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Strongly Worded Letters
AICPA Urges IRS to Release Contingency Plan Ahead of Government Shutdown [AICPA]
In a letter to the Agency, the AICPA highlighted the severe impact a failure to do so would have on the 2026 filing season. The letter notes that the IRS has only been forced to shut down once before during the April filing season at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it caused significant harm to taxpayers, required extraordinary tax relief measures, and resulted in heightened IRS inventory levels that continue to this day. However, we have not experienced a lapse in appropriations during the April tax filing season. The letter notes that even the 2019 government shutdown – which ended immediately before the tax filing season began – placed significant strain on the entire tax system, including the inability to resolve automated IRS collection notices, unreliable online account access, disruptions to electronic tax payment services, difficulties processing critical tax documents, and backlogged IRS phone lines once the shutdown ceased.
Audit
City of Ithaca Hires Accounting Firm to Overhaul Financial Records for Late Audits [Ithaca Times]
After completing its 2021 financial audit in September 2025, city officials seek to fully address the backlog of outstanding audits. Moody’s Investors Service revoked Ithaca’s bond rating in April 2024 due to a “lack of sufficient information” related to the backlog.
Big 4
Veteran EY partner takes parting shot at ‘autocratic’ consultancy [The Times] Rather than riding off quietly into the sunset to pursue a career in film-making, a veteran partner of EY’s Australian arm has left with a parting broadside accusing the local leadership of the Big Four accountancy firm of being “autocratic”. In a farewell email to staff, Cameron Bird, who spent ten years as a partner in the infrastructure advisory team, said he could no longer tolerate “the direction the firm is taking” adding that the workplace environment had become dominated by a rigid, top-down culture.
KPMG’s UK partner pay tops EY and PwC for first time in a decade [Financial Times]
The business said on Wednesday its partners had received an average of £880,000 for the 12 months to September 2025, an 11 per cent increase on the previous year. The figure eclipses partner pay of £865,000 at PwC and £787,000 at EY in their most recent financial years, but remains lower than at Deloitte, where partners received an average of £1.05mn.
PwC’s chief AI officer isn’t impressed by how many agents you have [Business Insider]
Earlier this month, Bob Sternfels, the CEO of McKinsey & Company, made a surprising announcement. The firm, he said, had a workforce of over 60,000 people — 40,000 human employees and 25,000 AI agents. Dan Priest, the chief AI officer at PwC, told Business Insider that evaluating a firm’s AI use by the number of agents it has is not the best metric. “There was this emerging bragging right around the number of agents I had or I have in production,” he said. “I think that’s probably the wrong measure.”
Tax
New Census Migration Data Shows Americans Moving From High- to Low-Tax States [Americans for Tax Reform]
Some noteworthy trends stand out when comparing the states that gained the most new residents (as a percentage of state population) over the past year as a result of net domestic migration with those that lost the most residents.
New Dutch government plans ‘freedom tax’ to fund defense spending [Reuters]
The incoming Dutch government plans to add a surcharge to income and corporate taxes to generate around 5 billion euros ($6 billion) per year for increased defence spending, coalition parties said on Friday. To meet a target set by NATO countries last year, the government aims to increase defence spending to 2.8% of gross domestic product by 2030 and to 3.5% by 2035, compared with around 2% now.
Law & Order
Trump sues IRS and Treasury Department for $10 billion over leaked tax records [NBC News]
The lawsuit, filed Thursday at a federal courthouse in Miami, says Trump is suing in his personal capacity, not as president. The other plaintiffs include two of Trump’s sons — Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump — and the Trump Organization. “Defendants have caused Plaintiffs reputational and financial harm, public embarrassment, unfairly tarnished their business reputations, portrayed them in a false light, and negatively affected President Trump, and the other Plaintiffs’ public standing,” the complaint says.
Chattanooga accountant pleads guilty in federal court in $1.6M investment fraud case [WTVC]
Court records show Jonathan D. Frost entered a signed plea agreement on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Chattanooga.
Earlier:
SEC fines ADM $40 million over accounting issues; DOJ drops criminal probe [Investigate Midwest]
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission fined Archer Daniels Midland $40 million after the agency found former high-ranking executives artificially inflated the value of one of its businesses. The fine, handed down on Jan. 27 as part of a settlement with the company, relates to ADM’s Nutrition business, which the company had touted as a significant moneymaker to investors. However, as the business failed to meet profit projections, ADM’s chief financial officer shifted funds from other company ventures into Nutrition so it “would appear to be … performing better than it was,” according to the SEC.
Survey Says
New Deloitte Survey: Corporate and Private Equity Leaders Anticipate Stronger M&A Activity in 2026, Along With Continued Volatility, Relative to 2025 [PR Newswire]
Ninety percent of PE and 80% of corporate respondents expect an increased number of deals their organization will do in 2026. Similarly, when asked about anticipated aggregate value for their deals in the next year, 87% of PE respondents and 81% of corporate respondents anticipate increases as well.
