowned in his pool last fall, will pay $2 billion to the Madoff trustee in charge of recovering money for investors. This will more than double the $1.5 billion recovered so far.

New Career Path: ‘Risk Intelligence Officer’ [FINS]
Much can be learned from the financial crisis; not least of which is that a lot of companies sucked at managing their risk. Case in point, “risk management” is a prehistoric idea now and one Deloitte principal argues that a “risk intelligence officer” is new sage in this area:

The job of a risk intelligence officer is to assess the organization’s risks and inform business line managers where they need to focus their risk-management efforts.

“They need somebody who can see the big picture and connect the dots,” said [Rick] Funston, who is a principal with Deloitte in Detroit. Deloitte has been encouraging its clients to develop the new role, he said…

Effective risk professionals find a way to discuss systemic failures and take steps to strengthen the organization’s resilience and agility. Part of the job is to understand a company’s vulnerabilities and make it OK to talk about them, institutionalizing the discussion.

Six Flags Emerges From Bankruptcy [Reuters]
Six Flags has emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy just in time for summer and now “has more financial flexibility to pursue a shift in strategy toward attracting more families to its amusement parks.” Not sure who an amusement park company would target other than families but it’s nice to see you back in the game, 6F.

an old fisherman

Supreme Court Unhooks Fisherman From Conviction Under SOX Anti-Shredding Provision

A commercial fisherman who was snagged with a federal crime under 18 U. S. C. […]