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Once Again, a Mid-Tier Firm Beat Out Big 4 on This ‘Best Companies’ List

Fortune has released its Best Companies to Work For list for 2026 and we just realized we didn't cover it at all last year. Shrug, it's all just marketing anyway.…

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Layoff Watch ’26: The King’s KPMG Kindly Asks 600 Auditors to GTFO

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A KPMG Senior Director Got Beat Up By a Guy Who Stars in Reacher

Oh my God it feels like it's 2010 all over again with that headline. Thanks to the algorithm for putting this item in my feed since no one saw fit…

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KPMG Picked an Aussie to Rule Over the Global Empire [UPDATED]

Ed. note: This article was originally published on March 5, 2026. It was updated on March 18 after KPMG made a public announcement confirming Gary Wingrove as Global Chairman and…

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Deloitte Runs a Photo Competition??

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Monday Morning Accounting News Brief: You Can’t Spell Audit Without AI; An Elaborate Scheme to Defraud the Air Force | 4.6.26

Hey. To our readers in tax let me just say you're doing great! Almost there! For everyone else, hopefully you're hanging in there as well. To everyone: be sure to…

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Friday Footnotes: EY Tells Tax to Get Back in the Office; Associates Are Vibe Coding Now | 4.3.26

Footnotes is a collection of stories from around the accounting profession curated by actual humans and published every Friday at 5pm Eastern. While you're here, subscribe to our newsletter to…

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KPMG building exterior with scissors overlay

Layoff Watch ’26: The King’s KPMG Kindly Asks 600 Auditors to GTFO

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Monday Morning Accounting News Brief: KPMG Asks Hundreds of People to Go; One Big Beautiful Bill Equals Billable Hours | 3.30.26

Good morning and happy Monday, capital markets servants. I ventured out into the muck to dig up some news for you to start the week. In this news briefYour Services…

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Friday Footnotes: EY Socks Away a Bunch of Money For Future Fines; Can You Leave at 5 and Still Make Partner? | 3.27.26

Footnotes is a collection of stories from around the accounting profession curated by actual humans and published every Friday at 5pm Eastern. While you're here, subscribe to our newsletter to…

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Technology

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ICYMI: According to This AI CEO You Won’t Have to Go to Work in a Year

Commence to fantasizing about what you'll do with all that glorious free time when you lose your job to AI in 12-18 months because that's the confident prediction made by…

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Another Early AI Accounting Startup Just Bit the Dust

TIL that early AI accounting platform Botkeeper has died. I found out via this CFO Brew article which pointed to a post on Botkeeper's own site. Turns out r/accounting was…

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KPMG Brings Cheating Into the AI Age By Using AI to Cheat on AI Exams

The image is upside down because Australia. This story sounds like a joke but we assure you it is not. KPMG Australia has expanded KPMG's storied cheating repertoire by being…

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KPMG Brings AI Talking Points to a Fee Negotiation, Inadvertently Opens a Pandora’s Box Filled With Stingy Clients

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Hackers Set Out to Ruin Tax Season Early For One Old-Ass Firm

'Tis the season. For alleged data breaches, that is. Cybernews is reporting that a Russian ransomware group called Lynx claims to have gotten its hands on a whole mess of…

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Practice Management

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Top Remote Tax and Accounting Candidates of the Week | October 16, 2025

Struggling to Find Remote Accounting or Tax Talent? We’ve Got You Covered.If your firm or internal team is having a tough time sourcing qualified remote tax and accounting professionals, you're…

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Top Remote Tax and Accounting Candidates of the Week | October 2, 2025

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Top Remote Tax and Accounting Candidates of the Week | September 18, 2025

Struggling to Find Remote Accounting or Tax Talent? We’ve Got You Covered.If your firm or internal team is having a tough time sourcing qualified remote tax and accounting professionals, you're…

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Top Remote Tax and Accounting Candidates of the Week | September 4, 2025

Struggling to Find Remote Accounting Talent? We’ve Got You Covered. If your firm or internal team is having a tough time sourcing qualified remote tax and accounting professionals, you're not…

