•GM bankruptcy plan gains approval – Because anything less might get you a meeting with the President. [BBC]
•A Goldman trading scandal? – “On July 4, Aleynikov was processed on a ‘theft of trade secrets’ charge in a criminal complaint that was filed in federal court in Manhattan. As of this afternoon, he was still being held in federal custody pending posting of bail.” Someone is messing with GS? This aggression will not stand, obv. [Matthew Goldstein/Reuters]
•Stanford Funneled Millions Under Florida’s Nose – “But to pull it off, he needed unprecedented help from the state of Florida, which would have to grant him the right to move vast amounts of money offshore, without reporting a penny to regulators. He got it.” Because if any state was going to be good for a little shady dealing with a Texas billionaire of questionable means, it would be F-L-A. [DealBook/NYT]
Breaking News
- Friday Footnotes: KPMG Staff Not Happy With How Layoffs Were Handled; SEC Says PCAOB Should Toss Independence Rules | 5.8.26
- In a Final Rule, Dept of Education Is Unswayed By the AICPA’s Strongly Worded Letters About the Meaning of Words
- Plante Moran Goes South of the Border to Acquire a Firm in Mexico
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…
The Department of War Broke Up with KPMG, KPMG Gives Up Federal Audits Altogether
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KPMG Shoves 10% of Its Audit Partners Out the Door
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…
PwC Tells Remote Tax Staff to Get Their Butts Into the Office
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…
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…
Friday Footnotes: KPMG Staff Not Happy With How Layoffs Were Handled; SEC Says PCAOB Should Toss Independence Rules | 5.8.26
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…
In a Final Rule, Dept of Education Is Unswayed By the AICPA’s Strongly Worded Letters About the Meaning of Words
In the final ruling of a game of semantics that really chapped the AICPA's ass, accounting has not earned a place on the Department of Education list of "professional" degrees.…
Plante Moran Goes South of the Border to Acquire a Firm in Mexico
Shoutout to the person who sent us a link to this, might have slipped past the ol' radar otherwise: Plante Moran bought itself a 500-person Mexican firm called JA Del…
Layoff Watch ’26: RSM Trims Down in Audit
Seeing a couple Reddit posts about a wave of "Business Update" meetings being forced on people's calendars at RSM yesterday. As we all know, "business update" is code for "you're…
SEC Says “What If We Just… Didn’t” on Quarterly Reporting
So that thing that started with a Trump shower thought last fall and that WSJ said would be happening imminently is, in fact, now happening. Catch yourself up on earlier…
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…
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…
Top Remote Tax and Accounting Candidates of the Week | October 16, 2025
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Top Remote Tax and Accounting Candidates of the Week | September 25, 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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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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In a Final Rule, Dept of Education Is Unswayed By the AICPA’s Strongly Worded Letters About the Meaning of Words
The end of the ‘Always Available’ professional
Here Are Tax and Audit Salaries at Top 25, Top 300, and Regional Firms
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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…
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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…
Heelys Dumped Deloitte for that Slut, Grant Thornton
We told you earlier about wheeled shoes company Heelys dumping Deloitte. It was reported that Heelys left because fees were too high but we speculated that the Big D probably wasn’t down with Heelys request to have the entire audit team don the juvenile wheeled shoes.
Heelys has now announced they will be retaining the younger, sexier, less Big 4-ier, firm Grant Thornton as its independent accounting firm.
We find this very similar to the all-too-common situation where the old wife/husband is left behind for the newer, younger, partner who’s young, racy, and willing to experiment a little.
As you might expect, for accounting firms, letting the engagement teams wear shoes with wheels on them definitely qualifies as racy and risque and other firms only wish they had the balls to do something like that.
Heelys hires new accounting firm [WFAA.com]
Review Comments | 07.02.09
•In New York City, Fewer Murders on Rainy Days – It’s got to have something to do with those ubiquitous black $3 umbrellas. They’re like security blankets. [New York Times]
•U.S. marshals begin seizure of Madoff property in NY – Quaint penthouse, UES for those cool with living with the ghosts of charities and elderly Jews [Reuters]
•Arnie’s IOUs will pay 3.75 per cent – Ken Lewis will be making his counter-offer shortly [FT Alphaville]
Not To Worry California! Ken Lewis is Here!
In the spirit of the recessionary season, Bank of America, being no stranger to asking for assistance, has said that it will accept California’s IOU’s.
Here is BofA’s statement, courtesy of FT Alphaville:
Bank of America Announces Limited Acceptance of California State-Issued Registered Warrants for Customers and Clients
SAN FRANCISCO, July 1 /PRNewswire/ — Bank of America today issued the following statement regarding its decision to accept California state-issued registered warrants:
“Bank of America recognizes the State of California budget crisis will impact our clients and customers. To support our customers, while giving the state legislature additional time to pass a budget, we will accept California state-registered warrants – or IOUs – from existing customers and clients. Based on state disbursement estimates, we will accept the registered warrants through July 10.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050720/CLW086LOGO-b )
“As always, we will work with customers who are impacted by the state budget issues on a case-by-case basis to address their short-term needs using our existing products and services.”
An interest rate has not been announced but Ken Lewis is most certainly pulling for something in the nabe of one case of bourbon per $1 million.
BofA to accept Cali IOUs [FT Alphaville]
Why Do the FASB and IASB Always Insist on Mission Impossible?
Can anyone explain why accounting regulators have the annoying tendency to see a HUGE problem and insist on fixing it when the logistics are seemingly impossible to overcome? It’s commendable to try and solve big problems but it seems that the geeky egos of accountants often get in the way of reality.
CFO.com has a story about the FASB and IASB’s “dream” to get accounting standards down to one model for revenue recognition. ONE!
