I don’t think in the 10 years we’ve been running this rag we’ve ever mentioned Los Angeles accounting firm Gursey Schneider but that ends now and boy did they hit the ground running for their Going Concern debut. Huge thanks to a tipster who provided us with everything we needed to know about GS’s new Dress For Your Day policy and what promises to be its subsequent fallout as fashion-challenged staff struggle to determine appropriate workplace attire.
First, here’s the email that went out to staff announcing this exciting new policy.
All-
GS is pleased to announce our new “Dress For Your Day” policy. Please review the attached manual thoroughly to make sure you understand appropriate and inappropriate attire. If you are unsure it is always better to overdress than underdress. Historically, at times certain staff have pushed the envelope of appropriate attire based on our current dress code. However, please note our new policy will be enforced (including staff reporting through our anonymous Attire Alert link (https://www.gursey.com/attire-alert) or from the GS Intranet (https://gursey.sharepoint.com/sites/HR/Lists/Links/AllItems.aspx ) to make sure there is compliance.
Exciting! Jeans every day unless clients are roaming around! Maybe even a nice clean tee underneath a blazer if you’re feeling sassy. Sounds fun! But wait, what’s this?
We have learned through the success of the timesheet compliance program having a financial penalty does encourage compliance. Through 11/30/19, you will receive a courtesy notice (with no financial penalty) if you have non-compliant (inappropriate) dress attire. Depending on the severity of the inappropriate dress you could be sent home to change.
Effective 12/01/2019, we are implementing a financial penalty (proceeds will go to charity) identical to our late staff time sheet penalty for inappropriate dress attire to enforce compliance:
There will be a penalty of $100 for your first offense for an inappropriate dress attire notice and it will be progressive and cumulative on an annual basis (i.e. $100 for 1st offense, $200 for second offense, $300 for 3rd offense etc). Our hope is that this inappropriate dress attire penalty for charity will be impactful to encourage compliance.
The penalty will be assessed as a dollar for dollar reduction of what would be your discretionary year-end bonus. Please note there would not be situation where you would owe GS money back.
These penalties are not designed to save the firm money. It is designed to enforce compliance of appropriate workplace attire. As such, all penalties will be accumulated and donated by the firm to a worthy charity at year end.
Any questions please contact Anna C.
Thanks
Steve
God damn, Steve, you have absolutely no chill. $300 for ripped jeans? Good Lord, y’all must have some serious slobs working over there if you have this little faith in them to understand what “dress for your day” means. But just in case, they also put together a helpful PDF on the do’s and don’ts. Which…well… I don’t even know what to say here, you just kind of have to see it for yourself.
How an Agency You’ve Never Heard of Is Leaving the Economy at Risk [Project On Government Oversight] POGO writes a hit piece on the PCAOB.
Vic.ai, AI platform for accountants, gets $11.2M Series A funding [Accounting Today] Accelerating the robot takeover.
De Blasio proposes ‘robot tax’ to counter job losses from automation [The Hill] Speaking of robots stealing your job…
Deloitte and TruTrace Technologies Inc. form strategic alliance to improve cannabis quality control and safety for retailers and consumers [Yahoo] Press release time: “Deloitte’s leadership in the cannabis space will expedite the ability of this technology to reach key stakeholders, helping increase transparency in business decisions for everyone along the supply chain. This technology builds trust in the cannabis industry, not only between producers and retailers but also between retailers and consumers,” says David Stewart, a partner in Deloitte Canada’s Forensics practice. “We’re pleased to be able to play an integral role in helping all stakeholders in the cannabis space increase business performance and reputation while keeping consumers safe.”
Turning words into actions: PwC Luxembourg embraces crypto-payments [PwC] And another press release: Thomas Campione, Director, Blockchain & Crypto-assets Leader, PwC Luxembourg, states: “As part of the Firm’s market assessment, what quickly became clear is that we could not continue to invest in the field, promote it, build solutions for clients and support their transformation while not also being exposed to it. Our role is to lead and it is only by being an active leader with exposure that we at PwC Luxembourg can understand the challenges inherent to the crypto world. It is very difficult to properly appreciate the challenges of AML/KYC-enhanced due diligence in a world made of public/private keys, with the complexity and risks of custodial solutions, or to comprehend the decentralised finance ecosystem growing “next door” without being exposed to it in its day-to-day activities.” The Firm acknowledges the challenges of this move and has carefully reviewed its internal policies and procedures to meet the standards required by the crypto industry and closely collaborated with a local regulated exchange to provide the best payment experience.
Nissan CEO to Return Part of His Pay Following Audit [WSJ] Nissan Motor Co. Chief Executive Hiroto Saikawa on Thursday said he will return a portion of his performance-based pay, after Nissan auditors found that the amount was too high.
7 in 10 young workers prefer freedom to job security [Journal of Accountancy] A majority of young adult job seekers value the freedom of being their own boss over job security, and many also envision going into business for themselves one day, according to research conducted by MAVY Poll on behalf of the AICPA. Seven out of 10 (70%) young adult job seekers said they were confident that the potential freedom of being their own boss would be worth more than the job security of being employed by someone else. Additionally, more than half (53%) said they are likely to start their own business in the future.
Chester skating accountant wins world championship title [CheshireLive] Her win is a win for uncoordinated accountants everywhere.
Plus, accountant jailed for lavish lifestyle fraud, and life in prison and hard labor isn’t a horrible enough sentence for one Zambian accountant.
New Mexico CPA suspected of defrauding couple out of $1 million [Las Cruces Sun News]
Thomas Laws was arrested on Aug. 26 for allegedly defrauding two clients of more than $1 million entrusted to him.
Thomas Laws
He was charged with wire fraud; transportation, transmission, and transfer of stolen money; fraud; and aggravated identity theft.
Laws, 61, failed to invest the money delegated to him by two clients, who were married. Instead of using the clients’ money as directed, he’s suspected of using it to pay credit card debts, obligations to other clients and investors, and other personal and business expenditures.
Long Beach accountant gets eight years in prison for running Ponzi scheme [Long Beach Post]
Carol Ann Pedersen, a tax preparer in Long Beach, CA, was sentenced on Sept. 4 to eight years and one month in federal prison for embezzling more than $27 million over the span of two decades from clients who believed she was investing their funds in low-risk securities.
She was ordered to pay restitution of about $27.5 million to victims and serve three years under supervised release following her prison stint. Pedersen was ordered to self-surrender on Oct. 16 to begin serving her sentence.
Pedersen’s scheme involved dozens of victims and operated from 1996 to 2017. A CPA but not a licensed broker or investment advisor, Pedersen, 65, used some of the victims’ money to make distribution payments to others in order to keep the Ponzi scheme running. She also used the victims’ funds to pay her credit card bills, establish trust accounts for family members, and to purchase real estate.
You can also read the press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California here.
A Newton accountant admitted to stealing $1.6 million from an elderly client and a former client’s estate and pleaded guilty Thursday [Sept. 5] in federal court in Boston to charges of wire fraud and filing a false tax return.
Jeffrey Kellem, 49, pleaded guilty to four counts of wire fraud and one count of filing a false tax return. Kellem was charged by Information in August 2019. His sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 5.
Jeffrey Kellem
From December 2016 through February 2018, Kellem, 49, used his position as an accountant for an elderly client and the estate of a deceased client to steal more than approximately $1.6 million for his own use. Kellem allegedly transferred his clients’ funds, without their authorization, to bank accounts he opened and controlled.
Kellem also failed to report more than $500,000 in income from the funds he took on his tax returns. As a result, in 2017, Kellem avoided paying taxes totaling more than $150,000.
Judge slams ‘audacity’ of accountant who stole £10ok to afford luxury lifestyle [Evening Standard]
Henry Sathiyabalan was sentenced to three years in prison after the accountant stole £103,000 over three years from an architect firm and used the money for luxury vacations, chauffeur-driven cars, and hotel stays at The Shard in London.
Henry Sathiyabalan
Sathiyabalan, 34, paid for his extravagant lifestyle with his company credit card while finance director for Watkins Grey International.
He denied fraud, insisting he had been entitled to spend the money and was a hardworking member of staff, but was convicted of two counts of fraud by abuse of position between April 2014 and July 2017.
Lusaka accountant gets life for sodomising brother’s son [Diggers Media]
This is pretty horrible.
High Court judge Elita Mwikisa has sentenced an accountant of Lusaka West to life imprisonment with hard labour for sodomising his five year-old nephew.
Judge Mwikisa wondered how an uncle could defile his young brother’s son, noting that the child had suffered traumatic pain that one cannot even comprehend.
This is the matter in which Victor Mulungwe of Betty Farm was charged with unnatural offence.
In its ongoing effort to smash the green eyeshade stereotype and convince the public that CPAs do more than just annoy their clients and vague tax-like things civvies will never understand, CPA Canada hired advertising agency DentsuBos to develop a new campaign with the lofty goal “to portray CPAs in a modern light.”
