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Audit
PCAOB works to form Inspections Modernization Council [Journal of Accountancy]
The PCAOB is seeking public accounting firm practitioners to join a new advisory group focused on the board’s future approach to inspections. The Inspections Modernization Council, according to a news release, will work to help “modernize PCAOB inspections so they remain relevant and resilient.”
BDO fined £2mn for ‘pervasive breaches’ in audit of collapsed NMCN [Financial Times]
The accountancy regulator has fined BDO £2mn for “pervasive breaches” in its audit of the collapsed construction company NMCN. The Financial Reporting Council said on Thursday that mistakes in NMCN’s 2019 audit — the company’s final set of accounts before it filed for administration — were “significant and serious”, and highlighted “numerous and pervasive breaches that were fundamental to BDO’s audit work”.
Former Audit Regulator Helps Set Up Accounting Firm Targeting 80% Automation [Wall Street Journal]
Christina Ho, a dissenting voice on the U.S. audit regulator’s board in recent years, is helping form a new venture-backed accounting firm. Ho, who left the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board in January, recently joined Oath, a new firm that aims to automate 80% of its work by 2030 as it integrates artificial-intelligence tools. She serves as chief assurance officer at the firm, which will provide auditing and advisory services, but not tax services. “The audit approach is still built around human limitation and so in order to truly realize the benefit of technology, you have to build an audit methodology that is not human-centric but machine-centric,” Ho said.
AI
Uber’s finance team overtaken by engineering in AI use [CFO Dive]
The engineering team at Uber Technologies has overtaken finance as the company’s leading adopter of artificial intelligence, a senior finance executive said Thursday, amid reports the ride-hailing company is grappling with high costs from AI tools used to automate software coding.
KPMG scouts Silicon Valley start-ups in bid to head off AI disruption [Financial Times]
KPMG’s US bosses are touring Silicon Valley in search of AI start-ups that the Big Four firm can work with before they become large enough to threaten its business. KPMG could sign partnerships or take equity stakes in the start-ups to seal access to their technology, US chief executive Tim Walsh told the FT in an interview.
AI can mass-produce finance research papers indistinguishable from human work, reports study [Phys.org]
Artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models (LLMs) tools are capable of mass-producing academic finance papers that are nearly indistinguishable from human-authored research, according to a new study published in the Journal of Economic Literature.
Amazon says it shut down a token leaderboard: ‘Don’t use AI just to use AI’ [Business Insider]
Amazon is looking to minimize “tokenmaxxing.” The company is shutting down an employee-made leaderboard that tracked AI token use because it encouraged some staff to perform tasks that didn’t necessarily solve problems, just so they could climb the ranks. “Please don’t use AI just for the sake of using AI,” Dave Treadwell, an Amazon senior vice president, told staff earlier this week. “Use AI to help you solve customer problems, to help you solve business problems, to innovate.” [Related: KPMGers Are Maliciously Complying With The Firm’s AI Usage Requirements By Generating Fluff]
Big 4
KPMG CEO quits as audit leaks scandal spreads to Telstra, Optus [Financial Review]
A sprawling KPMG Australia leaks scandal has forced the resignation of its chief executive, as Telstra and Optus were added to the list of major Australian companies whose confidential data was allegedly misused by the firm. The accounting giant’s Andrew Yates had spent weeks downplaying whistleblower claims that personnel misused confidential client data to win work, but in a dramatic escalation on Friday he and audit head Julian McPherson resigned.
The big accounting firms don’t walk the walk [The West Australian Opinion] KPMG’s last annual report insisted the firm was committed to “acting transparently, with accountability and integrity” as Australia’s consulting and audit industry digested the reputational fallout from rival PwC’s tax leaks scandal. “Our role in restoring, preserving and maintaining trust goes hand in hand with being able to demonstrate responsible business practices and how we act lawfully, ethically and in the public interest,” it pontificated. Turns out KPMG should have been getting its own house in order.
Deloitte UK promotes over 6,000 people and increases equity partners to a record high [Deloitte]
Deloitte in the UK will promote over 6,000 of its people on 1 June 2026, including 48 new partners, as it continues to invest in its future leadership. Alongside these 6,000 promotions (up from approximately 5,600 in 2025), as part of the firm’s commitment to competitively reward skills and experience, average salaries in-grade will rise by an average of 4.2% (up from 2.9% in 2025). In addition, following a very strong financial performance in FY26 the bonus pool will increase by 14% across the business.
Tax
IRS cleared potentially ineligible providers for e-file program [FedScoop]
In reviewing a sample of the 116,000 e-file provider applications submitted to the IRS from January 2022 to March 2025, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration discovered “programming errors, procedural updates, and unaddressed suitability issues” that led to the approval of applicants that may have been ineligible for the program.
IRS to Revamp Consolidated Return Rules for Insurance Companies [Bloomberg Tax]
The IRS is planning a revamp of regulations related to how an affiliated group of companies can file consolidated tax returns that include both life and non-life insurance businesses. The change likely will come out later this year, said Ken Kies, assistant Treasury secretary for tax policy, during a Thursday speech at the Federal Bar Association’s Insurance Tax Seminar in Washington, DC.
Trump Clears Way for Corporate Tax Dodge Hidden in the Fine Print [New York Times]
A New York Times review of securities filings from nearly 500 companies showed that they avoided taxes by attributing hundreds of billions of dollars in earnings to low- or no-tax foreign locales like Cyprus, Bermuda, Switzerland and the Cayman Islands. Often, corporations funneled the profits through subsidiaries in places where they had no employees, offices or customers.
Sport Clips Challenges IRS Tax Bill Over Insurance Premiums [Bloomberg Tax]
The men’s barber chain Sport Clips Inc. sued the IRS over a nearly $260,000 tax bill because it says the agency shouldn’t have disallowed deductions for insurance premiums. The Texas-based firm filed a petition with the US Tax Court May 26 to negate this bill, which includes penalties and interest. Sport Clips said the agency erroneously found that its premiums didn’t have “economic substance” and, as a result, the company’s income in 2020 was inappropriate inflated by over $1 million.
Practice Management
‘Survive and Thrive’ and Other Lessons from Accounting Growth Conference [INSIDE Public Accounting]
At the Association for Accounting Marketing’s (AAM) 2026 Summit in Palm Springs, Calif., firm marketers, business developers, and growth leaders repeatedly returned to the same message: Firms that thrive in the years ahead will be those willing to embrace change today, by building deeper client relationships, adopting more disciplined growth strategies, and adapting quickly to the accelerating influence of AI and private equity.
CFOs
Mid-market CFOs confront growing execution strain [CFO.com]
Mid-market CFOs entered 2026 focused heavily on artificial intelligence implementation and long-term transformation planning. By the second quarter, finance leaders were increasingly focused on execution pressure and whether their organizations could realistically keep pace with continuous operational change.