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In New AI Guidelines, IRS Politely Suggests You Not Make Up Sources Like Deloitte Did

The IRS sent out a bulletin yesterday and we're going to write about it because for once it's not about tedious tax stuff that our audience doesn't have the patience…

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Big 4 accounting firm app logos on cracked phone screen

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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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…

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News

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Friday Footnotes: Amateur and Non-Independent Forensic Accounting Not Appreciated By Local Parks Department; KPMG Getting Dogged | 6.26.26

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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Top 20 Firm Eide Bailly Gets on the Private Equity Train

The private equity train may have slowed a bit in accounting but it's still choo-chooing along with another big deal coming on the heels of Crowe's $3 billion deal with…

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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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Technology

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Overworked robot sitting at a desk

In New AI Guidelines, IRS Politely Suggests You Not Make Up Sources Like Deloitte Did

The IRS sent out a bulletin yesterday and we're going to write about it because for once it's not about tedious tax stuff that our audience doesn't have the patience…

Read More
golf ball at hole, golf green

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
woman and cat with laptop

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 inside

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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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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remote accountants to hire

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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tax hiring season

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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Quick Reads

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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

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…

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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…

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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…

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screenshot of an IRS system outage warning

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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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…

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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,…

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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,…

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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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Facebook Finds a CFO, Hopefully One that is Okay with Awkward Interaction

Facebook Inc. announced today that David Ebersman will be the company’s Chief Financial Officer:

Ebersman, 39, will oversee Facebook’s finance, accounting, investor relations and real estate functions. He will formally start in September, Palo Alto, California-based Facebook said in a statement today.

You’ll note that Ebersman will oversee “investor relations”. It’s probably no coincidence that this is not a task that falls on Mark Zuckerberg who “has been known to have awkward interactions with other humans”:http://valleywag.gawker.com/344440/60-minutes-scoop-zuckerberg-remains-awkward-with-humans.
Thus, another challenge that will face Ebersman in his new position will be actually interacting with his boss. We here at Going Concern predict that awkward encounters with Zuckerberg will definitely be the biggest unforeseen challenge that Ebersman will wrestle with.
The article does not elaborate on whether Ebersman’s status updates on the social networking site are trite observations about the weather, his busy weekend, or a bad day at work.

Facebook Names Former Genentech Manager Ebersman Finance Chief”:http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a1vS1Ub87oSA [Bloomberg]

Stanford CFO Flipping?

Chief Financial Officer Bean Counter Number-Maker-Upper Officer at Stanford Financial, James Davis, is appearing in court Wednesday to answer fraud and conspiracy charges.
Davis has spent the last few months cooperating with prosecutors and may flip on Stan the Man regarding the small matter of some money gone missing.
No agreement has been reached yet for Davis but considering the number of years being handed out and Stan’s potential fate of multiple centuries in prison, he may at the very least, consider cooperating.

Stanford CFO to appear in court
[Accountancy Age]

Deloitte May Be the #1 Firm of No Fun

heelys.jpgRegardless of who a client is or what their business is, accounting firms don’t like to lose them. Lost revenue, a little bit of a slap in the face, a promise that wasn’t delivered (which, let’s be honest, really isn’t all that rare).
For whatever reason, we find the story that Heelys, the skate shoe company, having fired Deloitte as their auditor, has to be an especially tough pill to swallow for the Big D.
Why, you may ask? How about the fact that Heelys MAKES SHOES THAT HAVE WHEELS ON THEM which might be something fun.
According to Reuters, Heelys gave Deloitte-period the heave-ho primarily because of cost considerations. That may be true but something tells us that the real reason might have been Deloitte putting the kibosh on Heelys request of the audit team to wear the skate shoes while working at the client’s HQ.
Deloitte, like all Big 4 firms, being the fun killer, likely argued that skate shoes did fall under acceptable attire in its dress code.
It was probably only a matter of time until the Heelys audit committee concluded that they had to find another audit firm with smaller sticks up their asses. Partners on the engagement are now quietly stewing with their decision that may have put their firm solidly in the #1 slot for hating all things fun.