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Here Are Tax and Audit Salaries at Top 25, Top 300, and Regional Firms

Recruiting firm Brewer Morris has released its 2025 US CPA salary guide and should you want to read the whole thing you can request it from them here. Perhaps you,…

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Friendly Reminder Not to Work Yourself to Death For This Profession

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Accounting Firm Abruptly Nopes Out of Tax Season Early (UPDATE)

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This Deloitte Office Has Eliminated Trash Cans at Desks to Make Staff Get Up Off Their Asses

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Top Remote Accounting Freelancers: February 3, 2024

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6 Ways Email is Secretly Destroying Your Accounting Firm

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Don’t Grow Your Accounting Firm Out of Business! Break Up With These Unscalable Practices Now

Business growth is always a high priority for accounting firms, especially small-to-midsize practices. Take care, though, because growth can be a double-edged sword. If your firm expands too quickly or…

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Accounting News Roundup: The Psychology of Cheating on Your Taxes; The Silver Lining in Sarbanes-Oxley; Is It Time to Go Solo? | 04.15.10

Happy Tax Day! It was a breeze right? Hopefully you tax pros have wrapped everything up and the extensions are out the door so you can enjoy a relatively easy day. And if you’re in DC, don’t forget to get yourself a Blizzard.

Why we cheat on our taxes [MSNBC]
Sorry rich folks but it’s mostly your fault that people cheat on their taxes. Yes, that’s right. Once again, the wealthy need to explain themselves with their richy rich ways. Never mind that the complexity of the Internal Revenue Code that encourages the 1040 malfeasance, it’s the perception that the wealthy are all cheating on their taxes (that’s how they got rich after all) so the little guy needs to do whatever it takes to get his.

While the country’s federal tax code is considered progressive, some people feel that it grants the wealthy many loopholes — something that further perpetuates the resentment among those who believe the tax burden can sometimes fall unjustly on those who are least able to afford it.

“Many wealthy people earn income, such as capital gains, that is taxed at lower levels than regular income,” Callahan said. “So, in some cases, a wealthy guy sitting by his pool, living off his stock portfolio is paying a lower tax rate than the guy cleaning his pool. Tax evasion scams by the wealthy are so often revealed, and so there’s the perception that the rich cheat heavily on their taxes. There’s truth to that perception, which is what keeps it alive.”

While the attempt at the psychology behind cheating is a worthy exercise, the facts remain that the wealthy are paying more than their fair share of taxes. Or just ask them, they’ll tell you.

Something to Like about Sarbox [CFO Blog]
Forget Section 404. A less debatable benefit from SOx is Section 403 which “shortened the time between when officers and directors make a change in their stock holdings and when they report it through a Form 4 filing, from within 10 days at the end of the calendar month to just 2 business days.”

Harvard Professor Francois Brochet reviewed more than 50,000 filings from 1997 to 2006 and argues that, not only does Section 403 allow investors to react to insider trades more quickly (which prevents bigger drops in stock prices on suspected bad news, he argues), it allows smaller companies to trumpet their company’s prowess even if they’re not widely covered by analysts. Oh, and the cost is virtually nil compared to 404 compliance.

Hanging Your Own Shingle: Starting a CPA Business [FINS]
Now that today marks the end of another tax season/busy season is it time for you to move on or is it time for you to be the boss?

A recent survey of CFOs indicates that most companies are in no rush to hire and with layoffs coming and/or your post-busy season burn out raging, you’re probably weighing your options. FINS reports that “Roughly three-quarters of the country’s 44,000 tax businesses are one-person shops, according to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). And almost half of tax accountants work in companies with fewer than 10 employees,” so there’s plenty of people already on their own. Plus, there’s no sign of the tax code getting any simpler, so more and more taxpayers will be needing a professional to help them.

Quote of the Day: Dear Abby Should Not Be Giving Advice About Taxes | 04.14.10

Dear Ms. Van Buren:

Your response to “Phobic” about her boyfriend’s tax returns contained a significant error. You characterized enrolled agents as “the only tax specialists licensed to practice before the IRS,” which is not true. The fact is, certified public accountants and attorneys are federally authorized to represent clients before the IRS.


