When accounting goes unaccounted for
We've got another RIF at KPMG, a consulting cull that went down yesterday (that's Wednesday the 29th for those of you reading this a week from now). Let's start with…
The other day -- and by the other day we mean like more than a week ago -- we received a text on the tipline that read "KPMG US to…
We're sure you've seen this FT headline floating around today: KPMG to axe 10% of US audit partners. And if you, like most denizens of the internet these days, read…
So much for PwC letting all their people work remotely forever. Remember when that got headlines five years ago? See: PwC Just Announced That You Never Have To Go Back…
Did you happen to see this WSJ article from the other day? In "In This Critical Part of Audits, the Accountant’s Role Is Shrinking Fast," we're given a look into…
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…
We've got another RIF at KPMG, a consulting cull that went down yesterday (that's Wednesday the 29th for those of you reading this a week from now). Let's start with…
The other day -- and by the other day we mean like more than a week ago -- we received a text on the tipline that read "KPMG US to…
Hey. Looking like this is gonna be a short news brief, it was a quiet weekend. In accounting, anyway. In this news briefEveryone Loves an Informative 990The Official IRS Shit…
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…
Did you happen to see this WSJ article from the other day? In "In This Critical Part of Audits, the Accountant’s Role Is Shrinking Fast," we're given a look into…
While staff in tax at EY US will soon be spending more time with their flesh-based colleagues due to a return-to-office mandate that requires them in the office for an…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Filling your timeline with unsubstantiated claims about the general incompetence of other tax pros is not a way to earn business. I know on TaxTwitter we all like to drag fraudsters, but pretending like you are the sole tax guru for filers feels like a stretch.
'Resign or be fired' ultimatum costs accounting firm $7,000
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,…
Saw this on the bird app yesterday and thought its message would be worth passing along what with 20 days remaining until April 15 and nerves as strained as ever…
Ed. note: An earlier version of this article's headline stated the sheriff is investigating. The Alexander County Sheriff's Office informed us they are not investigating, only fielding calls from the…
Boston Business Journal wrote an article about Deloitte's new office in Boston and for some reason they chose to lead with this: You won’t find trash cans at the desks…
We realize the decision to run maintenance on IRS systems likely isn't made by anyone who understands deadlines but surely someone who does could inform the IT department of these…
Looking to staff up for a season or hire a freelancer for a project? Accountingfly is ready to partner with you! Gain full access to a pool of highly skilled…
Every accounting firm struggles with project management, with smaller practices that are rapidly expanding taking the brunt of the damage. As your firm adds new clients, takes on more work,…
Email: The word itself sounds innocent, doesn't it? Kind of like "snail mail," but faster, sleeker, and without the slimy trail. But don't be fooled—email is secretly a sinister beast,…
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…
So in case you weren’t aware, there is a singing CPA that actually puts out albums. He wrote a song for Sarbanes-Oxley’s fifth birthday, has appeared on Nightline and yes, he has a Christmas album.
Make fun if you want but we dare you to deny the song-writing genius of someone that mentions Martha Stewart, Pavarotti, Al Capone, and Dennis Kozlowski in one song (“Deck the Halls with Calculators”).
And then of course, there’s this:
We’ve got a follow up to our post yesterday about E&Y’s restructuring plans for the North Central and Pacific regions.
A source has informed us that the Financial Services Office (“FSO”) began nationalizing non-audit banking and asset management clients earlier this year. Insurance clients are also going to be under FSO, which will centralize all non-audit financial services clients. Our source has further indicated that the next step is to nationalize the audit clients. The ulitmate goal is to slim the firm down to five total regions (West, Central, Southeast, Northeast, and FSO).
We asked a couple of sources about this particular rumor to get some opinions:
I do hope this is not true, as [FSO] can’t audit their way out of a paper bag. I’m not sure why they would make an interim step as they’re making now if there’s an ultimate goal of five sub-areas
Another view:
Running FSO out of NYC seems like a good call from an overhead…cost standpoint but that’s about it. I have heard horror stories about the kind of hours FSO staff typically pull year round. I don’t see this making the “people in the trenches” any happier. Having all the work routed to one place makes it easier…to make sure that work is getting done…Of course I think this is just going to turn FSO into more of a meat grinder than it already is since they are going to do everything they can to get as much work in the pipeline as possible to keep that group busy.
As we mentioned yesterday, E&Y would not comment on internal firm matters.
If you’re in the FSO practice and can attest or refute any of the above details (horror stories, meat grinders, auditing out of paper bags) or even if you’re not and have an opinion share your thoughts below.
