Valukas Testimony: Public Has the Right to Conclude That Auditors Will Stand Up to Management

Posted on by Caleb Newquist

“The public has every right to conclude that auditors who hold themselves out as independent will stand up to management and notsuccumb to pressure to avoid rocking the boat.”

Valukas Testimony 4-6-11 Am

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What Are the IASB and FASB Smoking?

[T]he tediously-reported proclamation of real convergence commitment has never been more than a smokescreen behind which the divergent interests of the Americans and the Europeans have knocked heads to the point of insensibility. (For which, recall the continued fudging of the SEC as to whether, if ever, that agency is even going to confirm a date certain on which to decide if to weigh in or not […].) Why no-one has called the question on this endless charade reflects the two-level fantasy in the dialog: the IASB and the FASB both pretend to believe in the desirability of fully-converged accounting standards, and the community of financial statement issuers and users pretend to believe them. [Re:Balance]

Some Crooked Accountants Need to Try Harder

Regardless of how easy it is for accountants to steal money (access, signatory responsibilities and such) one would think that if you intended on getting away with it that you might go to a wee bit of trouble to cover your tracks. Shamelessly making photocopies for personal matters is one thing, cutting checks to yourself are entirely another:

Between October 2, 2003 and September 20, 2007, [Todd Newman], a Certified Public Accountant with offices in Yonkers and New York City, was the Secretary/Treasurer and a signatory on the payroll of B. Schoenberg and Company, a recycler of plastics and engineering resins located in Yorktown Heights, N.Y.

He stole in excess of $1,900,000.00 (1.9 million dollars) from his employer by writing checks to himself.

Newman also failed to file Personal Income Tax returns with the State of New York for the years 2005, 2006 and 2007, for a total tax liability of $133,158.

Christ man! Set up a phony LLC, open some bank accounts, get a P.O. Box. Something.