Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

An Open Thread on Accountants’ Salaries at the Big 4: What Do You Make?

money.jpgWe received a request over the weekend to discuss everyone’s favorite topic: money.

This is a great idea on many levels since A) it’s been quite some time since we’ve dedicated a post to the subject B) there are plenty of newbies that have started since then but mostly C) knowing what everyone else is making is your God-given right.

Hopefully, this new thread will get everyone up to speed (or just completely pissed off on a Monday) and ready to run through brick walls in 2010.
In the comments, provide the following:
• Salary without bonus, bonus amount
• Level
• Practice (audit/tax/advisory), practice subgroup
• Firm, city/region
• Other notes/complaints
The reader requesting the thread, was kind enough to provide their details:
• $52k, $3k (in start year, bonus was a whopping $0 this year)
• Associate 2
• Audit
• PwC, Northern California

This is an equal opportunity post so regardless of your firm, get your numbers out there (this means you: GT, BDO, RSM/M&P, Crowe, Moss Adams, anyone else).

UPDATE, Tuesday: Thanks for all the input so far. Feel free to email us if you want to give us more details on your salary or ideas or other related thread discussions.

Other money related discussions:
Problem of the Day: Do You Quit Your High-Paying Job with the Idiot Boss?
Satisfied with Your Salary?
Problem of the Day: Your Staff Makes the Same Money As You (Maybe More)

E&Y SoCal Intern Offers: Don’t Spend it All in One Place

It may still be a little early for the citizens of Arnie, especially if you’ve got the Friday morning cocktail flu, but whatevs. We got word that E&Y audit interns have gotten their offers nationwide and Whale’s Vagina San Diego and L.A. are both getting $50k, no bonus. If you got a Masters, you’re getting $52k, no bonus (seems worth it now, eh?). No word on tax or advisory, so if you know these, fill us in.
Last year’s lucky little Ernies got a bonus so at the very least, that makes for a smidge of animosity. For all the love we’ve been giving Ern we haven’t got a lot of specifics on the actual details. Discuss in the comments or drop us the numbers at [email protected]

Some Taxpayers Seeking Enlightenment, Others Risking Eternal Damnation

the-end.jpgThe IRS is saying that wealthy taxpayers are rethinking their sinful offshore banking ways in expectation of a tax evasion rapture.
Last week the Service had 400 applicants for its temporary voluntary disclosure program which is four times the amount they had in all of last year suggesting that some taxpayers are seeing the light.
The IRS evangelism has come about mostly because of their pursuit of the 52,000 secret names held by UBS. While this battle for souls is still continuing, the IRS figured they’d make a run at converting other, non-UBS, sinners.
Seek thy truth, after the jump


Some taxpayers are remaining non-believers however, thanks to their agnostic attorneys:

Yet attorneys say that those who come forward now risk supplying the IRS with more financial information than the agency may have otherwise been able to collect. “These taxpayers reasonably fear that applying to the program could supply the agency with a roadmap it would not otherwise have,” said Barbara Kaplan of Greenberg Traurig in New York, who handles voluntary-disclosure cases. “They worry that they could wind up both rejected for clemency and helping the IRS case against them.”

Ultimately, all taxpayers will have to take their own path but if they find themselves cast into the darkness, they won’t be able to say that the truth wasn’t presented to them.
Tax Evaders Flock to IRS to Confess Their Sins [WSJ]