Dr. Emelee is a former Big 4 employee in the process of obtaining his own PhD. In this article, first published on Going Concern earlier this fall, he explains what it takes to get onto a PhD program.
Breaking News
- Monday Morning Accounting News Brief: Oh Rats! The IRS Is Infested; PwC Partners Will Divorce If It Spares Their Cash | 6.15.26
- Rumor Has It RSM Asked Some Partners to Dip Out
- Friday Footnotes: Great, KPMG Got the Whole Big 4 in Trouble; Pentagon Brings in Agentic AI to Address Their Audit Problems | 6.12.26
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…
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.…
Compensation Watch ’26: Deloitte Salary Numbers Are Out and Some People Are Salty
Compensation threads were once a yearly tradition here at Going Concern many, many, many years ago but at some point Reddit took over the task so we've swung over there…
The Department of War Broke Up with KPMG, KPMG Gives Up Federal Audits Altogether (UPDATED)
This post was originally published on April 29, 2026 and updated on June 3, 2026. Update below the original article text. The other day -- and by the other day…
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…
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…
Rumor Has It RSM Asked Some Partners to Dip Out
By "rumor" we mean actual rumors flying and making their way to your friendly neighborhood accounting tabloid. Seeing as we've now received this tip from multiple tipsters it feels like…
Friday Footnotes: Great, KPMG Got the Whole Big 4 in Trouble; Pentagon Brings in Agentic AI to Address Their Audit Problems | 6.12.26
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…
Crowe Told Its People Private Equity Might Be Coming So They Didn’t Have to Find Out Through a WSJ Article (UPDATE)
Ed. note: This article was originally published on October 9, 2025. It was updated on June 12, 2026 after WSJ published an exclusive article announcing a private equity deal. Update…
The One Firm Willing to Audit Madison County’s Books Just Said “On Second Thought, Hell Nah”
All across the country, municipalities are scrambling to catch up on late audits that have been backing up for years and dealing with the disastrous financial records that come with…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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
Happy Monday! In today's news brief:
- PwC partners are pondering some major life changes after Evergrande
- An IRS office is infested with rats. Actual rats, not whistleblowers
- Extensive job posting analysis finds employers are trippin'
Rumor Has It RSM Asked Some Partners to Dip Out
"The Pentagon has awarded a nearly $49 million contract for an artificial intelligence platform designed to help agencies prepare for annual financial audits as the department works toward a congressionally mandated clean audit by 2028."
Per authorities: "Around 1:58 p.m. an unidentified individual entered Idris and Sons Accounting and Business Taxation in Brooklyn, removed approx. $7,000 in cash from a 64-year-old male victim’s unattended desk, and left."
Who has $7k in their desk??
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…
Is There Room for Creativity in an Accounting Job?
You probably think that accounting has no room for creativity. Or that pairing the words “creative” and “accounting” is a nice euphemism for egregious fraud.
Uncategorized
Accounting News Roundup: Life at Deloitte Includes Asking About Billing on Thanksgiving; PwC Hunting Buckeyes; The Fruits of Tax Lobbying | 11.26.13
Accountant in Soccer Mom Madam case pleads guilty to promoting prostitution [NYDN] Jonas Gayer avoids jail […]
Uncategorized
Footnotes: Uh, Rite Aid?; A CPA Saved Apple; China China China | 11.25.13
Ed. note: Forgive the short Footnotes today, it's been a long day and there's not […]
Oh, So You Want to Quit Your Job? Tell Me About The Farewell Email You Wrote
Listen, I think we're all still a little traumatized by the last farewell email posted […]
Wake Forest Continues to Dominate the CPA Exam, Press Releases About Said Domination
I kinda wish I could be the PR person at Wake Forest, it has to […]
Tax Simplification, Male Prostitution, and Mormon Thrift Stores
Senator Max Baucus presented three tax reform proposals in three days aimed at fixing and simplifying the tax code which is stupid because the tax code is already super simple and works just fine.
They’re Making it Rain Pens at the IIA Conference in Philly
BREAKING from a tipster apparently attending the fall conference of the Institute of Internal Auditors: […]
You Have Five Minutes with EY’s CEO Mark Weinberger…
Sometimes Life at EY means dreaming of having the big guy all to yourself: What […]
Accounting News Roundup: Naming Audit Partners; Wake Forest’s CPA Exam Domination; International Taxes for the Rest of Us | 11.25.13
Naming Them: Why Markets Deserve To Know Audit Partner Names And More [Re:The Auditors]Francine McKenna […]
Footnotes: PCAOB Takes Down Deloitte, Again; SEC’s Plain English (or Lack Thereof); KPMG Steals a Couple Audit Clients From EY | 11.22.13
Audit Regulator Rebukes Deloitte The government's audit regulator has publicly rebuked Deloitte & Touche LLP for […]
Life at Deloitte Just Had the Best Week Ever
As you guys all know, we love mocking the PR-heavy crap that is spewed out […]