It wouldn’t be a marketing campaign without an accompanying press release, so here you go:
The portraits of seven CPAs are featured in television, print and digital ads and social media posts, which showcase their impressive range of interests, skills and community service, as well as their adherence to the highest standards of ethics. The advertising campaign highlights the faces of diversity, competence and innovativeness that are the hallmark of the Canadian CPA profession.
The campaign was developed by the CPA profession’s national branding committee in partnership with the profession’s agency of record, DentsuBos.
“This campaign features inspiring CPAs who come from diverse backgrounds and have a positive influence in many sectors of society. It shows us real faces and, by extension, the true nature of the profession today,” says Lyne Lortie, Chair of the CPA Branding Committee and Vice-President of Public Affairs, Brand Strategy and Communications at the Quebec CPA Order.
“The passion, competencies and intelligence that CPAs bring to a number of economic sectors are effectively and eloquently illustrated. The faces that will be seen in this campaign are definitely faces that people won’t forget,” adds Lortie.
Did someone say faces that people won’t forget?
God I miss him. Anyway, here’s the first commercial.
EY analysis: Audit committees increasing their disclosures to shareholders [Compliance Week] Subscriber only content but I’m sure it’s interesting.
KPMG has 50% women on board [economia] Uh, good job I guess?
Google will pay over $1 billion after French investigation over dodged taxes [The Verge] Google has agreed to pay a nearly $550 million fine to settle an investigation in France over its tax practices, Reuters reports. The company’s European office is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, and like other companies, it reaps tax benefits from operating in the country. French officials had been probing whether Google failed to report all of its taxable work in France. Along with the €500 million payment, a Google spokesperson said the company will also pay €465 million (about $515,000) in other tax payments.
AI for everyone, including accountants [Accounting Today] Let’s check in on how the job-stealing robots are doing.
Deloitte in ‘striking distance’ of PwC [Australian Financial Review] Deloitte’s CEO Richard Deutsch told the firm’s annual partners’ meeting the big-four consulting company is “within striking distance of” becoming as big as his former firm PwC, while demanding that anyone leaking information should leave the firm if they are unhappy.
Accountant by Day, Rockstar by Night [The Quadrangle] Watch this kid, he could be something.
FBI investigating potential $35M payroll fraud in upstate New York [New York Post] MyPayrollHR abruptly abandoned its offices in Clifton Park, north of Albany, last week and sent its 4,000 clients an automated message that said it was “no longer able to process any further payroll transactions,” according to the Albany Times Union. The message blamed “unforeseen circumstances” and advised companies to “find alternative methods for processing your payrolls.”
How Should We Tax the Rich? [Forbes] Assume, for the sake of argument, that you believe the wealthiest Americans are undertaxed. And you are desperately seeking new revenue to pay for your ambitious domestic spending plans. What would you do?
Plus, wrongful death lawsuit filed against TV show accountant, and Scottish accountant jailed for protecting crime gang member.
EY employee conspires in £76k staff fraud [Accountancy Daily]
EY Executive Assistant Sukhbir Mawkin and her husband, Anil Mawkin, were sentenced on Sept. 11 for carrying out a £76,000 over four years, using credit card and personal details stolen from a large number of EY employees.
Sukhbir Mawkin
Authorities said between May 2015 and April 2019, Sukhbir Mawkin intercepted mail and removed cards and driver’s licenses from colleagues’ wallets and photographed them while working at the Big 4 firm. She and her husband then used the stolen details to buy items like mobile phones and clothing.
The couple were arrested and charged with fraud by false representation in October 2017. After their arrest, Anil Mawkin began making a series of fraudulent applications to credit providers in the names of other EY employees, to try and make it appear that fraud was being carried out by people other than him and his wife. He was subsequently arrested again and charged with fraud.
The Mawkins pleaded guilty to all offences at their trial. Sukhbir Mawkin received a two-year suspended sentence and 300 hours of unpaid work. Anil Mawkin was sentenced to three years and four months in jail.
PwC accountant fired after 1,700 upskirting images [Financial News]
The peeping PwC pervert who Adrienne told you guys about last July no longer works for P. Dubs:
An accountant at PwC has been dismissed from the Big Four auditor after he was caught with 1,700 upskirting images on his phone.
Leon Chan, who worked in the accountancy firm’s London office, was fired following an internal disciplinary hearing, a PwC spokesperson told Financial News.
In July, Westminster Magistrates’ Court was told a security guard at Topshop in Oxford Street stopped the 24-year-old on New Year’s Day, after he was caught holding his iPhone and loitering around women.
After handing his phone to the guard, more than 1,700 upskirting images were discovered on it. In July, he pleaded guilty and is due to appear in Southwark Crown Court for sentencing on November 22.
Leon Chan
PwC declined to comment on when Chan was dismissed but said this in a statement: “We have clear policies and guidance which include standards of expected behavior. We regularly review and update our policies. When people don’t meet our expected standards of behavior we take it very seriously and deal with it appropriately.”
Palm Desert accountant who embezzled $500k pleads guilty [KESQ]
Traci Kunz, an accountant who embezzled roughly a half-million dollars from her employer, pleaded guilty on Sept. 13 to grand theft and other charges.
Kunz, 45, admitted the theft count, as well as a forgery charge and a sentence-enhancing allegation of perpetrating multiple fraudulent transactions. She is expected to be sentenced on March 20, 2020, and is free on a $10,000 bond.
Authorities said Kunz embezzled the money over a three-year span, beginning in June 2013, while employed as a bookkeeper for Swanson Interiors in Palm Desert, CA.
Kunz, who was fired in 2016, used the company credit card to deposit funds into hers and a former boyfriend’s Paypal and Square accounts. The money would then be routed to Kunz’s bank account, sometimes by means of checks written by her then-boyfriend.
Viacom hit with wrongful death suit over DUI by ex-‘Lights Out With David Spade’ accountant [Deadline]
Entertainment industry accountant Jacob Gralitzer is facing up to a decade behind bars if found guilty in the death of Noah Benardout, who was fatally hit by a car last month that was involved in a collision with a vehicle driven by Gralitzer, who was intoxicated.
Benardout’s parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court on Sept. 10 against Gralitzer, the producers of Lights Out with David Spade, and Viacom.
According to the lawsuit, Marie and Marc Benardout are blaming the Comedy Central owner, Free 90 Media, and others for Gralitzer allegedly getting drunk on Aug. 1 at the premiere party for Spade’s new show and then getting behind the wheel of his 2018 Infiniti.
Soon after leaving the party for employees of Lights Out with David Spade at LA’s Nightingale Plaza at around 10:30 p.m. that night, Gralitzer’s car smashed into the vehicle of Lawrence Goldsmith as the latter was making a left turn at Melrose and Martel Avenue. “The collision caused the Acura (Goldsmith’s) to careen onto the sidewalk at the southeast corner of the intersection of Melrose and Martel striking Noah Benardout while he was standing on the sidewalk,” the 16-page complaint details, with Goldsmith also named as a defendant.
Accountant lied on oath to protect crime gang torturer [BBC News]
David MacFarlane, an accountant who gave a false alibi for a member of Scotland’s most dangerous crime gang, has been jailed for three years.
David MacFarlane
MacFarlane, 61, told a sheriff under oath that David Sell was at his home on March 11, 2015. But he was actually busy that day torturing a drug dealer.
Sell was one of nine men jailed for a total of 87 years under Operation Escalade.
During a trial at the High Court in Glasgow, MacFarlane denied deliberately lying, claiming he was “mistaken” about the date of Sell’s visit to his then flat in Thorntonhall, South Lanarkshire.
MacFarlane insisted that the date was correct because it was his sister’s birthday. But he was charged with perjury after Sell admitted his part the crime, after DNA linked him to a pistol used in the attack.
Heather Gray
Former Valdosta bookkeeper pleads guilty in $300k business theft [WALB]
Heather Gray, a former bookkeeper of a physical therapy business in Valdosta, GA, pleaded guilty to two counts of bank fraud in federal court on Sept. 11.
Gray began doing financial work for Sutherland Physical Therapy Inc. (SPT) in September 2014 as an employee of Quick Consulting of Adel.
Shortly after beginning work with SPT, in December 2014, Gray began to make automated clearinghouse payments via the internet and mobile access from two bank accounts belonging to SPT without authorization, to pay off credits cards that she and her ex-husband used.
In August 2017, her scheme intensified when she began creating fraudulent checks without authorization, using SPT bank accounts, payable to herself or her ex-husband.
AICPA’s new forensic standard expected to boost CPA credibility on witness stand [Accounting Today] The American Institute of CPAs has a new forensic accounting standard due to take effect at the beginning of next year, and it promises to give CPAs a leg up in terms of their credibility in providing litigation support as expert witnesses on the stand at trials.
