Good morning, capital markets servants! I come bearing news.
Financial Times has a feel good story about the positive impact private equity is having on the profession. Just kidding! GT UK fired a bunch of support staff and is replacing them with offshore staff. Shocking.
Grant Thornton has axed almost all of its UK-based secretaries, in a move to cut costs months after one of the country’s largest accounting firms sold a majority stake to private equity group Cinven.
Partners at the UK firm “are really embarrassed by this . . . they definitely didn’t want to do it”, one of the people said. “There’s pressure to get more and more roles to India, and more people are worried that their roles are about to go.”
The IRS has realized it needs warm bodies for tax season. Government Executive has the scoop:
The Internal Revenue Service is no longer planning to pursue layoffs as it seeks to rebuild parts of its workforce. The tax agency is now working to plug staffing holes with hiring, reassignments and rescinding the administration’s deferred resignation offer for some employees upon finding mission-critical staffing gaps.
The decision to forgo layoffs, confirmed by two sources briefed on the matter, marks a significant reversal for an agency that has shed about a quarter of its staff and had earlier this year planned to issue widespread reductions in force.
It’s looking like almost half the country will have changed their CPA licensing laws by the end of the year, reports CFO Dive.
By year’s end, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey are among those likely to put similar CPA pathways legislation on the books, bringing the total number of states with the new laws from the current 21 to 25 by year’s end, according to Robert J. Pawlewicz, assistant professor of accounting at the University of Richmond in Richmond Virginia. New York’s legislation is passed, but awaiting Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signature.
“If California and New Jersey go, we are way past the tipping point,” Pawlewicz said in an interview, noting that many of the states that have large concentrations of accountants like Virginia, Texas and Illinois are already among the 22 that have gotten on board and passed such legislation, counting New York’s.
Funny how the profession can move so fast when it wants to.
A 2025 salary update for ya:
Accounting salaries (median):
— Blake Oliver (@BlakeTOliver) August 24, 2025
• Staff: $75K
• Senior: $93K
• Manager: $100K–$130K
• Partner: $155K (small), $210K (large)
Source: Accounting Today’s 2025 salary survey.
CFOs aren’t adopting AI as quickly and eagerly as their private equity overlords would like them to:
Private equity investors and their portfolio CFOs are not aligned when it comes to adoption of artificial intelligence technologies, a recent survey by financial consulting firm Accordion found. While 98% of PE sponsors have asked their finance chiefs to prioritize AI adoption, CFOs have hung back, with 68% saying their reticence is “primarily because they don’t know where to begin or who to turn to for help,” the AI in the PE-Backed Finance Function survey found, according to an Aug. 11 press release.
“Sponsors are under immense pressure to drive more value,” Accordion CEO Nick Leopard said in a statement included in the release. “They believe portfolio-wide AI adoption is critical to value creation. So, they are turning that pressure on CFOs. But the truth is, their portfolio CFOs are not acting, at least not as quickly as sponsors are demanding.”
A company in Australia did a creepy thing:
One of the country’s top compliance training companies recorded the conversations of its employees by turning their laptops into covert listening devices while they were at home, in a case that tests the boundaries of workers’ privacy.
Victorian police are investigating claims that Safetrac breached the state surveillance laws after chief executive Deborah Coram admitted in legal documents that her company recorded the audio and screens of select members of its staff, who work from home.
r/AusCorp discusses here.
An unpleasant student loan forgiveness update from CNBC:
Under the Trump administration, hundreds of thousands of borrowers who requested to be enrolled in a repayment plan that leads to debt cancellation are stuck in limbo amid a backlog of applications. Recent court actions and the passage by Congress of President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill” will further complicate some people’s path to debt erasure.
At the same time, a law that shielded student loan forgiveness from taxation is expiring at the end of 2025. These combined events could mean that borrowers who get the relief later than anticipated may also end up owing a bill to the IRS.
“Borrowers could face a massive tax bill if their cancellation is delayed after January 1, 2026,” said Persis Yu, deputy executive director and managing counsel at the Student Borrower Protection Center.
CPA Journal on the next generation of AI empowerment and what CPAs need to know. It’s CPJ so, you know, it may get a little nerdy up in there.
Gonna call it a wrap here. As always, dear reader is encouraged to reach out via email or text if you have a tip, have seen a story we should cover, or just want to complain. You can also find us on the artist formerly known as Twitter.