The CPA has long been synonymous with reliable, objective tax preparation and ranks as the preferred tax professional among millions of U.S. taxpayers.

On behalf of the many CPAs who prepare tax returns every year, we would be appreciative if you would print a correction in your column.

~ Tom Ochsenschlager, Vice President – Taxation American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, in response to this.

Decoding the Latest KPMG HR Talking Points

FINS published an interview with Bruce Pfau, KPMG’s vice chair of Human Resources, on Monday, with the topics ranging from, “getting a foot in the door, poaching amongst the Big Four, the firm’s push into environmental advice and its goal to capture the best and brightest on U.S. college campuses.”

You can read the entire interview here, but good luck understanding the HR-code served by Pfau. Calm your fears, you don’t need a Ouija board in order to understand the current state of the KPMG Kamp. Below is my best attempt to translate Bruce.

Kyle Stock: Can you provide a geneent hiring?
Bruce Pfau: Each year we hire a couple of thousand people from [college] campuses into our audit, tax and advisory practices. In addition to full-time people, we’re also hiring interns.

We’re also very focused on making sure that we’re keeping an eye on creating a diverse workforce compliment.

DWB – Yes, we’re still hiring. But hell, we have to. We’ve committed to interns and fulltime hires going forward multiple years. Remember when the bottom fell out in late 2008? Yeah, we already had 2010 kids signed up. Also, non-English speaking professionals help out with our diversity statistics; even H.R. has numbers targets. Have fun in that client meeting!

KS: It seems that some of these concentrations would favor certain geographies, are there any specific parts of the country where the firm is growing?
BP: You can pretty much gather from some of the areas of focus that there will be some geographic concentration. We have a gigantic financial footprint in New York, but that doesn’t mean we’re not hiring financial folks on the West coast as well. And we’re obviously beefing up in developing countries — in China, Southeast Asia, India.

DWB – Yes, I used the word “gigantic” to officially describe our position. PS – if you’re not in the gigantic New York market or the west coast, you’re dead weight. Expect cuts or consolidations in offices. Conversely, thank you to our folks in the Big Apple and the Silicon Valley for keeping our pants on these past 18-24 months. Your free Phil hat is in the mail.

KS: KPMG also recently hired the United Nations’ chief climate change expert, Yvo De Boer. Can we expect the firm to offer more environmental advice?
BP: We’re looking to expand our footprint in that area, not only in the standpoint of the firm’s commitment to being a good corporate citizen environmentally and having our own green efforts, but also to try to utilize some of his capabilities, knowledge and relationships to expand our business and gain higher visibility in that space globally — areas like carbon evaluation and emissions trading.

DWB – We finally moved away from paper audits, didn’t we?

KS: You recently hired a new partner in charge of campus recruiting, Stacy Sturgeon. Is the firm taking any new directions there?
BP: I don’t expect to see any major changes in our approach there. We’ve spent the last several years taking campus recruiting to a new level. We’ve redoubled our relationships there and did a variety of things to make sure that our message is getting across to the best and brightest students.

DWB – Hell no, we ain’t changing a thing. There will always be a slew of helicopter parents shoving their over-achieving children into an accounting career. Our traps are set. Fish. In. Barrels.

KS: Do you engage in recruiting via social media and has it proved to be valuable?
BP: Yes. Obviously, [we use] the electronic job-boards and things of that nature. The Facebook-type forums we’re obviously participating in as well, though I cannot say it has transformed our hiring at that level. It’s more of an incremental difference. Our hiring at the more junior level really has a lot to do with sustained relationships with students. Huge percentages of the people that we bring in from campus have done an interview with us. That’s the best social interaction that we can have [with them].

We believe that we’re a great place to build a career.

DWB – we always have and always will scour the Monster.com’s of the world for tax and advisory talent. Audit is a lost cause. I don’t have a freakin’ clue about Facebook. My kids are on it. Our first year associates swear by it. Some of our managers think it’s suave to “friend” their staff. But just like everyone else in the universe, no here has figured out how to profit it from the networking site.

