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The Big 4 Model Might Be Cooked

For nearly 17 years now, this website you're reading has been meticulously documenting the accounting profession, Big 4 in particular and often through the lens of younger staff coming through…

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Layoff Watch ’26: EY Trims Some Newbies in Audit

Seeing multiple posts about audit Staff 1s getting let go from EY this week, it's unclear how many are affected and if other service lines should brace for impact as…

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Deloitte Made the Creepy Digital Librarian From The Time Machine But For Golf

Have you seen the 2002 movie The Time Machine? If you haven't then the reference in the headline isn't going to make a lick of sense. Lucky for you YouTube…

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KPMG Redefines Excellence in the Age of AI By Using AI to Pump Out Dubious Citations in This Now-Removed Report

GPTZero, the folks who brought you this glorious takedown of an EY Canada report stuffed with completely made up sources, are back at it again and this time they've caught…

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FRC To Determine Whether Missing a £30 Million Overstatement Was, In Fact, Bad Auditing

The Financial Reporting Council announced today that they're officially investigating PwC UK's 2024 audit of WH Smith which means fines and hand-slaps are likely forthcoming once that gets wrapped up.…

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Monday Morning Accounting News Brief: PwC Gave Us a Reason to Mention GTA 6; The Bad KPMG Anecdotes Are Adding Up | 6.22.26

Hey, here we are again at Monday. Guess we should get to it. In this news briefA Less Thrilling Transfer Pricing StoryThe Ghost of Tax Preparer Fraud PastWho Doesn't Want…

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Friday Footnotes: Deloitte UK Asks Nearly 200 Auditors to Please F Off; AI Chatbots Favored Over Actual Accountants | 6.19.26

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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EY building exterior with scissors overlay

Layoff Watch ’26: EY Trims Some Newbies in Audit

Seeing multiple posts about audit Staff 1s getting let go from EY this week, it's unclear how many are affected and if other service lines should brace for impact as…

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The IRS Moves Atlanta Employees to an Office That Makes the Rat-Infested Office Look Pretty Good

If you've been keeping up with the news cycle (or if you caught last Monday's Monday Morning News Brief), you've heard about the situation down in Atlanta involving IRS workers…

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Monday Morning Accounting News Brief: Oh Rats! The IRS Is Infested; PwC Partners Will Divorce If It Spares Their Cash | 6.15.26

Good morning, capital markets servants. Everyone have a good weekend? Good. Got some news for you. In this news briefThe IRS Phone Bank Pays HOW Much!?Getting Divorced Over an Audit…

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Technology

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Deloitte Made the Creepy Digital Librarian From The Time Machine But For Golf

Have you seen the 2002 movie The Time Machine? If you haven't then the reference in the headline isn't going to make a lick of sense. Lucky for you YouTube…

Read More
error on a phone screen

KPMG Redefines Excellence in the Age of AI By Using AI to Pump Out Dubious Citations in This Now-Removed Report

GPTZero, the folks who brought you this glorious takedown of an EY Canada report stuffed with completely made up sources, are back at it again and this time they've caught…

Read More
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KPMGers Are Maliciously Complying With The Firm’s AI Usage Requirements By Generating Fluff

On May 4, Business Insider published an article about KPMG's new AI dashboard. They've been publishing several articles in recent weeks about KPMG's AI initiatives actually, like the tax simulation…

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Starbucks Kills Off Its Automated Counting AI Tool After Just 9 Months Because It Sucked at Counting Beans

While people outside of the accounting profession continue to smugly insist that accountants will be out of work in 12 months 18 months two years five years any day now…

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EY Gets Busted and Yeets Report Littered With AI Hallucinations

Yesterday we received a news release from a communications firm working for a group called GPTZero. Now you should know that we receive probably a hundred or more news releases…

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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

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 25, 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 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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Preliminary Analytics | 11.24.09