According to the article, the FASB’s revenue recognition rules are currently spread among 100 standards, so obviously there’s room for improvement but shrinking all that down to one model? Talk about herding cats.
We’re not hating on the standard setters (well, let’s face it, maybe a little) for considering this task but these dweebs can’t even get on the same page re: convergence timing so we’ll be taking the overs on the number of years when this single model pipe dream actually gets off the ground.
Revenue Recognition: Will a Single Model Fly? [CFO.com]
Scoping | 07.02.09
•California in ‘fiscal emergency’ – Can’t really decide which state capital has more clowns per capita, Sacramento or Albany [BBC]
•Former HealthSouth executive gets prison time – 3 months. Meh [AP via Miami Herald]
•Big Pay Packages Return to Wall Street – Paging Congressman Frank [WSJ]
Review Comments | 07.01.09
•No Evidence Found to Charge Ruth Madoff – The aggression will obviously continue. [WSJ]
•Consumer Interest ‘Huge’ in Clunker Plan, LaHood Says – Call us party poopers but it seems like manufactured consumption. [Bloomberg]
•Pimco: Consumer “greed” hibernating, fear rules – Greed will be good again. Don’t you worry. [Reuters]
Stanford CFO to Plead Guilty After Pleading Not Guilty
This after speculation earlier about whether Davis would flip. Looks like he’s going to sing:
James Davis, the former chief financial officer of Stanford Financial Group and who is facing charges related to an alleged $7bn fraud at the group, intends to plead guilty to the three charges against him, his attorney told the Financial Times.
Attorney David Finn, who is representing only Mr Davis, told the FT there would likely be a “procedural not guilty plea” entered at his arraignment, but that his client would ultimately plead guilty to the charges against him “once all the details are worked out.” Mr Davis is due to appear in court in Houston on July 13.
You got that ticket to hell stamped, Stan?
Stanford CFO James Davis “intends to plead guilty”, laywer [sic] says [FT Alphaville]
SEC Still Stonewalling, Considering Slowing Down the PCAOB Even More
The SEC gave Congress a little tease about what happened at the Commission re: totally missing the boat on this Madoff thing. But then again, not really.
Inspector General David Kotz made recommendations about ways that the Commission could improve its oversight over the financial industry because, obv, it had nothing to do with the fact that no one there had the background to detect classic Ponzi schemes.
Some recommendations that Kotz made included giving the PCAOB more oversight including jurisdiction over accounting firms that audit investment advisors and broker-dealers. That’s just what the PCAOB needs, more on its docket because it gets things done so quickly.
Kotz would also like to see an amendment to the Securities Act of 1940 that would require investment managers, including hedge funds, to place their securities with custodians that are registered with a national exchange. Kotz claims that this would prevent investment advisers from fraudulently using the proceeds received from new investors to pay old investors (a la Ponzi).
That’s all fine and dandy but Rep. Paul Kanjorski, of Pennsylvania has been asking for details on the Madoff ball dropping for the last two weeks and the Commission has been stalling. Kotz could only state that the Commission is “proceeding ‘in an expeditious manner.'”
Translation: We don’t have any idea how we missed the biggest Ponzi scheme in history.
Best we can expect, Kotz says, is that the report to be issued by the end of August. Which might be enough time to get Kanjorski involved in a sex scandal and maybe this will all just go away for the Commission.
S.E.C. Previews Its Madoff Report [DealBook/NYT]
Deloitte Throws Up its Hands Regarding Missing Gold
The Royal Canadian Mint (RCM) had a discrepancy between their book inventory of precious metals and the actual count, so natch, they called in a Big 4 accounting firm to do an audit and get to the bottom of this.
Deloitte got the honor of investigating and…wait for it…determined that there is gold missing. 17,500 ounces to be precise, worth about 15.3 million Canadian Dollars (approximately $13.2 USD). Oh, and there’s probably some silver missing too.
In classic auditor fashion, Big D issued a recommendation to the RCM to review its security.
Audit fails to find missing gold [BBC]
Oliver Stone Movie on Goldman Sachs to be Coming This Fall
Because we love ourselves a good cat fight, we feel obligated to tell you about the current scratch and screech fest currently going on between Goldman Sachs and Matt Taibbi, a contributing editor at Rolling Stone. Taibbi wrote a less than flattering article on Goldman in Rolling Stone’s latest issue (which is not available online. Read: Lame).
Why, do you ask, would Goldman waste their time on an article in a formerly renown, now ridiculously corporate magazine? For starters, Taibbi describes GS this way, “The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity.”
Not a lot of room for subjective interpretation there. Quoting a response from a Goldman spokesman via the New York Post, “The bank’s spokesman, Lucas Van Praag, [said]: ‘[Taibbi’s] story is an hysterical compilation of conspiracy theories,’ he wrote in an e-mail. ‘Notable ones missing are Goldman Sachs as the third shooter [in John F. Kennedy’s assassination] and faking the first lunar landing.'”
We admit, on one hand, that Taibbi might be a tad on the nutty side but the mere fact that Goldman is acknowledging the article with any kind of response puts us in the strangely curious camp.
Goldman Gotcha [New York Post]
Scoping | 07.01.09
A Forecast With Hope Built In – Hope has got nothing on reality [New York Times]
Justice Department demands UBS client names – “Swiss bank UBS AG ”systematically and deliberately” violated U.S. law by dispatching private bankers to recruit wealthy Americans interested in evading taxes and must be forced to reveal the identities of 52,000 of those clients, the Justice Department said in a court filing in Miami Tuesday.” [AP via Miami Herald]
ADP Estimates U.S. Companies Cut Payrolls by 473,000 – Estimates ahead of tomorrow’s number keep us under 10% unemployment! Cross your fingers! [Bloomberg]