But newsflash – we interview kids on campus, not on Facebook. Most of them, that is. There’s a select group that have parents at important clients that we let into the KPMG Kamp for free. And do you like that last line about building a career? Yeah, I’m paid to say that.

KS: You mentioned culture, how is KPMG’s culture different from the other three of the Big Four?
BP: Our cultures are way more similar than they are different.

I strongly believe that we face the same challenges, we recruit the same kinds of individuals, we’re in the same business — there’s a lot that’s similar. Where we differ is in a few areas.

First, although all of the firms have a good record in this, I truly believe that our firm has a remarkable culture of corporate social responsibility and volunteerism. I think that that’s something that really is a little bit different at KPMG. I literally could go on and on about how our people have risen to the occasion in that area.

The second thing is the whole area of continuous learning and development. We want to differentiate ourselves as being a great place to build a career.

DWB – We’re all accountants; how different can we be? In terms of volunteerism, what other accounting firm stuffed bears instead of getting blitzed on light beers and chardonnay? That’s what I thought. Build a bear, build a career (I said it again!). Come on, this was a brilliant idea.

A brilliant idea that us partners are still paying for. $*%@.

TurboTax’s Bob Meighan: There’s No Sense in Panicking About the April 15th Deadline

With a little more than just 24 hours to go until the end of the traditional filing season for 2010, some taxpayers might be freaking out. To help prevent this we got the chance to speak with Bob Meighan, TurboTax VP and CPA yesterday morning about what to do with just a few short hours away from the deadline, what taxpayers have been struggling with this filing season and if he had any special advice for a certain customer:

And that extension form you need? It’s Form 4868. Even if your preparer got nabbed in Operation Brass Tax, just make it easy on yourself and file the extension (we did). You’ll feel better.

Free Ice Cream Outside the IRS Building Should Briefly Distract Any Protesters

Just when you thought things couldn’t get more exciting in the world of overeating, Dairy Queen has announced that it will be handing out free ice cream in front of the IRS Building in DC tomorrow at 10th St. and Pennsylvania Ave. NW.

According to the Washington Business Journal, the Blizzardmobile will be parked outside and mini blizzards will handed out to “taxpayers and accountants” (why didn’t they just say “everyone”?).


This momentous occasion not only marks the end of the traditional return filing season but it is also marking the Blizzard’s 25th birthday. This might, just might, cajole some Tea Partiers to leave their homes as opposed to marching on the Internet (especially since there doesn’t appear to be a limit per taxpayer/accountant).

However! The window of opportunity is short and you’ll only have from noon to 1 pm to get your miniature cup of refined sugary goodness. One might think that since Doug Shulman might be anti-pizza that he also might have something against blended ice cream confections. But on the other hand, Warren Buffet didn’t get filthy rich by giving away crackalicious deserts for free now, did he?

Free ice cream outside IRS building [Washington Business Journal]

What Will the Aftermath of the Next Big 4 Failure Look Like?

In part one of our discussion, we discussed audit firm failure and why the business model is not sustainable in the current form. We will now look at questions about what the aftermath of a Big 4 firm failure could look like and what some various paths could be:


Why isn’t a “Big 3” audit firm situation sustainable?

Jim Peterson: The industry has gone from 8 firms to 6, to 4. We’ve reached a tipping point where if one more firm fails, the rest of them will get out of the business. The firms have all but admitted that the business model will not survive another failure.

Francine McKenna: The failure of a firm will also have global repercussion in various countries that are dominated by that firm (e.g. PwC in the UK). The remaining firms simply do not have the resources to pick up where the dominating firm left off.

Is government intervention a possibility and is it a reasonable solution?

FM: Personally, I’m in favor of at least a portion of public company audits being performed by the federal government, especially those public companies with a substantial investment by the U.S. Government. I wrote in a post from January 2009, “Let’s tear down the walls and rethink how we should protect the investor, who in many cases is now the taxpayer.” We should get rid of the for-profit audit firms’ involvement in the nationalized entities, except perhaps indirectly as contractors paid by the government but not controlling the client relationship. Those receiving government bailout funds could be “audited” by a team drafted from all able bodied audit and accounting professionals. I call it the National Service Corp for Accountability and Transparency™.”