Heelys dismisses accounting firm
[Reuters]

Scoping | 06.29.09

State Street may face SEC charges over mortgages – “The Boston-based company said on Monday that Securities and Exchange Commission staff issued a ‘Wells’ notice to its banking unit on June 25 related to disclosures and management by State Street Global Advisors of “active” fixed-income strategies in 2007 and in prior periods.” [Reuters]

UBS Said to Seek U.S. Tax Deal in Weeks
– “With a payment of 3 billion to 5 billion Swiss francs, UBS hopes in the next two weeks to settle a lawsuit over the tens of thousands of American clients suspected of tax evasion, the Swiss newspaper Sonntag reported. Analysts on Monday, however, questioned the figure.” [DealBook/NYT]
A Unified Bank Regulator Is a Good Start – Penned by rock star CEO, Jamie Dimon [WSJ]

Review Comments | 06.26.09

Lewis Retains Support of Key BofA Executive – [DealBook/NYT]

What the Big 4 do
– “I explained that in my opinion the Big 4 firms have two fundamental purposes in life when it comes to tax. First they exist to undermine the tax revenues of governments. Second they exist to redistribute the wealth of the world from those who are poorest in the communities in which they work to those who are the richest in the communities in which they work.” Ouch [Tax Research UK]
Madoff Family Feud: Ruth, Sons Won’t Attend Monday Sentencing – Probably not a bad move…[ABC News]

New Bail Hearing for Stanford Set for Monday Because He Just Might Split

Stan the Man will spend the weekend pumping iron in a Houston jail because all signs are kinda, sorta pointing to the possibility of him going on the lam after a judge granted the silver medalist in the Ponzi competition a measly $500,000 bail.
Stanford’s attorney called bullshit because “he had already shown the financier was no flight threat.”
Judge David Hittner didn’t buy it and remanded Stan to jail until Monday based on the evidence presented by prosecutors:

testimony from a pilot who flew Mr. Stanford to Libya and Switzerland before government officials raided his Houston offices; testimony from a friend of Mr. Stanford’s daughter who gave him $36,000 in cash, and claims that $100 million was withdrawn from a Swiss bank account Mr. Stanford controlled

C’mon, your honor, that’s just walking around money! My client can’t be expected to strut around without serious money on hand!

New Bail Hearing Set for Stanford
[WSJ]

PCAOB, We Need to Have a Talk

pcaob.gifPCAOB, we here at Going Concern want to help you get some respect. We really do.
We don’t think it’s fair that people think you’re slow at writing rules for auditors. Okay, maybe you could pick up the pace a little bit but we know that it takes a lot of work and patience to write those rules. But then we heard about this and we want to let you know that we aren’t angry, you’re just letting us down.
Reuters:

The U.S. audit watchdog voted on Thursday to defer its first inspection on 49 foreign auditors in areas such as the European Union, China and Switzerland for up to three years.

Like we said, we’re not mad. We’re disappointed.

US PCAOB delays 1st review of 49 foreign auditors
[Reuters]

Deloitte: Folding Like a Cheap Lawn Chair?

deloitte.jpgIs it possible that the spinelessness of the FASB is spreading some of the firms?
Motely Foley is reporting that MGM Mirage got the Big D to drop the going concern language from its “financial assessment” which we confirmed with the author, Bob Steyer, that indeed meant the audit opinion.
Doing a little digging on this whole sitch, we found that MGM has done some duct tape repairs to its balance sheet in order to convince its banks and Big D that nothing is fucked.
Deloitte, wanting to be troopers and all, probably just had to step back from the whole thing to get perspective. “Yeah, when you look at it from back here, $14.4 Billion in debt doesn’t really look that bad.”

MGM Back From the Brink — for Now
[Motley Fool]

Scoping | 06.26.09

stanford_orange.jpgStanford Enters Plea; Bail Is Set at $500,000 [New York Times]
After Madoff: Are We Safer? The question should be “Are people any smarter?” because….[Business Week]
• This happened: Pang Took $83 Million From Firm, Filings Say. So we’d be inclined to say that people might be safe but their money sure as hell isn’t. [WSJ]