The SEC would like everyone to know that it was “actively investigating” Stan the Man “well before the multibillion-dollar fraud by Bernard Madoff was revealed” but was “hampered by a lack of cooperation” from the Gun Show.
The investigation started back in 2005 but the SEC decided it wasn’t really time to get serious with Stan until after the whole Madoff SNAFU broke. So it sounds like from 2005 to late 2008, the “actively investigating” consisted of the following:
SEC: Hi. Are you running a Ponzi scheme?
Stan: I’ll die and go to hell if it’s a Ponzi Scheme
SEC: Good enough for us. Thanks for your help.
Give the SEC a break people. They were really trying on this one.
Stanford Hampered SEC Probe [WSJ]
Layoff Watch ’26: Deloitte Auditors Got Bad News This Week
We only just now saw this as we hadn't gotten any tips about it and happened to see it on Reddit. Contrary to popular belief, we don't spend all day…
Someone at Deloitte’s Atlanta Office Doesn’t Rerack the Gym Equipment
So I saw this tweet last night as it was making the rounds. If you're still on Xitter you may have seen it too: If you're a long-time GC reader…
Evergrande Liquidators Want to Take an Extra Grande Bite Out of PwC’s Whole Pocket
It's already cost PwC China as much as two-thirds of their revenue due to regulatory punishments and reputational fallout, and now the collapse of long-time audit client Evergrande in 2021…
EY Gets Busted and Yeets Cybersecurity 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…
Layoff Watch ’26: KPMG Cuts 4% From Consulting
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…
Layoff Watch ’26: Deloitte Auditors Got Bad News This Week
We only just now saw this as we hadn't gotten any tips about it and happened to see it on Reddit. Contrary to popular belief, we don't spend all day…
Evergrande Liquidators Want to Take an Extra Grande Bite Out of PwC’s Whole Pocket
It's already cost PwC China as much as two-thirds of their revenue due to regulatory punishments and reputational fallout, and now the collapse of long-time audit client Evergrande in 2021…
Monday Morning Accounting News Brief: How About That Entry Level Job Market!; The Failed Client That Could Cost PwC $8 Billion | 5.18.26
Hey, you. Got a little news to get you started on this quiet Monday. In this news briefEY Settles a Matter That's Been Dragging OutThe Failed Client That Could Cost…
Friday Footnotes: PCAOB Plans to Take It Easy; Just Ignore Those CP53E Notices, Probably | 5.15.26
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…
EY Gets Busted and Yeets Cybersecurity 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…
EY Gets Busted and Yeets Cybersecurity 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…
KPMG Plans to Hand Routine Testing Off to AI
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…
AI Will Be EY Auditors’ New BFF, According to EY
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Twitter Feed
Redditor asks "What happened to the accountant crisis?"
Via @FinancialReview: "KPMG Australia has admitted a senior audit partner improperly accessed and displayed confidential board documents from longtime client Lendlease when the firm was pitching for a major Westpac contract."
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,…
Friendly Reminder Not to Work Yourself to Death For This Profession
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…
Accounting Firm Abruptly Nopes Out of Tax Season Early (UPDATE)
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…
This Deloitte Office Has Eliminated Trash Cans at Desks to Make Staff Get Up Off Their Asses
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…
The IRS Decided to Troll Tax Pros For 10/15
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…
Top Remote Accounting Freelancers: February 3, 2024
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…
10 Essential Project Management Principles for Accounting Firms
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,…
6 Ways Email is Secretly Destroying Your Accounting Firm
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,…
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…
Henry Louis Gates Can’t Catch a Break
This is probably not how Henry Louis Gates wants to move on from his arrest that occurred last week.
A foundation created and run by Gates is amending its 2007 tax return after an investigation showed that some funds that were initially characterized as “research grants” were, in fact, compensation. This little whoopsie increased the administrative costs of the foundation to 40% of the spending, up from 1%, which some might say, is a lot.
All it probably adds up to is another headache for a man who is probably most annoyed that his last name is one letter away from being exactly the same as the suffix applied to every scandal that has ever occurred in this country since the early 1970s.