A quick word of thanks to this week’s advertiser on Going Concern:
• Verizon Wireless
If you’re interested in advertising on Going Concern, email us at advertising@breakingmedia.com. Thanks!
Not everyone is as hung up on converging U.S. GAAP and IFRS as Sir David Tweedie.
As you may recall, Tweeds delayed his retirement in order to see the rules copulate and bring forth debit and credit harmony.
As admirable as his commitment to the project is, not too many people share his enthusiasm:
A survey by CFA Institute , an international association of more than 16,000 investment professionals, showed that three quarters of respondents believe that improving standards so they are more useful for making investment decisions is “at least as important if not more important” than reducing complexity or convergence.
While respondents generally support convergence, only 6 per cent of those surveyed, including research analysts, portfolio managers, corporate financial analysts and accountants, believe converging the International Accounting Standards Board and its US rival should be the primary objective.
It’s bad enough that Tweeds gets hassled by non-knighted clowns that don’t know a debit from their ass but now there’s a survey out there that says his pet project isn’t that important.
Plus, the SEC doesn’t seem too hung up on it and the FASB has its own problems. Has double-entry chivalry lost all its meaning?
Investors cool on audit convergence [FT]
Nine days left in 2009 and all you tax trolls are gearing for another great tax prep season. For those of you looking to bestow your IRC wisdom at a new shop, we’ve got at least one option for you.
Check out a Senior Tax Manager position at Brown Brothers Harriman in New York, after the jump.
Company: Brown Brothers Harriman
Title: Senior Tax Manager
Location: New York City
Experience: 8 – 10 years
Description: The Sr. Tax Manager at Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH) is responsible for the maintenance of tax records as well as the preparation and review of all specifically assigned tax returns and related documents for all BBH Partners and Managing Directors, Partnership and Trust returns.
Responsibilities: Tax Preparation: Review as well as assist in data gathering, preparation and filing of the firm’s federal, state, and local partnership income tax returns as well as personal property tax returns, sales tax returns, unincorporated business tax, business privilege tax and other returns.
Tax Research: Collaborate on tax research on new tax laws, regulations and rulings to disseminate information to the firm; Research and assess the integration of foreign tax credits, from operations and investments, on the overall tax burden of the firm.
Tax Review: Review individual partner tax filings as well as discuss and explain tax positions to Partners. Review tax returns and tax return workpapers for individual Partners and Managing Directors
Requirements: BA/BA degree; Masters in Tax and/or CPA a plus but not required; Strong knowledge of federal, state, and local personal income taxes, gift taxes, generation skipping taxes, estate taxes, nonresident withholding taxes and payroll taxes for high net worth individuals; Strong fundamental understanding of international tax concepts, including value-added tax, foreign tax credits and withholding tax.
See the entire description over at the GC Career Center and visit the main page for all your job search needs.
After asking pretty much everyone for their suggestions on tax reform, the President’s Tax Reform Panel has released 384 submitted suggestions and the American People did not disappoint.
The FairTax.org crowd turned out en masse and plenty of practitioners and academics also provided their $0.02.
We didn’t really read those but we’re sure they’re great. We were more interested in those people that were more or less thinking out loud.
Suggestion #239 Mike Finch:
I support yearly audits of all government big wigs and prison terms for any that are found to have made more than $100 mistake on their taxes.
Suggestion #249 from “Froggy” whose organization is “peace man”:
Tax the rich! tax the rich! tax the rich!. oh please please please tax the rich. I want the economy to sink further!
Suggestion #278 from Alex Clay:
Make it explicit that cheating on your taxes makes you ineligible for presidentially appointed positions or committee chairmanships in the congress
Suggestion #346 from Ed:
0% tax rate. Reduce the tax law to 2 pages.
David Laing’s suggestion (#359) must have gotten lost on its way to the health care debate:
No option is NO OPTION! No bill that does not contain a public option is not worth your signature.
Since most of you have checked out for the week, consider spending some digging through these for more gems (we haven’t been able to find an intern that’s up to the job) or suggest your own ideas in the comments.
Editor’s Note: Want more JDA? You can see all of her posts for GC here, her blog here and stalk her on Twitter.
NYT had a piece yesterday called “Paying With Plastic to Please the Accountants” and I have to admit at first glance, the title annoyed the shit out of me. The accountants don’t care what you use when expensing your stupid airport Starbucks and car rentals, all they want is to be left alone to decode your receipts in peace. At least mine does.
But it isn’t just the accountants. Apparently your expenses are of extra importance to the IRS – though we’ll save the wild speculation that might dictate Timmy the Tax Cheat is just really hard up for some revenues (especially after that $38 billion tax break he gave Citigroup without anyone’s permission).