69-Year-Old Accountant From Irvine Dies In Apparent Post-Triathlon Incident [The Malibu Times] RIP Stephen Zamucen
CPA Firms and the #MeToo Era [CPA Practice Advisor] Federal, state and, in many instances, local laws prohibit sexual harassment and employment discrimination. These laws hold employers responsible for maintaining a non-discriminatory workplace free of harassment, intimidation and retaliation. In 2006, the “Me Too” movement was founded by Tamara Burke to aid women who have been victims of sexual violence. This movement shed a light on many high-profile accusations against men and women in politics, business and entertainment. Increasingly, this has raised questions in the minds of business owners about how to maintain a non-discriminatory workplace, which is further complicated by the extensive use of both personal and business technology by firm personnel.
Some Big Four partners get decade-high UK pay despite falling audit standards [Quartz] The British arms of the Big Four accountancy companies are facing considerable scrutiny amid declines in audit standards and calls by a Parliamentary committee to break the firms up. Their executives, however, are raking it in.
Public Companies Consider New Controls to Prepare For Audit Rule [WSJ] It’s a subscriber post so who knows wtf they said.
India’s stock market skyrockets the most in 10 years after surprise tax cut [CNBC] Indian stocks surged overnight Friday after the country’s government announced a big cut to India’s corporate tax rate.
Montgomery College Loses Money in Fraud Scheme [Bethesda Magazine] Montgomery College sustained a “financial loss” after falling victim to a fraud scheme, the school announced Thursday afternoon. College and law enforcement officials were mum on details Thursday, but said the incident will not interrupt student activities or operations at the college. Officials did not specify what happened or disclose how much money was lost. A news release from the college said the crime occurred “earlier this month,” but Marcus Rosano, director of media relations for the college, declined to give a specific date.
FASB makes a second effort to improve balance sheet debt classification [JofA] After considering comments on a previous proposal for improving balance sheet debt classification, FASB issued a reproposal on the issue Thursday. FASB is attempting to improve guidance used to determine whether debt should be classified as a current or noncurrent liability on a classified balance sheet. The board issued its first proposal on the issue in January 2017. The initial proposal contained provisions to replace the current, fact-specific guidance with an overarching, cohesive principle for determining whether debt or other instruments within the scope of the proposal should be classified as a current or noncurrent liability as of the balance sheet date.
Many years ago in another lifetime, I dated this total loser. Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Adrienne, what the hell do your dubious dating choices have to do with accounting?” Bear with me, we’ll get there.
So, this loser. He was an adorable if grungy scamp with tattoos dotted across his body like scribbles on my middle school notebook covers and dirty blonde hair that managed to be both greasy and perfectly-coiffed at all times. Young me, not yet schooled in the fine art of red flags that subsequent years of dating would teach me, was weak to his charms despite the fact that he brought little to the table other than a killer smile and the occasional bottle of Remy, the latter of which impressed young me since I was too young then to buy my own and too lazy to stand outside of the liquor store waiting for some 30-year-old dorky sap to buy me one.
As I’m sure you can imagine by this point in the story, this guy came with more issues than National Geographic, not least of which being his attraction to substances — both licit and not. This generally wasn’t a problem as he was clever enough to weasel out of most predicaments his unfortunate choices got him into, and I clever enough to avoid him when he was on a bender. But every now and then, he’d find himself face-to-face with some cop who was sick of having to drag his drunk ass in every other week.
In one whiskey-and-who-knows-what-else-fueled incident I can recall, he called me from the drunk tank to inform me that A) I was a bitch for ditching him earlier in the evening, and B) he was in jail, possibly facing an actual charge for fighting or stealing or who the hell can remember, it doesn’t matter now. Given that I lacked both the bail money to get him out and the will to do a favor for someone who just called me a bitch, I let him sit there. A few short hours later, he was out. The time from arrest to his release couldn’t have been more than maybe three or four hours.
So why did I just tell this story? To put into perspective the fact that CPA Canada just treated the country’s future CPAs worse than police treated my loser ex-boyfriend who definitely deserved to be locked up for being an absolute waste of carbon.
Let’s get caught up on this, likely the worst professional examination debacle I think we’ve ever covered in our 10 years here on Going Concern. Because we’re a mostly American-based rag, I feel obligated to explain what the CFE (Common Final Examination) is and how it’s administered, if briefly. Unlike here in the good ole U. S. of A. where future CPAs can schedule exams with relative flexibility, Canadian accountants have to endure a three-day exam that is usually administered just once a year, though sometimes like next year they get lucky and have two chances. This year, the CFE started on Sept. 11 and, according to many reports, was already off to a bad start. But by Sept. 12, the shit had totally hit the fan.
On Monday, a tipster caught us up on the drama which we missed because A) we regrettably forget about our friends up north sometimes, and B) at least for me, I was too busy with Borderlands 3 to waste my time trolling r/accounting for something to write about last weekend and totally missed the complaining.
Hi there,
I am reporting on CPA Canada’s negligence in carrying out this year’s Common Final Examination (“CFE”) last week. This is a very important 3-day examination that prospective accountants must pass to obtain the professional licence to practice accounting in Canada.
There was a massive breach of integrity of the exam because of CPA Canada’s negligence to carry out their job properly. This resulted in many students (i.e. Edmonton location) where they were forced to sit inside the examination centre for 4 hours before the exam started. In other words, when the exam was supposed to start at 9AM, they started at 1PM. They were starved and asked to stay inside the examination centre.
Jesus, even my loser ex-boyfriend got a moldy bologna sandwich in the holding tank.
CPA Canada’s failure to administer the exam and treat candidates with the minimum of dignity while they waited to take what is quite possibly the most important test of their lives has been picked up by all sorts of media, including the Financial Post.
FP writes:
Another online poster, who spoke to the Financial Post on the condition that he would not be identified, described seeing people in Edmonton in emotional and physical distress on the second day of the exam, which was delayed for five hours, and which ultimately proceeded without access to a crucial digital handbook.
“Everyone was tired, exhausted and seemed in no shape to write” by the time the exam started, the poster said on Reddit, adding that a series of delays left the candidates in the examination room for about 12 hours and facing huge lineups for access to limited food and water.
“We study our butts off and stress for 8 weeks only to experience this?” the exam-writer wrote.
A statement we received from an anonymous collective consisting of Canadian Big 4 employees operating under the name Wayne Gretzky (LOL) details the CFE failures, disappointments, and plans to hold CPA Canada responsible. It also explains the situation far better than I can with far fewer tangents about greasy ex-boyfriends, so let’s check it out:
After a poorly administered examination took place last week, Chartered Professional Accountant (“CPA”) candidates across Canada are left to question the integrity and competency of their governing bodies. More than eight thousand CPA students wrote the annual Common Final Examination (“CFE”) from September 11, 2019 to September 13, 2019. The CFE is a three-day examination which requires students who have completed certain post-graduate programs to write four to five hours of simulated business cases each day, testing their competencies to be licensed as a CPA. The CFE is known to be one of the most challenging examinations to write—arguably on par with other professional examinations such as the bar exam for lawyers or qualification exam for doctors—with the majority of candidates sacrificing weeks of time off from work in order to prepare and perform at their best.
What students could not prepare for, however, was the myriad of unexpected technical and administrative issues during this year’s examination. These issues severely disrupted their ability to perform and compromised the validity of examination results. This is the first year that new examination software, called Surpass, was rolled out, and it appears that CPA Canada—the organization which governs the profession and administers the examination—had not adequately prepared themselves for the issues that would come along with this rollout.
This led a number of test centres across the country to delay the examination for up to five hours with limited access to food, drinks, and washrooms. It was likened to being held hostage, and those students ended up writing from 2PM to 7PM when they should have been writing from 9AM to 2PM. One student writes, “I came in that morning ready, […] but the fatigue from sitting and waiting for hours plus unnecessary stress resulted in what I believe to be a clear fail. I’m a good student, I studied like my life depended on it. In a normal exam condition, I’d have passed without any issue.”
In addition, some students were handicapped by being forced to write responses by hand as opposed to typing, with no access to reference material on their computers during the “open-book” examination. The examination was supposed to be written through the Surpass software, which saved typed responses and allowed students to view certain reference material, while locking down their computers from opening other applications. The software was ultimately used by only a fraction of students, and even so, these students faced slow response times and periodic glitches. There are also students falling in the last category of being told to write on Microsoft Word and access the internet for reference material, because the software did not work for the entire centre. To this point, one student wonders, “The test was going to be written at one point with three different groups having various resources […] How can you mark a test three different ways and make that fair?”
Not only are there issues in the fairness of marking, but students are convinced that examination results were also compromised due to the opportunities that opened up for cheating. A student from the West coast wrote, “Our start time was after when Eastern Canada [sic] would have finished their exam and there was no measure taken to ensure that there was no exam information leakage across the country.”
Indeed, some students from the Eastern time zones posted details about specific questions on social media despite having accepted a confidentiality agreement prior to the examination, and their posts benefitted users in the West who had unsupervised access to the internet during the delays.