Foundation Run by Harvard’s Gates Is Revising Tax Return After Questions Raised [ProPublica via Inside Higher Ed and TaxProf Blog]
Congress Sketched Out by Ticketmaster’s Luring of Live Nation to the Dark Side
Congress isn’t so sure that Ticketmaster inviting Live Nation into its tentacles is a good idea. Lawmakers think that the deal would remove our only hope to defeat the Dark Side of the live entertainment industry.
Senator Herb Kohl, D-WI, who chairs the antitrust subcommittee, has said that the merged company “would enjoy a virtual stranglehold over the live entertainment industry.” Translation: Help us DOJ. You’re our only hope.
We get Congress’s desire to ask the DOJ to scrutinize the deal but if they really wanted to do something to help concert-goers, they need to have Ticketmaster explain how the “Convenience Charge” is actually convenient and why it is usually somewhere between 15 and 25% of the actual cost of the ticket. Oh, and why processing fees, handling fees, and venue fees are all ness. K, thanks. And may the force be with you.
Ticketmaster and Live Nation Merger Raises Concerns [DealBook]
IRS Looking for Opinions, Any Opinions
The town-hall meeting format is getting out of control. It’s been in the political arena for some time now and it seems to fit in fine. But with Ben Bernanke is taking monetary policy directly to the people, apparently now anyone thinks they can just hit the road and talk about complex issues with the common folk.
So when IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman announced that the Service is diving into the populace to get their take on the Commission and give their ideas, comments, and suggestions.
What we’re picturing is a Ricky Bobby-type standing up and having a conversation with Doug Shulman that might go like this:
Ricky Bobby: Why do taxes suck?
Doug Shulman: Taxes are an important part of our system. They pay for things like roads, schools, fire fighters, and police officers. The Vice-President even said that paying taxes is Patriotic.
RB: You know what I think is patriotic?
DS: What, sir?
RB: NASCAR!
DS: Are there any other questions?
RB: Oh, wait, I’ve got another question. I heard about an IRS agent that threatened to kill some guys that came to his house. Uh, is that true?
DS: I did see that in the news.
RB: Do you know that guy?
DS: No.
RB: Okay, no, wait. No, okay, I’m done. Thank you. Thanks you, Jesus.
You got questions for the IRS? We’ll have our own little town-hall right here to get things warmed up for the main event on Thursday in DC.
IRS Asks Public for Ideas on Tax Preparer Standards [Web CPA]
Pennsylvania Firms to Merge, Attempt to Expand Non-Quaker Client Base
Two Pennsylvania CPA firms, Parente Randolph and Beard Miller Co., announced yesterday that they are merging.
The combined firm, still without a name (we’re pulling for “Beard”) will have 170 partners, over 1,200 professionals, and 27 offices in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, and Texas(?).
The combined firm will have a stranglehold on the coveted Quaker market in Pennsylvania and will be well positioned in the New York City market. It will be focusing its growth efforts to find similarly pious and plain clothed, plain speaking business people in upstate New York, New Jersey, and Maryland.
Pa. accounting firms Parente Randolph, Beard Miller to merge [Triangle Business Journal]
Scoping | 07.28.09
• House Members Have More Questions for Goldman – “In a two-page letter Monday, the House members, including Representatives Alan Grayson, (D-Fla.), Ron Paul (R-Texas), Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Walter B. Jones (R-NC), asked the Federal Reserve to explain why it granted a special exemption to Goldman which allowed it to take on more risk over the past few quarters.” Get on it Max. [DealBook]
• Swine flu boosts handwash sales – …And shrinks specializing in germaphobes [BBC]
• Sprint to Buy Virgin Mobile USA; I.B.M. to Buy SSPS [DealBook]
• Kerviel Lawyer Says SocGen Knew of Trading Positions – “Jerome Kerviel, the trader blamed by Societe Generale SA for a 4.9 billion-euro ($7 billion) loss last year, repeated arguments in a court filing that his superiors knew about his activities.” [Bloomberg]
• Traders Blamed for Oil Spike – “The Commodity Futures Trading Commission plans to issue a report next month suggesting speculators played a significant role in driving wild swings in oil prices — a reversal of an earlier CFTC position that augurs intensifying scrutiny on investors.” [WSJ]
Review Comments | 07.27.09
• U.S. Rep. Frank sees finance reform by year-end – Weekend pool parties with friends will remain fluid until the end of summer [Reuters]
• Loans Shrink as Fear Lingers – “The total amount of loans held by 15 large U.S. banks shrank by 2.8% in the second quarter, and more than half of the loan volume in April and May came from refinancing mortgages and renewing credit to businesses, not new loans, an analysis by The Wall Street Journal shows.” [WSJ]
• N.F.L. Grants Vick an Opening – Unfortunately for Vick, he’ll remain completely unmarketable for endorsement purposes [NYT]
• U.S. Economy: New-Home Sales Up 11%, Most Since 2000 [Bloomberg]
• SEC to Limit ‘Naked’ Short-Selling – “The Securities and Exchange Commission issued new rules to govern short selling, promising investors new information about the volume and velocity of negative bets placed against companies but dropping a requirement that hedge funds disclose details of short positions to regulators.” [WSJ]
&bull U.S. Said to Focus on UBS Banker Visits to Clients [DealBook]
Tchotchkes Submission Update and Reminder
In case some of you missed our request last week, or in the event that some of you chose to ignore the request, we are asking for your tchotchke submissions. So keep sending us your pics! You know you have pride in the frivolous junk with your firm’s name on it.