JP: This is a possible scenario that may be imposed upon the world if proactive solutions are not formulated. Unfortunately, this will be imposed directly upon the U.S. Taxpayer. The product will have virtually no value and the efficiency and trust that would result could be likened it to any other service provided by the Federal Government.

You have both said that “no one would miss the auditors’ opinion.” When did the auditors’ report become such a commodity and is there any way for it to recapture any value?

JP: The auditor’s report as known and essentially unchanged since the 1930’s — an obsolete document. It has been a long time since someone asked sophisticated financial statement users, “What do you want?” and “What are you willing to pay for?” New ideas for assurance services are needed that will allow firms to provide a valuable product without submitting themselves to such huge liability.

FM: A completely different approach is needed, in my opinion, to protect shareholders and investors in public companies than the current product, especially when the shareholder/investor is the taxpayer as has occurred in the recent investments in AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Citigroup, GM, etc”

There are very few sophisticated investors – hedge funds, other large public companies, private equity or sophisticated creditors – who do not perform their own due diligence, using publicly available information or additional access prior to a merger or acquisition. They would be considered irresponsible if they only used the basic financial statements, assuming only the auditors opinion and required footnotes, as a basis for major investment decisons. So why do we expect the retail investor, the employee with their retirement savings in the company stock or a vendor or customer to count on the audited financial statements as the last word? Audited financial statements have certainly not provided any “assurance” that companies would not go bankrupt, that banks were solvent, that global financial institutions would not need hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money to remain viable.

In the wake of the Andersen collapse, what hasn’t the leadership of large firms, primarily Big 4, done to mitigate risk to their firms?

JP: The leadership at the top has a lot at stake financially. They are focused on short-term integrity. The young partners will inherit this problem. The current leadership lacks both the vision to come up with solutions and the fortitude to make the decisions.

FM: I agree. The model needs re-invention. Most professionals that see the problems wake-up and get out or are forced out and their careers and lives are better for it. They don’t have to deal with the problem anymore. People that remain do so because they lose any idea of what else to do. They develop “Stockholm Syndrome” and some eventually become the leaders of these firms.

In an email, Jim Peterson wrote to us, “there is no silver bullet” that will fix this problem. It will take a “a holistic approach and an opportunity for “blank page” re-engineering can hope to address the relationship among all these elements.”

The idea of a wiping the slate clean and starting completely over is difficult for anyone to get his or her head around. Explaining the situation to a multi-billion dollar industry that has been doing “business as usual” for decades is even harder.

But what is clear is that the situation must change in order for the profession to become relevant and valuable again. Eventually, whether by way of the current litigation or other unforeseen events, the failure of the audit firm business model is unavoidable. With some many people calling the profession into question now again, the best thing that young leaders can do is start thinking about solutions now. The profession must re-invent itself in order to serve stakeholders as intended.

Are Accounting Firms Getting Cheated by the PCAOB?

You may have forgotten, but last year the PCAOB established some new rules that require its members to file annual reports on Forms 2, 3, and 4 with the Board. These annual reports aren’t the glossy paged marketing tools filled with smiling faces that you may be thinking of, nor do they contain an financial information. They mostly consist of information that the PCAOB wants to know in case a firm changes its address, whether your firm hires shady characters, or finds itself in some serious legal trouble (take note Big 4).


Because all this reporting is a pain in the ass for the Board, a modest charge has been established to “recover the costs of processing and reviewing applications and annual reports,” according to a statement released by the PCAOB.

Now before you get all huffy about it, this is allowed by Michael Oxley’s favorite piece of legislation and now that the Board is getting around to requiring firms to submit the annual reports (inaugurals are due June 30), a fee only seemed appropriate and necessary.

Starting this year, registered firms will be charged the following:

Firms with more than 500 issuer audit clients and more than 10,000 personnel – $100,000

Other firms with more than 200 issuer audit clients and more than 1,000 personnel – $25,000

All other firms – $500

PLUS! The minimum registration fee is being increased to $500 because “The Board believes it is appropriate at this time to raise that fee to $500 to align it more closely with the minimum annual fee.”