The inappropriate handling of the situation by CPA Canada only made matters worse. Proctors appeared to not have been trained or communicated with properly because they made last-minute decisions and provided inconsistent instructions. One student recalls that “the staff in the room were very disorganized and clearly had no clue what to do.” To add on, another student expresses, “I’m mostly upset with the time it took to resolve the issues, and the lack of communication provided to the candidates.”
Social media sites such as Reddit were flooded with comments after each day, from students sharing their “disappointing”, “horrifying”, and “disastrous” experiences while expressing their thoughts surrounding the “lack of professionalism” by CPA Canada. The issues mentioned in this article make up only a small number of many more outlined by the accounts of hundreds of students. Even individuals who did not write the examination had something to say about the series of events: “As a mentor to a student, and a current CPA profession member, the way the CFE was handled and carried out this year was blatantly unacceptable. I’m ashamed of my profession for the way this was carried out. There is no excuse for this.”
The Surpass software mentioned in the statement was first used for last year’s exams and is supposed to offer “enhanced functionality and flexibility for examination writers and administrators.” It’s unclear at this point what part if any Surpass played in this debacle. That said, I’ve got a PDF of hundreds of candidate comments in front of me with countless complaints about the software, leading a reasonable person to assume it had a lot to do with last week’s drama. Since this is already running long and I know you guys, like me, have the attention span of a gnat, I’ll only share a choice few.
Surpass has been a nightmare. I wasn’t even able to upload my exam today. Day 1 they kept us for an extra hour after the exam due to technical difficulties with the software. We were advised not to use the cut function because it would freeze the software. The whole rollout of Surpass seems very poorly planned and basically exactly what they are teaching us not to do, as CPAs. I certainly expected better, considering the amount of money I paid to write the CFE.
And:
Surpass froze on me roughly 3 hours into the exam. A proctor took my computer and spent 30 minutes working on it without telling me what he was doing. I saw him with a back-up laptop and a USB key, so I assumed he was transferring my work, but when I asked him about it, he told me that the work I did was saved on the USB, and that I would have to finish the exam by hand.
And:
Please note that this is not the first time that there have been issues with the new software. I wrote my elective exam in December, 2018 and experienced the same issues (actually worse, because my computer crashed multiple times and I lost 20-30 minutes).
And my favorite comment of all:
As I said, the thing goes on for comment after comment. We’d be here all day and probably piss off our benevolent overlords at Accountingfly for all the server space we’d have to buy just to host every single complaint if I posted every single one. Let’s just say Surpass isn’t looking good at this point.
Like damn. As some of y’all know, I’m a day one Fallout 76 player and even Bethesda isn’t this bad when it comes to glitches, good Lord.
During the administration of the three-day Common Final Exam (CFE) there were technical delays resulting in a challenging exam writing experience for many students. We extend our sincere apologies to everyone who was affected as we know how much work goes into preparing and writing this important examination and how stressful it has been for our students.
In response to issues caused by technical problems with the CFE, CPA Canada is retaining a third-party expert to conduct an independent, comprehensive review. The mandate includes evaluating the integrity and reliability of the September 2019 examination process.
To inform our review, we are actively gathering information from students, proctors, and others to understand what happened and how it impacted the exam-writing experience. We are committed to maintaining the integrity of the profession and the Common Final Examination.
An independent board of examiners oversees the CFE evaluation process. Over many years, they have developed a robust system for taking into account extenuating circumstances that affect exam-writers. Given what occurred during this year’s exam, this CFE evaluation process will be supplemented by the third-party review.
We will proceed as quickly as possible, but our main priority is to provide the time necessary for a fair, accurate and equitable outcome.
At the same time, we are also immediately reviewing the technical issues that arose across the country and are working with our service providers to do everything possible to avoid a future reoccurrence.
We recognize what a difficult time this has been for many and we want to reassure exam-writers we have the people and processes in place to resolve the situation as quickly and effectively as possible.
Yeah, tell that to the poor bastards holed up in a gymnasium for hours on end last week.
Plus, Colorado accountant arrested in child sex sting, and a UNLV accounting grad student is accused of killing ex-girlfriend.
Essex accountant admits fraud against Cats production firm [BBC] Scott Hiskey, a U.K. accountant who worked for Monumental Pictures, pleaded guilty on Sept. 17 to a charge of fraud by abuse of position after admitting to stealing thousands of pounds out of the company behind the film adaptation of the hit musical Cats.
Prosecutors say he took £230,116 from Monumental Pictures between April 2016 and October 2018, though his lawyers say the figure is closer to £93,000.
The money was taken in “false and unauthorized payments,” authorities said.
Ex-accountant gets 30 months for defrauding company [Law360]
Alison Thomas, a former London accountant who fraudulently transferred £144,500 worth of company funds to her personal bank account to fund vacations and fancy Champagne lunches, was sentenced to 30 months in prison on Sept. 16.
Alison Thomas
Thomas was found guilty of fraud by abuse of position at Croydon Crown Court.
Between December 2011 and January 2018 she made regular transfers to her account from the small family-owned engineering firm in south London where she worked for seven years. Her role gave her access to and control of the company’s financial dealings.
Globetrotting accountant turned high-stakes punter steals $250k of his boss’s money and blows it all on meth, cocaine and casino gambling sprees [Daily Mail Australia]
Mina Saad, an accountant from Melbourne who stole more than $250,000 from his employer and spent it all on drugs, gambling, and lavish holidays, pleaded guilty to two charges of theft before he was sentenced to 12 months in prison on Sept. 9.
Mina Saad
He began working at Polivac International Pty Ltd. as an accountant in September 2015. Just one month into the job, Saad, 32, started transferring money from Polivac and a second connecting company into his own bank account.
Through 43 fraudulent transactions, Saad accumulated more than $256,000 which was discovered by Polivac’s new accountant in March 2017.
Speaking to a psychologist, Saad said he carried out the crime because he had become involved with the wrong crowd and became invested in drugs and gambling.
Men arrested in child solicitation sting appear in court [The Aspen Times]
Accountant Brian Alvarez, one of nine people charged as a result of a sting operation in Garfield County, CO, which created online posts advertising sex with children, appeared in court Sept. 16 for his first hearing.
From Sept. 12 to 14, the nine individuals allegedly communicated with the undercover agents to negotiate prices for sex with children. When they showed up at the meeting place, allegedly to engage in the criminal offense, they were arrested.
North Las Vegas murder suspect a UNLV graduate student [Las Vegas Review-Journal]
Giovanni Ruiz, a graduate student studying accounting at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, was arrested on Sept. 10 and accused of killing his ex-girlfriend.
He is accused of shooting Paula Davis, 19, a UNLV student studying economics, who was found dead in her van at a North Las Vegas park during the evening of Sept. 6. Authorities said Ruiz had previously dated Davis.
The same day he was booked into the Las Vegas Detention Center, detectives found a semi-automatic handgun and a receipt for the weapon hidden inside a suitcase in Ruiz’s home, according to an arrest report. It was purchased two days before Davis was killed.
Ruiz also was working part time as an accountant, doing contract work for the government, according to his attorney Gabriel Grasso.
KPMG switches 820 UK staff from advisory to audit [Financial Times] KPMG has moved 800 staff and about 20 partners from its advisory division into its audit department in preparation for a possible forced break-up. Any consultant who spends more than 10 per cent of their time advising auditors will now sit within the audit department in a move towards a “more separate future”, according to a person briefed on the firm’s internal communications.
PwC Considers Changes to U.K. Auditor Pay to Avoid Conflicts of Interest [Wall Street Journal] PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP is considering changes to how its U.K. audit partners are being remunerated to avoid potential conflicts of interest. The potential changes to auditor partners’ pay and bonuses are part of a wider review of how its U.K. business is operating.
Mylan Misled Investors Over EpiPen Pricing Probe, SEC Says [Bloomberg] Mylan NV misled investors for at least a year about a Justice Department investigation into the allergy shot EpiPen that would eventually cost the company nearly $500 million, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Friday. The settlement appears to close one part of a long-running saga over a product that boosted Mylan’s sales but also brought controversy. Under the agreement with the SEC, first disclosed as a settlement in principle by Mylan in July, the drugmaker will pay $30 million.
Judge: Former Mason mayor, Ohio lawmaker can seek CPA license he lost after conviction [Dayton Daily News] A Warren County judge said Thursday that a former Mason mayor and Ohio lawmaker is allowed to again seek the CPA license he lost four years ago after being convicted on felony theft, perjury and securities-related charges. Pete Beck, 66, of Mason, petitioned the Warren County Common Pleas Court for a Certificate of Qualification of Employment (CQE), which is the process for a person convicted of a felony or misdemeanor to apply to the court to lift the collateral sanction barring him or her from consideration of employment in a certain field.
Big Four accountants facing changing times [Financial Times] The Big Four accountants have enjoyed an oligopoly over the audits of the largest listed companies in the UK and US, with some relationships dating back more than a century. But amid increasing scrutiny from politicians and regulators in the wake of high-profile corporate collapses, structural change, at least in the UK, looks certain.