TOLD YOU.jpgSuppressing Workplace Anger Doubles Heart Attack Risk in Study – In other words, flipping out on someone is good for your health. [Bloomberg]
Death of Ward M. Hussey – Mr. Hussey was the primary drafter of the 1954 and 1986 Internal Revenue Codes. [TaxProf Blog]
Freddie says TBW-related loss may grow, files claim – The comforting part is that they really don’t know what the total exposure is. [Reuters]
On the Other Side of the Table – Not even the Tax Girl is safe from an IRS audit. [Tax Girl]
Heeding the Populist Call – “Fearful of a voter revolt, Washington is beginning to rethink its industry-friendly stance. ” [Financial Armageddon]

Review Comments | 11.23.09

magic money.jpgJudge Allows CIT to Borrow Up to $500 Million – They promise not to mess it up this time. [DealBook]
EADS Braces Itself for Insider-Trading Trial – Someone that isn’t you knew those Airbus A380s weren’t going to be ready. [WSJ]
Being A Bank CEO Worked Out Pretty Well For Jim And Dick – Failure pays. [DB]
Macy’s Promoting Blenders Signals Reluctant Consumer – Or maybe people really do want blenders. [Bloomberg]

The KPMG Dress Code Now Accommodates Ugly Christmas Sweaters

Ugly Sweaters 130.jpgAt least for one day, anyway.

You’re all acutely aware that many firms are opting to forgo holiday parties this season in favor of charitable activities.

Regardless of your desire — and our sincerest hopes for you — to get cop-slugging drunk on your firm’s dime, the commitment of time to charity is admirable. KPMG is spending an entire day building bears and wrapping them with books. We’re not sure how that will work but whatever.

As an added bonus, we heard that at least one office is attempting to make things more festive:

Picture 4.png

If some of you aren’t able to get behind the celebration of hideous Clark Griswold-esque sweaters for the sake of sport, shame on you. In fact, since the charitable activities are mandatory (as we understand), we’d go so far to suggest that the donning of ugly sweaters should also be mandatory. Judging by many or your fashion proclivities, this will be as easy as opening your closet.

RSM McGladrey Fails to Mention Natalie Gulbis Once in Interview

Thumbnail image for natalie-gulbis-.jpgWhich is shameful since everyone is aware that it would be the most effective way to recruit people to their firm. Nevertheless, FINS has a nice chat with the firm’s HR chief Kimpa Moss who speaks about the firm’s current-non-Natalie recruiting process, their use of social networking, etc. etc.
According to the interview, RSM just welcomed 400 newbies this fall and is always on the look out for experienced servants of the capital markets.
She did, however, manage to dodge the layoff question:

[FINS Reporter Kyle] Stock: Did RSM downsize during the crisis?
Moss: We really match our client service work force to the demand in the marketplace, but we don’t really comment in specifics on the changes in our work force from year to year

Layoffs are simply none of your beeswax, thankyouverymuch. Accordingly, we invite the members of the RSM/M&P fam to expand on Ms. Moss’ particular account of the layoff situation. Don’t make us prod.
We also found the following exchange especially interesting (our emphasis):

Stock: Did RSM see the global financial crisis as an opportunity to grab market share?
Moss: We track closely with our clients, so as they feel the impact, we feel the impact. But it does open up the question: ‘Are there more sectors we should be focusing on?’ And on the talent side, due to circumstances at other firms, there are a lot of people who we were able to approach. We’ve definitely done a lot of experienced hiring in the past year.

Now maybe we’re taking the above statement wildly out of context but what could Ms. Moss possibly be suggesting? Circumstances like, the banishment of Google Talk, the shameful denial of live streaming music, or bonuses in the form of tighty-whities? If we’re way off base here, feel free to comment with your own interpretation.
Annnnd speaking of undies, we’re more than a little disappointed that FINS passed up on the opportunity to inquire about the potential marketing rivalry that RSM that has on its hands. For now we’ll assume that RSM is counting on PwC’s continued dismissal of advertising genius and the RSM will enjoy it’s success of effective advertising (despite not mentioning it at all).
RSM McGladrey’s Kimpa Moss: A Nonstop Talent Hunt [FINS]

Caption Contest Winner: Auditing Is Craptacular

After a tight race, one caption ended up pulling away.
Thumbnail image for crapper.jpg

Upon their arrival to their workstation, the audit team quickly understood the reasoning behind the under-accrual for utilities expense for the months of January through March.