In the grand scheme of things, the new annual fee and the increased registration fee aren’t really worth getting too worked up over but does make you wonder if accounting firms are getting the most bang for their buck vis-à-vis the PCAOB.

Oh sure, the annual inspections are a hoot and they’ll nail a shiesty accountant here and there but what about the guidance the Board has been issuing lately?

If the best the Board can do is churn out a reminders about bizarro transactions that belittles auditors (but don’t bother giving any examples) and proposals on how auditors should carry on a conversation, some people might start demanding a little more substance out of their watchdog.

PCAOB Release No. 2010-002 [PCAOB]

Weiser’s Doug Phillips: Combination with Mazars Was the Next Logical Step

Last week Weiser announced that it was joining Mazars Worldwide as a member firm, a move that would alleviate their relationship to one of a joint venture to that of a full combination. Accordiess release the combined firm will employ 12,500 people worldwide after adding the 650 Weiser professionals to its international network.

Earlier in the week, we were fortunate enough to arrange a chat with Doug Phillips, Managing Partner of Weiser, LLP to discuss the new firm, the challenges of a cross-Atlantic combination, personnel and client reaction to the combination and the plans for future.

A Solid Business Case Made for a Global Strategy
Doug told us the that joint venture between Weiser and Mazars that begun in February 2000 has been great success for both firms, particularly in the last two years. “The business case for us here at Weiser and for Mazars came to a point where it was quite logical to elevate the joint venture to the next logical step of growth and maturity,” he told us. Doug insisted that this was not a “Resistance is Futile” situation for Weiser, because the firms were in fact combining as opposed to a takeover by Mazars.

According to Doug, the business case for the combination was one of primarily of global strategy. Both firms had experienced significant growth in the last 10 years; their clients’ needs became increasingly global in focus. Doug said, “It gives us a distinct competitive advantage in the marketplace. Existing clients will receive a higher quality of service and we will enjoy the advantage of proposing to new clients.”

Combining Transatlantic Cultures
With regards to the meshing of the firms’ two cultures, Doug said that navigating the tricky waters of an international combination wasn’t as challenging as you might expect, ” We’ve ‘dated’ for 10 years. We know each other’s strengths. We know each other’s weaknesses. The overarching cultural issue is the quality of service. The firms are identical in that regard.”

And to ensure that the Weiser is well represented at the global level, Doug was elected to the group executive board of the firm. This is committee of five that is responsible for running the global organization. “The importance of the combination is recognized by the fact that I took a seat on that board to ensure the effective integration of the cultures of the cross-atlantic combination,” Doug said.

Communication with Employees, Clients was Ongoing
Communication about the combination was ongoing at Weiser. “Things were business as usual and the only real change is that firm’s brand will change to WeiserMazars,” Doug told us. The same approach was taken with Weiser’s clients, “the communication process was ongoing. It’s been universally well received and applauded as a business step without concerns about what will be impacted because [clients] have the assurance that our people remain in place and our dedication to the quality of service remains unchanged.”

Future Plans
With regards to the future, there are no immediate plans for new offices or mergers with other firms but Doug does expect some new non-attest service opportunities for the firm that could result in the hiring of some new experienced professionals not already in-house, “We look forward to increasing the talent pool to provide higher quality sophisticated services to both our current clients and prospective clients.”

Why Lazy Accounting Does Not Work for Churches (Or Anyone for That Matter)

Presented by Serenic Software. Download our free whitepaper – “5 Key Reasons Why Great Financial Management is So Important for Your Nonprofit Now”

Just because you’re a church doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a remedial understanding of payroll, GAAP, taxable income, and right/wrong.

Anthony and Harriet Jinwright, husband and wife pastors from Charlotte-based Greater Salem City of Good church, were warned repeatedly that their lazy accounting could get them in trouble, including by a former consultant in 2001.


Some issues brought up by the consultant include (but aited to and are, of course, alleged violations at this point):

• Church donations going directly to Pastor Jinwright but not subsequently appearing on his tax forms

• Blatant violation of the sanctity of GAAP.