Deloitte total gender earnings gap is 39.3% [economia] Deloitte’s 2019 mean pay gap is 18.7% (18.1% in 2018) and the median pay gap is 16.1%, same as last year. The firm’s median bonus gap is 35.1%, down from 37.5% in 2018 and its mean bonus gap is 51.1% (52.3% in 2018). In 2019, 41% of all partner promotions were women and 34% of director promotions were women. Less than a quarter (21%) of partners are women and less than a third (30%) of directors are women.
The future is now for audit [Accounting Today] One important guiding principle to remember: technology must enhance professional judgement, but not replace it.
Prosecutors agree to pause in subpoena for Trump tax returns [CNBC] In a letter Thursday to Manhattan federal court Judge Victor Marrero, a prosecutor in DA Cyrus Vance Jr.’s office wrote that “the parties have reached a temporary agreement” to “forbear enforcement” of the subpoena to produce years of Trump’s financial documents. Prosecutors will hold off trying to enforce the subpoena until Oct. 7 at 1 p.m. ET — or until two business days after the judge rules on whether subpoeane should be permanently barred or whether it can be enforced over Trump’s objection.
Plus, accountant sentenced to seven years in jail for fraud, and church-swindling accountant gets sentenced to three months in prison.
Accountant tricked girlfriend out of thousands in cancer scam [Accountancy Daily]
Badal Arun Hindocha, who cheated his Internet girlfriend out of £4,300 by claiming he was dying from stomach cancer, received a suspended jail sentence last week.
Hindocha, who was employed by a Canary Wharf firm [KPMG, according to his LinkedIn profile], pleaded guilty to fraud between December 2017 and March 2018, and was sentenced to nine months in prison, suspended for 18 months. He was also given 280 hours of community service and was told to pay the woman, Tina Mistry, £6,000 in compensation.
Hindocha told Mistry he had lost income after missing work to attend hospital appointments due to his cancer diagnosis. Mistry made a number of bank transfers to Hindocha over a period of several months, but then realized she was being scammed when she saw he was active again on Internet dating sites.
Mistress, 27, who made married lover wear mask for sex game ‘surprise’ then hacked off his penis with shears is jailed for 13 years [The Sun]
Accountant Brenda Barattini, 28, was found guilty last week of the attempted murder of musician Sergio Fernandez, 42, following a trial in the Argentinian city of Cordoba.
Brenda Barattini
During her trial, the court heard how she hatched a plot to harm Fernandez after he shared sex tapes and X-rated pics of her with friends.
Claiming he treated her like a “trophy,” Barattini told a jury of four men and four women: “He turned me into a sex object. I was just a s**g for him.
After being arrested for the attack on Nov. 25, 2017, she was accused of using garden shears to cut off 90% of Fernandez’s junk, leaving him with life-threatening injuries.
[Note: The Sun has some NSFW images of the bloody scene and a bloody Fernandez, but his scrotal region is blurred out.]
Phoenix tax preparer sentenced to prison for stealing his clients’ tax refunds [Justice Department]
Phoenix accountant Erik Ketelaar was sentenced last week to 36 months in prison and three years of supervised release after pleading guilty to wire fraud.
Erik Ketelaar
In addition, Ketelaar, 35, was ordered to pay $573,000 in restitution to the IRS, third-party processors, and individual taxpayers.
In 2013 and 2014, Ketelaar owned and operated a tax preparation business called Tio Sams Taxes, with five offices in Phoenix and Mesa, AZ. He hired and trained Spanish-speaking staff, and marketed his tax services to nonresident and resident aliens living in Hispanic communities in the Phoenix metropolitan area.
Ketelaar controlled how all tax returns were completed and had most of the client tax refunds directed to bank accounts or addresses he owned and managed. After he gained control of these tax refunds, he stole more than a half million dollars in refunds from many of his tax clients.
Accountant enters plea for false tax returns [Beloit Daily News]
David Zehnder, an accountant in Fort Atkinson, WI, pleaded guilty on Sept. 30 to four felony counts of filing fraudulent Wisconsin income tax returns and one felony count of theft.
David Zehnder
Zehnder, 55, knowingly filed at least 83 false Wisconsin income tax returns by overstating the itemized deduction credits on his clients’ returns by a total of $73,910.
He also stole, or attempted to steal, $32,312 of clients’ refunds by diverting a portion of the tax refunds into accounts he controlled.
LaVigne, 66, practiced in Ithaca for more than three decades. In March, he admitted to using his CPA practice to conceal millions in assets and also defrauded a woman of more than $1 million in a mail fraud scheme.
LaVigne has been out on bail and has been ordered to report to serve his prison sentence Nov. 5.
Green Valley accountant indicted on federal tax charges [Arizona Daily Star]
William Stearnes, who operated Stearnes Tax & Accounting Team in Green Valley, AZ, was indicted by a federal grand jury Sept. 25 on 30 counts of preparation and presentation of false federal income tax returns.
William Stearnes
Stearnes, who advertised himself as an expert in federal law enforcement tax returns, filed returns that “claimed improper and/or inflated, unreimbursed employee expenses as a deduction against income,” according to the indictment.
Some of those improper expenses included meals and entertainment expenses, clothing, household items, personal cellphone charges, gym membership fees, vitamins, sunglasses, personal firearms, ammunition, and commuting miles.
Wakefield accountant sentenced to jail, probation for stealing from church [Sioux City Journal]
Michael Pommer, an accountant in Wakefield, NE, was sentenced to 90 days in jail and 18 months probation on Sept. 23 for taking more than $109,000 from a church.
Michael Pommer
Pommer was given credit for one day already served in custody. He also was fined $5,000.
Pommer, 46, was accused of making 15 transfers totaling $109,727 from two accounts at Salem Lutheran Church to his personal bank account and American Express account. The transfers, ranging from $1,750 to $15,000, were made during a two-year period from June 24, 2016, through Sept. 5, 2018.
Aw snap, shit’s real now, the lawyers have gotten involved.
ICYMI, the long and short of the CFE debacle (lovingly dubbed “Fyre Festival for accountants” by angry Redditors) is that candidates in multiple jurisdictions were greeted with countless technical issues that peaked on Day 2 of the marathon three-day exam. Some candidates reported being “held hostage” at the testing center without so much as a snack to tide them over. As you can expect, candidates were less than forgiving when CPA Canada apologized.
CPA Canada has confirmed to the Financial Post that they’ve brought on national law firm Borden Ladner Gervais to conduct “an independent review” after informing CFE candidates of the review. CPA Canada’s email to candidates was shared to Reddit last week, and because I’m feeling generous, I’ll go ahead and transcribe the entirety of it here.
We have taken the following actions to date in order to determine what occurred with the CFE:
1. We are gathering a comprehensive inventory of all the challenges that were encountered on a centre by centre basis;
2. We have undertaken an internal, technical review of both software and internet (Wi-Fi) issues;
3. We have reached out to our vendor partners for their assistance in unpacking what took place;
4. We have retained the national law firm of Borden Ladner Gervais (BLG) to lead an independent, third party review;
5. BLG has retained a world-leading technical expert to undertake a detailed review of the software and Wi-Fi issues; and
6. BLG is also retaining a world-leading psychometrician (an expert in the validity, fairness and reliability of examinations).
In addition, it appears as though CPA Canada nixed the troubled Surpass software completely for the PEP (Professional Education Program) exam and went with trusty ole Excel instead.
The email to candidates continues:
As you can appreciate, it will be impossible to have all of this work complete prior to the scheduled PEP exam this Wednesday and Thursday. Therefore, out of an abundance of caution for you and your fellow writers, and based on the advice of our experts, we have put the following risk mitigation strategies in place for this week’s PEP exam:
1. All candidates will write their examination using Microsoft Word and Excel on their computers and access the reference materials through a dedicated URL;
2. Additional Wi-Fi capacity will be provided in all exam writing centres;
3. Wi-Fi-enabled USB sticks will be procured and held on stand by in case of router failure;
4. Additional IT support and invigilators/proctors will be deployed to each site;
5. As well managers will be on site and will work in concert with managers across all sites to ensure a coordinated response to any issues that may arise.
Please be assured that we understand the substantial investment of time and effort that goes into preparing and writing this examination. We are working around the clock to ensure that no exam-writer experiences the disruptions and difficulties that we saw around the CFE.
As far as we can tell, PEP went ahead without any major issues, so now we wait for the lawyers to do their part and figure out who is best to go straight under the bus for last month’s clusterfuck, I guess.
Plus, Filipino accountant gets jail time for embezzlement, and a CFO will spend time in a Canadian prison for stealing money to fund her opioid addiction.
Former New Haven tax preparer pleads guilty [Justice Department]
Devon Williams pleaded guilty on Oct. 2 to one count of aiding and assisting the preparation of a false tax return, which carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison.