With just over 20% of the vote. If you’ve got audit rooms (or any photos for that matter) that you feel are worthy of a caption contest, send them our way. Thanks for voting.

Wesley Snipes Doesn’t Want to Deprive the Public of His Art

WesleySnipesR.jpgSo he simply can’t do three ‘unreasonable’ years in prison. Nevermind that he was convicted of “willful failure to file his income tax returns,” the cultural community simply cannot be do without the likes of The Art of War II: The Betrayal.

Snipes was sentenced in April 2008 in what was considered a key victory for prosecutors who aggressively pursued the maximum penalty to deter others from trying to obstruct the IRS. They say he made at least $13.8 million for the years in question and owed $2.7 million in back taxes that he refused to pay.
Snipes apologized at the time, calling himself an idealistic artist who was “unschooled in the science of law and finance.”

The man A) apologized and B) had a good excuse: he is AN ARTIST. He can’t possibly be expected to make heads or tails of this tax law rigamarole, so three years? C’mon. Let it slide 11th Circuit. Besides, vampires are all the rage right now so Blade is bound to get hot again. Just you wait.
Wesley Snipes appeals 3 tax convictions in Georgia [AP]
See also: Wesley Wants to Walk [Tax Update Blog]

Caption Contest Monday: The King and I

TimFlynn_KingAbdullah.jpg
Background: Tim Flynn talking shop with King Abdullah of Jordan.

Same rules: Submit possible captions in the comments. We’ll choose our favorites — with preference given to those with an accounting/KPMG bent — and then let you vote for the best one.

Memo to TF: If you’ve got a transcript of the convo, feel free to post your favorite highlight as your submission(s).

Buy Nothing Day. Just In Case You’re Off Friday (or Unemployed)

creditcard.jpgEditor’s Note: Want more JDA? You can see all of her posts for GC here, her blog here and stalk her on Twitter.
If you’re trying to squeeze in one last section of the CPA exam before December hits, you’ve got four days – a handful more if you’re not running off to see family for Thanksgiving. Are you working through the holiday?
Instead of running off to the store to spend money that you don’t have in the name of “economic recovery”, how about “Buy Nothing Day“?


“We’re asking tens of millions of people around the world to bring the capitalist consumption machine to a grinding — if only momentary — halt,” reads the manifesto. “Advertised” as an international event intended to stop the rape and pillage of the planet in the name of consumption (or something like that), it doesn’t stop with avoiding the Friday after Thanksgiving sales.

We want you to not only stop buying for 24 hours, but to shut off your lights, televisions and other nonessential appliances. We want you to park your car, turn off your phones and log off of your computer for the day.

This particular capitalist wouldn’t do well without her BlackBerry and her credit card for a full day, it’s one or the other, with the credit card much easier to keep in my pocket than the device. But whatever.
Other clever ways to spend the day? How about Whirl-mart; an impromptu conga line of shopping carts in the middle of any large warehouse or retail store (Target would work in a pinch) much to the chagrin of store security?
You can even take it all the way and declare a Buy Nothing Christmas if that’s your thing. Why stop with Black Friday? It’s not like you can afford crap your friends and family don’t want anyway, so just don’t do it. Sock away some money and put it into something useful like gold ETFs or at least new gadgets.
It goes without saying that retail has a long hard slog upward this winter. In fact, some stores are opening on Thanksgiving just to get a jump on the holiday season, hoping they can squeeze out every little bit they can to make it through the end of the year. Yeah, good luck with that.