• Expense reimbursements to Pastor Jinwright without benefit of receipts nor an expense plan at the church.

• Mismatched deposit envelopes that did not contain the actual amounts reflected on the outside when deposited.

For the love of sweet baby Jesus, what sort of operation were they running over there?!

It appears to be one part run-of-the-mill scam, one part complicated church theft, although Jinwright refused to acknowledge that any of this could be considered suspicious or, worse, fraudulent. The couple deposited $7 million into their bank account from 2002 to 2007 while only reporting $3.3 million for the tax returns for those years.

The US District Court thinks otherwise and “can I get a witness?” has just taken on a whole new meaning as Jinwright’s former assistant and business administrator – as well as the former consultant – have appeared on the witness stand to discuss Greater Salem’s, uh, holier-than-thou accounting tricks:

Anthony Jinwright was not only pastor of Greater Salem Church but also chairman of the church’s board or directors, with sway over the “business and financial dealings of the church.”

Although the church paid the bishop a regular salary, which it reported on his regular W-2 form, Greater Salem also cut checks directly to the bishop and his wife for: vehicle and housing allowances, retirement income, “tax liabilities,” personal vacation and travel, their daughter’s college tuition and at least two types of bonuses – a bonus at Christmas and a “pastoral anniversary” every February.

Both the Jinwrights also collected separate fees for speaking at other churches around the country.

Now listen, I’m sure Jesus wanted little baby Jinwright to go to college but the problem is that the meeting minutes that supposedly contain an authorization from church board members to pay for said college education have, um, disappeared. Funny, didn’t that happen at Arthur Andersen when Enron blew up?

What’s the lesson here? Churches are no less responsible for their financial affairs than publicly-traded companies and in many ways should operate with greater transparency as they are not only partially-funded by members of the congregation but supposedly on some sort of divine mission.

Do you really want to have to explain to the Almighty why you faked his financials at the pearly gates? Didn’t think so.

Jinwrights: Did they hide millions? Or miss details? [Carolina Weekly]
Other Holy Men:
Former Pastor Figures Eighth Commandment Is Overrated, Steals from Nonprofit

Accounting News Roundup: Bank America Lands a CFO; FASB, IASB Can’t Guarantee Convergence; Maine to Tax Medical Marijuana | 04.14.10

Bank of America Names an Outsider as CFO [WSJ]
Charles Noski will be the new Bank of America CFO, effective May 11th. He most recently was the CFO at Northrup Grumman, which he left in 2005 and prior to that held the same position at AT&T. He has also served as a advisor to Blackstone Group and is currently a director at Morgan Stanley and Microsoft. It is reported that he will give up his director seat at competitor Morgan Stanley. Noski began his career at Haskins & Sells (now Deloitte) for seventeen years and was a partner.

This ends BofA’s quest to land a CFO after former finance bigwig Joe Price moved into a new role under new CEO Brain Moynihan back in January.


IASB says “no guarantee” of full US accounting convergence [Accountancy Age]
The FASB and IASB, try as they might, have announced that they simply cannot guarantee that they will pull off 100% unadulterated convergence. The two boards have struggled to get their cerebral minds together on a number of “important technical issues” and are holding out for the possibility that they may not resolve any of their remaining differences.

The two boards issued a statement which warned, “Although our recent experiences with joint meetings show that we have been able to resolve differences on several projects, there is no guarantee we will be able to resolve all, or any, of our differences on this project.” The two cite “different imperatives that pushed our development timetables out of alignment,” in the struggle for converging the two sets of rules. While the FASB and IASB are warning that accounting rule convergence may be impossible, the statement indicates that the two still aim to finalize their work by the mid-2011 deadline.

Medical pot users to pay sales tax [Bangor Daily News via Tax Policy Blog]
The Pine Tree State will taxing its medical green that is sold at state-sanctioned dispensaries. The Maine Revenue Service had argued that since marijuana is currently issued for medicinal purposes, that the it should be treated as a prescription drug and thus, not taxed. However, since a prescription isn’t necessary to obtain medical marijuana, Maine lawmakers disagreed and ultimately decided to administer a levy on the sale of state-issued grass.