The gimmickyness of this exercise is obvious but if we are forced to discuss the trend of pessimism among CFO’s, a couple things may happen: A) Someone may fall asleep while reading and 2) the vitriol may reach critical mass. Either way, here’s a taste of the submissions we received so far:
That’s a KPMG magic 8 ball for those of you scoring at home.
Question: KPMG 8 ball, will Going Concern readers ridicule this post?
Answer: It is certain
The SEC Takes a Trip to India
The SEC sent a team to India in order to make sure that everything was hunky-dory re: Satyam. The three-member team met with Ashwani Kumar, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Director, and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). The SEC also met with the KPMG team that is responsible for restating Satyam’s balance sheet.
No details were given on any of the meetings but we imagine that the SEC/KPMG meeting went something like this:
SEC Bureaucrat: Hello KPMG India.
KPMG Paper Pusher: Hello SEC America.
SEC: How are things progressing?
KPMG: Oh this is a blast. Restating balance sheets is a dream job. We were just talking about how we wish we could work in the States so we could do stuff like this all the time.
SEC: What do you mean?
KPMG: Well, there seems to be much more fraud and other problems in the United States than here in India so the need for forensic accountants would be extremely high.
SEC: Are you insinuating that the Commission is unable to detect fraud?
KPMG: Well there have been some signficant fraud over there lately that you guys pretty much ignored or missed. Either way, it makes for a high demand for forensic accountants. Plus, we hear that the guy who tried warning you about the Madoff fraud has issues but still won an award.
SEC: This meeting is over. Keep us informed.
Satyam scam: SEC team meets CBI, SEBI, KPMG officials [The Hindu Business Line]
Allen Stanford Can’t Get Anything Accomplished Under These Conditions
It’s bad enough that Allen Stanford can’t get out of jail in order to properly prepare his defense but now he’s dealing with what may be a preview of what happens if he’s found guilty of running a Ponzi scheme.
It’s bad enough that there isn’t any cricket coverage in prison but the walking gun show has complained about day to day annoyances like the lack of air conditioning in his prison cell, which he shares with 8 to 10 of his closest friends and also a power outage which likely prevented him from reading How to Win Friends and Influence People (The Prison Edition).
Sir Allen discovers there’s no air conditioning in jail [FT Alphaville]
PCAOB Names Acting Mustache Chair
The PCAOB has announced Daniel Goelzer will be acting Chairman of the Board effective August 1. Goelzer brings an impressive resume with him, not to mention a sheriff-like mustache that will undoubtedly let the accounting firms know that he is not to be trifled with.
Why IFRS is Similar to an Obscure Reality TV Program
Late on Friday we told you about the rager that the IFAC was throwing over the weekend in London and today we get the less than surprising news that they want the governments of the world to push for global accounting standards.
“According to IFAC, participants at the conference agreed that the public interest would best be served by a single set of high-quality, principles-based financial reporting and auditing standards for listed and public interest entities.”
The problem with this whole push for IFRS is that getting anyone to care about accounting rules is like trying to get men interested in the whole Jon & Kate Plus 8 drama. They’re completely clueless at first mention and when you attempt to get into the details interest is immediately lost.
Leading accountants tell governments quicken pace of global standards adoption [Accountancy Age]