Between approximately 2014 and 2017, Williams, 30, who owned Perfect Preparers LLC, a tax preparation business in New Haven, CT, prepared several federal tax returns for clients that contained false deductions, including deductions for unreimbursed employee expenses, charitable donations, and mortgage interest. Some returns also contained false Schedule C information.
In pleading guilty, Williams agreed that losses suffered by the IRS as a result of the fraud totaled more than $550,000.
Williams was released on $150,000 bond. His sentencing has been scheduled for Dec. 27, 2019.
As a result of Williams’ fraud, many of his clients’ filed tax returns will need to be amended, authorities said.
Nevada tax return preparer pleads guilty to tax crimes [Justice Department]
Michael Sandoval pleaded guilty on Oct. 1 to one count of tax evasion, one count of aiding and assisting in the preparation and filing of a false tax return, and one count of making and subscribing a false tax return, which caused a total tax loss of more than $3.4 million.
Michael Sandoval
Sandoval provided payroll and tax preparation services for individuals and companies through his Las Vegas business Nevada Financial Solutions Inc. (NFS). Sandoval used NFS to commit multiple tax crimes, authorities said:
When two of his clients provided NFS with $471,178 in payments to be forwarded to the IRS as money due for their quarterly employment taxes, Sandoval didn’t provide those payments to the IRS, but instead spent the funds for his personal benefit.
Sandoval filed and caused the filing of false individual income tax returns for a substantial number of clients by reporting fraudulent deductions, including false Schedule C business losses and charitable contribution and state and local tax deductions. These fraudulent deductions caused a tax loss of over $2.8 million.
Sandoval fraudulently understated his income from NFS on his individual income tax returns for the years 2010 through 2017, causing an additional tax loss of $100,138.
In total, Sandoval caused a tax loss totaling $3,425,654. He will be sentenced on Jan. 9, 2020.
Philadelphia tax preparer convicted of preparing false tax return [Justice Department]
Abdoulaye Coumbassa pleaded guilty on Oct. 1 to aiding and assisting in the preparation of a false tax return.
From at least 2012 to 2015, Coumbassa, who owned Abbi Tax Services and Accounting, prepared and filed fraudulent Forms 1040 and related forms and schedules on behalf of his clients with the IRS. Coumbassa allegedly falsified clients’ returns by, among other things, attaching false Schedules C to the clients’ 1040s. These Schedules C falsely claimed that the client had a business that lost money, which loss was used to offset taxable income and therefore inflate the refunds or create a refund rather than tax due and owing.
Coumbassa agreed in his plea agreement that a reasonable estimate of the total tax loss exceeded $2 million.
He will be sentenced on Jan. 30, 2020.
Yorba Linda accountant arrested on suspicion of embezzling $1.8 million from Suzuki of America in Brea [Orange County Register]
Bonnie Mullion, an accountant who worked for almost four decades at Suzuki Motor of America’s headquarters in Brea, CA, was arrested at her home on Oct. 3 for allegedly stealing nearly $2 million from the company over the course of five years.
Bonnie Mullion
Mullion, 65, was taken into custody and booked on suspicion of 89 counts of embezzlement. She allegedly began stealing from her employer in 2012, depositing a total of about $1.8 million into her own accounts, authorities said.
Mullion was fired from her job in 2017.
As of Oct. 3, she was being held at the Orange County Jail in lieu of $1.8 million bail.
Rensselaer accountant sentenced in child porn case [Monticello Herald Journal]
William Moit, a former CPA in Rensselaer, IN, was sentenced to serve 108 months in prison, followed by 10 years of supervised release, on Oct. 2 after pleading guilty to child pornography charges. He must also pay $5,000 in restitution.
Moit, 72, was convicted in Jasper County in 2000 for possessing child pornography and “contributing to the delinquency of a minor.” He was also charged with receiving child pornography with a federal indictment in 2017 and for using a computer to receive 111 images and 157 videos of child pornography between November 2014 and October 2015.
Former accountant embezzled $3.5 million from QlikTech Singapore [TechTarget]
Ariel Biasong Salamanes, a former accountant for QlikTech Singapore, a subsidiary of analytics and business intelligence vendor Qlik, was sentenced to nine and a half years in jail on Sept. 25 for embezzling nearly $4 million from the company.
He pleaded guilty to 15 counts, including falsification of accounts. An additional 267 counts were considered.
Authorities said Salamanes signed off on 451 company checks from April 2013 through June 2017 and deposited them into his own bank account before funneling most of the money back to the Philippines.
Ruth Seguin
Ruth Seguin sentenced to 4 years for stealing $3.4m from her former employer [CHCH-TV]
Ruth Seguin, 57, an accountant from Hamilton, Ontario, pleaded guilty in August to defrauding her employer.
Seguin was the CFO at Dan Lawrie Insurance and took small amounts of money at a time over five years. She says she stole the money to fund a serious opioid addiction that was costing her about $3,000 a day.
Not sure if anyone’s noticed but the profession is in trouble. You know it’s bad when the most cynical of cynics feels compelled to say yeah, this is kinda actually bad.
Sure, I’ve talked plenty of shit over the years but I’ve also been one of the profession’s biggest cheerleaders, lifting up future CPAs when they’re about to give up on their dreams, supporting ambitious accountants at conferences and lobbying days, even sharing press releases that in the back of my mind I thought were completely stupid but knew deep down had the best of intentions. But now? Now we’re in a really dark time.
I wish I was more into sports, then I could say something relatable like “if the accounting profession were a team, it would be the 1981 [shitty team here]” and Bramwell would commend me for my extensive knowledge of shitty sports teams. Are the Clippers still a joke? The Cleveland Browns? Yeah, I’m terrible at this. Anyway.
Accountants behaving badly
Anyone noticed Bramwell has been writing an “Accountants Behaving Badly” column on the regular for weeks now? WEEKS. Used to be maybe we could scrape one of those together once a month or so, but now every single Monday conference call we have with The Powers That Be, when it comes time for our publisher to ask what Jason is working on for the week, he confidently exclaims “working on Accountants Behaving Badly, should have that done this afternoon!” Well damn.
I pulled up headlines from the last few he’s done, and holy shit. These aren’t just your run-of-the-mill middle-aged accountants embezzling from clients, we’re talking theft, fraud, kiddie porn, even murder. MURDER.
Yorba Linda accountant arrested on suspicion of embezzling $1.8 million from Suzuki of America in Brea
Rensselaer accountant sentenced in child porn case
Phoenix tax preparer sentenced to prison for stealing his clients’ tax refunds
Lansing accountant sentenced to 7 years prison for fraud
Wakefield accountant sentenced to jail, probation for stealing from church
Essex accountant admits fraud against Cats production firm
North Las Vegas murder suspect a UNLV graduate student
EY employee conspires in £76k staff fraud
PwC accountant fired after 1,700 upskirting images
Accountant lied on oath to protect crime gang torturer
I could keep going but we’d be here all day and we still have a lot of ground to cover. You get the point.
I looked back in the archive and it appears it’s worse than I initially suspected. Bramwell has had no shortage of weekly material going all the way back to July, with even more littering the pages of the archive if you go further back than that. What in the hell is going on?
I mean, maybe people are just losing their minds. These are hard times we live in after all. Everyone is all worked into a lather politically and the future seems bleak, and you know, maybe otherwise good, honest accountants just snapped and started stealing and lying and, uh, killing their wives and then sloppily trying to pass it off as suicide.
I want to say these are isolated incidents but damn, in the aggregate, it’s starting to look like accountants around the world have collectively lost their shit.
KPM-God damn they did it again
No discussion about the profession’s PR problem could be had without mentioning the elephant in the room. Not pointing fingers but I just have to say it: KPMG.
Has KPMG had a single positive headline all year? Honestly I have no idea, I’ve been too distracted by all the not positive ones. They’ve had a rough go of it, no doubt. Just when you think their reputation couldn’t get worse (on top of the baseline reputation they’ve always had as the sweaty armpit of the Big 4, that is), something else appears that makes you sigh the sigh of a bitter, alcoholic, old accounting tabloid writer who is sick of this bullshit (I’m projecting here, obvs).
Rather than blockquote the dozens upon dozens of articles we’ve written in the last year or so that simply beat this already dead horse to a pulp, let’s just pull some headlines from the last year, shall we?
Should I keep going? I could keep going. That’s only some of the worst ones going back to March. Of this year. Soooo… seven months. Of course, no discussion of KPMG malfeasance would be complete without including what I think is my favorite headline of the year:
Alright. So yeah, KPMG has a problem. But bigger than KPMG’s inability to keep its nuts out of the fire is the fact that thanks to the Big 4 oligarchy, every KPMG fuck-up is a fuck-up for the Big 4. The average person doesn’t know nor care that it’s a single firm bogarting all the fuck-ups. All they see when opening up their Wall Street Journal is some accounting firm cheating or failing in their duty to clients or whatever the hell it is KPMG is fucking up this week.
That’s not to say other firms haven’t had their fair share of fuck-ups. Which brings me to my next point.