Overstock.com Receives Delisting Notice, Really, Really, Really Needs an Auditor

patrick_byrne.jpgJust a brief follow-up on the three ring circus known as Overstock.com. After Wednesday’s bizarro conference call, Ringmaster Patrick Byrne and his company filed an 8-K on Friday letting the SEC know that the NASDAQ wasn’t impressed with the unreviewed 10-Q that the company filed last week.
The NASDAQ notice informed OSTK that since the company thought it would be cute to file an unreviewed 10-Q, they will delist the OSTK from the exchange if they are not back in compliance with listing rules by January 18th.
It was an especially nice touch that OSTK filed the 8-K “two minutes after market close today, a day after the letter was received.”
Getting back into compliance will involve finding an auditing firm stupid enough desperate enough willing to be the next humble servant to sign off on the 10-Q.
The issue at hand is worth putting to a vote. For whatever reason you like, choose the firm that should be the next auditor of OSTK. We’re not privy to all the possible independence issues that may exist, so anyone that brings them up to point how one firm would be disqualified can piss off.

Preliminary Analytics | 11.23.09

james_dimon.jpgJamie Dimon seen as good fit for Treasury – Seems possible since JD and BO go way back to when Dimon was at Bank One. Plus, according to some, JD would ‘love to serve his country’ but according to others, he plans on staying at JPM for ‘six or seven years.’ This is a toss up at best. [NYP]
These Men Could Kill SarbOx – And they’re doing it pro bono. [BW]
Aluminum Bubble Concerns Mount as Surplus May Add 29% – ‘There’s a disconnect between the price and reality.’ That sounds familiar. [Bloomberg]
Zynga May Be Valued at $1 Billion Feeding Off Facebook Craze – Zynga is movin’ up in Farmville bitches but there are no plans for a public offering, according to the CEO. That would be a distraction from developing new $3 chicken coops and the like. [Bloomberg]
G.M. Is Taking Taxpayers for a Ride – In case you weren’t convinced. [DealBook]

Review Comments | 11.20.09

Thumbnail image for charlie rangel.jpg Rangel Says House Democrats Will Renew Tax Breaks – Renewal of Chuck’s leases on rent controlled apartments are another story. [Bloomberg]
‘Botax’ In Senate Health Bill Upsets Plastic Surgeons – An additional 5% tax on those calf implants. [NPR]
Losing Altitude – CFO pay fell in ’08. Cue the trombone. [CFO]
Bagel Company Owner Indicted for Stealing Withholding Taxes – This would never happen at David’s. [Web CPA]

Tom Petters Is Not a Bentley Guy

Thumbnail image for petters_plane.jpgSwashbuckling cocker spaniel Tom Petters has managed to keep his focus the last few days, testifying in his trial for his alleged $3.5 billion Ponzi scheme.
His cross-examination by Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Dixon included several interesting exchanges including Petters admitting that he was the ‘heart and soul’ of PCI despite his claim of being duped for fifteen years by his office manager/confidante/lover, Deanna Coleman and Robert White, his former CFO. Dixon also accused of Petters of getting drunk on the super-happy-fun times he was having as a captain of industry:

Dixon moved to a line of questioning meant to show Petters used investors’ money to support his other businesses and lifestyle.
Dixon asked about Petters’ ownership of a Bentley, his use of corporate aircraft and homes on Lake Minnetonka and in Florida.
“You wanted the life of a corporate tycoon,” Dixon said.
“No, others wanted me to have that life,” Petters said, his voice rising. “I did not want the life of a corporate tycoon. Absolutely, I didn’t want that.”
Petters said his friend Dean Vlahos, a founder of the Champps and Redstone American Grill restaurant chains, bought him a Bentley as a gift.
“I didn’t want a Bentley,” he said. “I’m not a Bentley guy.”

See? Tom Petters was thrust into this swashbuckling lifestyle by others. The man can’t finish a book if his life depended on it, he can’t possibly be this titan of capitalism. He would’ve been perfectly happy driving a late 70s Oldsmobile Cutlass around on fumes with the headliner completely torn out. In fact, he would’ve preferred that.
Prosecutor jabs, Petters takes to ropes [Minneapolis Star-Tribune]
More GC Coverage of Tom Petters:
Even as the Doors Were Being Busted Down, Tom Petters Was Sure Everything Would Be Fine
Tom Petters Was Pretty Sure He Was Going to End Up in a Dumpster Somewhere
Ernst & Young and McGladrey & Pullen Both Have a Petters Problem