The I.R.S. is engaged in an initiative to audit tax returns of about 6,000 companies, partly to look at executive fringe benefits, including travel-expense procedures. This takes place as companies are already struggling to get a better handle on overall travel and entertainment management, especially as business travel picks up in a still shaky economic environment.
The article goes on to talk about extra airline fees (I won’t bitch about the $40 I just had to pay to check a suitcase on a recent Chicago trip) and makes expense reports sound like financial statements. The IRS apparently doesn’t care about receipts for charges under $75 while most companies use $25 as their receipt required limit. Is a $4 airport latté material? Maybe not. Are 25 dinners between $20 and $24? You bet your sweet little bean-counting ass.
I will go ahead and state the obvious here because sometimes I feel like you rubes need a BIG SIGN: in this economy, companies can no longer afford the jetsetting of yore, and why the hell should they? With video conferencing, email, mobile productivity and social networking helping to bring an entirely new meaning to collaboration, all of that cross country crap is no longer as critical as it once was. And so go the $4 airport lattés and bad $15 dinner tabs with it.
So remember, kids, keep your receipts, Timmy might want to run some substantive tests on your company rental cars and client dinners on the road. God forbid he not get a piece.
Despite your best efforts to resist the new FASB codification as the source for all things GAAP, the FASB is not disheartened. Herz and Co. are cognizant of the desire of many accountants to have reference books on shelves in their offices in order to maintain their double-entry wonk image. In order to feed this natural inclination, the FASB is now offering the codification in a four volume set for the low, low price of $195.
Call us skeptical but this particular attempt by the FASB to get more people on board with the whole codification thing is doomed. DOOMED, we tell you. If they really want to get accountants to buy this stuff it will require a marketing campaign the likes of which Ronco and the Shamwow guy have never seen.
FASB Offers Codification in Four-Volume Set [Compliance Week]
• Dubai World fails to seal deal on debt talks – Even though DW is insisiting that the talks have been “constructive.” [Times Online]
• Marijuana-Reeking Tour Bus, Red Ferrari Are FDIC’s Crisis Booty – Not to mention ashtrays with dead cigarette butts. These guys will take everything. [Bloomberg]
• FBI Probes Hack at Citibank – The bank deee-nies that there was a breach so you have the less than desirable option of believing the B or the C. [WSJ]
• World Series Champs Pay Hefty Luxury Tax – Tax Girl is not a Yankee fan. [Tax Girl]
• U.K. Backs Merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation – Somehow the Brits came to this conclusion: ‘[T]he merger will not result in a substantial lessening of competition in the market for live music ticket retailing or in any other market.’ [NYT]
• Christmas Gifts for that Special Tax Person – A possible gift for that Tim Geithner groupie in your life. [TaxProf Blog]
• GM Recruits Microsoft’s Liddell as New Finance Chief – Apparently GM’s finance department had some Deliverance thing going on. [Bloomberg]
• Top 50 Blogs for Accountants – There are some familiar names on this list, including GC. Thanks! [The Biz-Learner]
• Rajaratnam, Chiesi Plead Not Guilty – Doing what’s best for investors is not a crime. [WSJ]
• Crazy Eddie inductee talks about walls of false integrity – Sam Antar = Hall of Famer [Con Artist Hall of Infamy]
Kroeker reiterated earlier statements that he and SEC Chair Mary Schapiro had made, indicating the SEC was turning its attention this fall to the proposed IFRS roadmap. When asked about the date, Kroeker said, “There will be follow-up on the roadmap this fall.” Asked to define the word “fall,” he noted that the season ends on Dec. 21.
Fall ended at 12:47 pm EST today. Anyone seen this map?
Hey gang, we’ll just take a moment of your time to point out the bang-up job that’s being done at the The Business Journal of the greater Triad Area. They’re not in the class of the CNNs of the world but we figure some recognition is appropriate.
They ran a story dated Friday the 18th entitled, “Ernst & Young merging sites, making Triad virtual office” which is kinda, sorta similar to a post we did on December 10th.
Maybe we’re hung up on little stuff like choice of words and timing but we’ll be damned if we see “first reported by Going Concern” anywhere.
…roughly 60 client-serving professionals based in the Greensboro office at 202 Centreport Drive will remain with the firm, with most staying in the Triad to work remotely. They will report to and receive support services from the Raleigh office…
The statement did not specify the impact of the move on Triad support and administrative staff, including whether there are any transfers or layoffs occurring.
If the TBJ is curious, we know the impact on the support staff. You can email us here if you’re still wondering.
We also don’t see any mention of the Manchester closing either but that’s in a whole other state, so it’s probably not relevant.