Our toothless regulator
Those of you who know me know I’ve been an outspoken critic of the PCAOB over the years. At the same time, I can respect some of the work they do in the way I respect about 60% of what is posted in /r/therewasanattempt.
Back when the PCAOB was formed in the early ’00s, I was but a starry-eyed 21-year-old, and let’s just say I had more important shit to care about back then without turning this already long piece into another tangent about Adrienne’s Poor Choices in Life That Lead Her Here. It would be five whole years until my world would come crashing down and send me spinning into the purgatory of accounting, where it seems I’ve been banished to exist for eternity like some drunken, angry ghost. I digress.
Not sure if you guys heard but the PCAOB is failing in its mission as it quickly approaches its 20th birthday. Damn, has it been that long? Am I that old? Ouch.
Francine McKenna writes via MarketWatch:
The PCAOB board is staying out of the public eye in 2019, in violation of bylaws established by the law that created the PCAOB, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. The law requires the PCAOB to hold at least one public meeting of its governing board each calendar quarter. However, the PCAOB board has held no public meetings of its governing board since December 20, 2018.
MarketWatch asked the PCAOB to comment on its apparent lack of compliance with its bylaws regarding open board meetings.
A PCAOB spokeswoman told MarketWatch, “Consistent with long-standing practice, the Board holds open meetings to take action on business such as standard-setting or voting on its budget and strategic plan. We expect to hold two open meetings in the coming months to address our 2020 budget and a proposed concept release related to our quality control standards.”
Not only is the PCAOB getting called out by us pundits circling the profession like hungry vultures waiting to pick the last rotten piece of muscle off a rapidly-decaying corpse (no offense, Francine, you know I love you), the normies are starting to pay attention, too.
In September, the Project on Government Oversight wrote a scathing hit piece on the PCAOB titled How an Agency You’ve Never Heard of Is Leaving the Economy at Risk that I absolutely recommend reading in its entirety.
A federal watchdog you’ve probably never heard of is supposed to be protecting your financial security.
It’s supposed to be policing some of the biggest and most powerful firms in American business.
It’s supposed to reduce the risk that, as a result of fraud, error, or corporate incompetence, your financial future goes poof.
Indirectly, it’s supposed to help safeguard any savings you’ve stashed in the stock market, any stake you have in a pension or retirement fund, and maybe even your paycheck and employment benefits.
It’s supposed to help avert man-made disasters like the financial crisis and mortgage-meltdown of a decade ago; the accounting scandals that destroyed a long list of corporations such as Enron and WorldCom almost two decades ago; and the savings and loan crisis that consumed mountains of taxpayer money in the 1980s and ‘90s—the kind of catastrophes that can cripple your community, crater the economy, or collapse the financial system.
But in key respects it’s been doing a feeble job.
That goes on for, well, let’s just say it’s a long read. Read it. All that to say, everyone’s getting called out now. Remember the good old days when mainly all we had were low blows for Grant Thornton and McGladrey cracks? Yeah, that time is over.
Meanwhile, in Canada
So we’ve established that the profession has a PR problem and that’s all well and good, but at this point, I’m not entirely sure even Don Draper could turn this dead horse into dog food.
On September 11, I wrote an article about CPA Canada’s new advertising campaign, the goal of which I believe was to make CPAs “cool” although who the hell knows with these things sometimes. Yeah, I guess that was it.
In its ongoing effort to smash the green eyeshade stereotype and convince the public that CPAs do more than just annoy their clients and vague tax-like things civvies will never understand, CPA Canada hired advertising agency DentsuBos to develop a new campaign with the lofty goal “to portray CPAs in a modern light.”
Just nine days later, Canadians across their fine country opened up their Financial Post to read all about how CPA Canada absolutely fucked up the Common Final Examination, which for my fellow ignorant Yanks who might be wondering, is their version of the CPA exam essentially. Abject failure, slapped all over the national news. Embarrassing.
So what now?
This article is already way too long and since no one is around to edit the shit out of me I could probably make it even longer, but let’s not turn this beating into a massacre, K? Point has been made.
So I have to ask: What is the solution? For all this talk of public trust and ethics, the profession is wobbling unsteadily at a pretty crucial crossroads and in desperate need of a come-to-Jesus moment. All it’s gonna take is one more big scandal to topple the whole thing, and at this rate, we should see that, I dunno, next week sometime?
I dunno about y’all but I’m getting tired of getting all worked up over the potential for some big blow-up only to be disappointed when literally nothing happens. To be frank, I’ve had doom and gloom blue balls since 2008 still waiting for the economy to fully bottom out and that never happened, so let’s just say I’m not too hopeful even Enron II will have much of an impact at this point when not if it happens. Sure, there will be a few salacious headlines and maybe we’ll get another toothless agency out of it but will anything really change? From the depths of my cold black heart I’m inclined to say nah.
I guess all we can do is wait, see, and hope middle-aged bookkeepers would stop robbing their employers blind.
Warning Signs about the Future Supply of Accounting Graduates [The CPA Journal] At the ground level, something has gone wrong with student perceptions about the value of an accounting education. It may take a few years for this changed dynamic to show up in economy-wide reports, but that a new dynamic is underway is obvious at the institution-specific level. Enrollment in James Madison University’s (JMU) School of Accounting over the past four years, for example, has dropped 34% in the intermediate accounting courses. This is a stunning decrease for JMU’s accounting program.
IRS: Sorry, but It’s Just Easier and Cheaper to Audit the Poor [ProPublica] The IRS audits the working poor at about the same rate as the wealthiest 1%. Now, in response to questions from a U.S. senator, the IRS has acknowledged that’s true but professes it can’t change anything unless it is given more money.
Illinois CPA Society Seeks College Student Applicants for Diversity Program [CPA Practice Advisor] The award-winning Mary T. Washington Wylie Internship Preparation Program is a golden opportunity for racial and ethnic minority college students who want to make their way into the accounting and finance profession. The Illinois CPA Society is seeking qualified applicants for its next program, being held January 6-8, 2020 in Chicago. The application is available at www.icpas.org/mtww and the deadline is November 11, 2019.
October is the new April for accountants after tax law confusion [Accounting Today] For Americans who couldn’t figure out how to pay their taxes in April after Republicans overhauled the tax code, there is a new day of dread for accountants: Oct. 15. That’s the filing deadline for individuals and corporations that asked the Internal Revenue Service for a six-month extension to submit their tax documents. Accountants say they’ve seen a surge in clients needing extra time to finish filings for their 2018 income, the first year subject to new rates and regulations following the 2017 tax law.
Facebook under fire over ‘outrageous’ UK tax bill [BBC] The social media firms’s latest UK accounts show that profits last year jumped by 54% to £96.6m. Facebook’s total tax charge on those profits almost doubled to £30.4m, but was reduced due to adjustments. Tax campaigner and MP Margaret Hodge said such a low bill was “outrageous”, but Facebook said it pays what it owes.
Guiliani Associate Indicted for Money Laundering Ran Company That Claimed to Combat Fraud [Rolling Stone] Lev Parnas — one of the Rudy Giuliani associates indicted on conspiracy charges relating to fraudulent campaign donations, including allegedly steering Russian money into the U.S. political system — has listed two businesses dedicated to rooting out financial misfeasance on his political donation records. Parnas listed “Fraud Guarantee” and “Loan Crime Investigation Group” as his employers on federal political contribution forms, along with a firm called Global Energy Producers. That third business — ostensibly dedicated to Liquefied Natural Gas deals — was used by Parnas as a corporate conduit or “straw donor” to obscure the true source of campaign donations, in violation of federal election law, a federal indictment alleges.
New PricewaterhouseCoopers report dubs Evanston as a ‘hipsturbia’ [The Daily Northwestern] According to the report, “hipsturbia” — a combination of “hipster” and “suburbia,” — links Evanston to other vibrant communities like Santa Clara, California, and Yonkers, New York, which are known for their vibrant arts scene and balanced retail spaces. However, some say Evanston is too generic and expensive to be hipsturbia.
Deloitte’s work for Autonomy ‘showed lack of scepticism’ [The Times] Auditors at Deloitte failed to challenge bosses at Autonomy before its sale to Hewlett-Packard, a disciplinary tribunal has heard.
Plus, a New South Wales accountant got jail time for stealing moola from clients, and a Texas tax preparer is going to prison for a while for defrauding the U.S.
Drunk trainee accountant who pushed man onto Tube tracks has sentence increased [The Times]
Mathuram Muthuraja, a trainee accountant who drunkenly pushed another man onto the London Underground tracks last year, had his three-year sentence increased to five years on Oct. 9.
Mathuram Muthuraja
He was originally sentenced last July for attempting to cause grievous bodily harm.
Muthuraja, 23, pushed another passenger off the platform at Barons Court Tube station in west London last October, shortly before a train was expected to arrive.
The victim narrowly missed the live running rail and the approaching train stopped before it reached the station, but he was knocked unconscious and had to be pulled back onto the platform by onlookers.
Former St. Bon’s accountant sentenced to 3 years for $549K fraud [CBC]
Kimberly Stagg, a former accountant at St. Bonaventure’s College, was sentenced to three years in jail on multiple charges for defrauding her then employer of more than $500,000 over a period of almost five years.
Stagg forged bank statements and sent email transfers of money to herself, according to a statement of facts read during the sentencing hearing on Oct. 9. She used the money to pay bills and take a trip to Disney.
Authorities learned that Stagg had multiple bank accounts, and that $548,909 was transferred to her bank accounts from St. Bonaventure’s accounts—where she was the only person with access.
Scott Douglas Cutting Sr. gets 2 years in federal prison for filing fake tax returns [Palm Springs Desert Sun]
Scott Cutting, a tax preparer who portrayed himself as a CPA even though his license expired more than 30 years ago, was sentenced in Los Angeles to over two years in federal prison on Oct. 10 for filing fraudulent federal tax returns that generated more than $1 million in refunds.
He also was ordered to pay the IRS nearly $1.4 million in restitution.
Cutting, 70, was convicted in April of six counts of aiding and assisting in the preparation of false and fraudulent tax returns.
New South Wales accountant sentenced [Money Management]
Nicholas Ellis, an accountant and former financial advisor, was sentenced to three years in prison for making false or misleading statements to obtain money from clients and fraudulent misappropriation of client funds.
Nicholas Ellis
Ellis admitted to stealing approximately $562,000 of client funds, some of which he had used to buy a house.
Texas tax return preparer sentenced to prison for defrauding the United States [Justice Department]
Stacey Anderson was sentenced to five years in prison on Oct. 9 for filing false federal tax returns.
Anderson, who owned Anderson Professional Tax Services out of her home, prepared 2013 and 2014 tax returns claiming false business items and/or education tax credits, in order to fraudulently increase her clients’ tax refunds from the IRS.
Anderson also filed a 2014 tax return for herself, falsely claiming an education credit and reporting a fraudulent income amount. The total tax loss generated from this scheme exceeded $10 million.
In addition to her jail sentence, Anderson was sentenced to three years supervised release and was ordered to pay restitution of more than $8.1 million.
Art of Accounting: Lessening compression oppression [Accounting Today] A big problem for almost every accounting practice is the tax season workload compression. It is what it is, but it doesn’t have to be. Here are some suggestions on how to pull work out of tax season and push it into November and December to better handle the extra work.
KPMG partners’ pay falls as audit reforms and fines bite [Sky News] Sky News has learnt that Bill Michael, KPMG’s UK chairman, circulated a memo on Friday afternoon in which he disclosed that total average pay per partner in its most recent financial year was £629,000, down from £682,000 12 months earlier.
The Magic Chaos of Music’s Golden Age, as Told by Mick Jagger’s Accountant [Rolling Stone] “I’m not going to be singing rock & roll when I’m 60,” Mick Jagger told his accountant 50 years ago, matter-of-factly, when he was merely an ex-economics student who’d started a rock band. Jagger’s dogged defiance of his own proclamation — the frontman turned 76 earlier this year and the Rolling Stones wrapped a major three-year tour last month — became a source of lifelong motivation for that very accountant, Laurence Myers, who’s now publishing a memoir about his own zig-zagging career in the music industry.
PwC Pledges US$3 Billion to Digitally Upskill its Employees [Nearshore] Professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has set aside US$3 billion to improve the digital skills of its 276,000 employees. In the months to come, thousands of the company’s staff will be taught as to how they can use data analytics, robotics process automation, and artificial intelligence in their work. “There is a growing mismatch between the skills people have and those needed for the digital world,” stated the company, announcing its upskilling program called ‘New world, New skills’.
Deloitte’s demo day showcased how AI and data are key to keeping up with an unprecedented change in the tax industry [Business Insider] A perfect storm driven by three forces is transforming the tax industry at an unprecedented pace, including a shifting global regulatory landscape, like the US Tax Reform and EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, technological innovation, and the difficulty of finding and retaining professionals.
Hackers ‘are no longer winning’, says KPMG cyber chief [IT Pro] Hackers are ‘no longer winning the cyber crime war’ following years of public and private investment and cross-industry collaboration, according to KPMG’s global head of cyber futures David Ferbrache.
EY Law Jumps to Top Spot in Global Brand Recognition Index [Bloomberg Law]
The U.S. tax system is “a new engine of inequality” [CBS News] The U.S. tax system, once viewed as a model for sharing the nation’s bounty, is today a “new engine of inequality,” said Gabriel Zucman, one of the world’s leading experts on the rising gap between rich and poor. Zucman, as detailed in his new book, “The Triumph of Injustice,” written with fellow University of California at Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez, found that the 400 richest Americans now pay a total tax rate of about 23% — that’s lower than the bottom half of U.S. households, who pay a rate of about 24%.
Plus, an accountant allegedly stole thousands from an ice rink construction company, and a male tax preparer who pretended to be a woman named Alyssa Jean Pipes is accused of screwing over his clients.
Former state senator’s accountant convicted of tax fraud [Justice Department]
John Nardozzi, an accountant for former Massachusetts senator Brian A. Joyce, was convicted on Oct. 16 by a federal jury for conspiring with the late senator to defraud the IRS from 2011 through 2014.
Nardozzi, 67, a CPA based in Waltham, MA, was convicted after a seven-day trial of defrauding the IRS of approximately $600,000 by manipulating income that should’ve been reported on Joyce’s corporate tax return and by applying it to Joyce’s personal tax return.
He was also convicted of falsely creating a single-employment pension (SEP) fund for Joyce and his wife, to which they weren’t otherwise entitled. In doing so, Nardozzi enabled Joyce and his wife to defer taxes on approximately $400,000 of income. Nardozzi also assisted Joyce in an illegal rollover of Joyce’s SEP account to purchase stock in a private company without following the IRA rollover rules.
In addition, Nardozzi attributed income from Joyce’s law firm to Joyce’s wife even though she never worked for the firm.
Nardozzi is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 9, 2020.
Accountant accused of stealing $269,000 from Georgia school by diverting checks, credit card transactions [WXIA-TV]
Willard Huffins, a former accountant at Central Christian School in Sharpsburg, GA, was indicted by a grand jury earlier this month and charged with stealing almost $270,000 from the school by fraudulently redirecting funds into a personal account.
He is facing one charge of racketeering, two of theft, and one of identity fraud.
Huffins allegedly opened a bank account in the Central Christian School’s name without the school’s knowledge and began siphoning money into it in March 2017. For the next 21 months, he deposited checks made out to the school into that account, using it for his personal expenses.
Trainee accountant, 20, is banned from driving after speeding away from police in her Audi at 70mph in a 40mph zone while over the limit [Daily Mail]
Lucy McDermott, who admitted to having around four glasses of wine in the hours before driving on Sept. 20, pleaded guilty to a single charge of driving with excess alcohol on Oct. 16.
Lucy McDermott
McDermott, 20, from Accrington, Lancashire, was banned from driving for 12 months, fined £400, and ordered to pay £85 cost and a £40 surcharge.
She allegedly accelerated her £24,000 Audi A3 when a police car approached behind her at 2 a.m. on Sept. 20. A breath test revealed that McDermott had 47 micrograms of alcohol in 100 milliliters of breath, breaking the legal limit of 35.
Police: Man stole nearly 60K from Cambria County ice rink company [WJAC-TV]
Michael Hammond, the former accountant and controller for Everything Ice Inc. in Salix, PA, is facing a slew of theft- and forgery-related charges after allegedly stealing nearly $60,000 from the ice rink construction company.
Michael Hammond
Hammond wrote himself 18 unauthorized checks ranging from $2,500 to $5,642.36 between Feb. 15 and June 28 of this year, authorities said. He then tried to hide the transactions by deleting the checks or renaming them to vendor names.
Hammond faces multiple counts of felony charges, including receiving stolen property, forgery, and theft.
Arizona tax preparer sentenced to three years probation for falsifying tax returns [Arizona Attorney General’s Office]
Former tax preparer Karen Hernandez was sentenced to three years of probation and fined $11,000 for preparing false income tax returns while working at Tax Xpress in Phoenix.
Karen Hernandez
During the 2016 and 2017 tax filing seasons, Hernandez, 26, prepared nine false returns and increased her fees by including a Schedule A with false itemized deductions. Her clients didn’t know that Hernandez had falsified their returns, which resulted in either higher refunds or reduced the taxes due. The seven affected taxpayers will have to file amended returns and be responsible for the additional taxes due along with interest.
Hernandez has been ordered to pay restitution to taxpayers to cover the cost of preparing amended returns and any interest or penalties on the unpaid tax due.
Tax preparer bilked CT shore clients out of thousands [Patch.com]
Joseph Parker, a tax preparer who also posed as a woman, was arrested on a warrant last week charging him with identity theft and multiple counts of larceny in connection with the theft of at least $500,000 from his tax preparation clients.
Joseph Parker
From late 2017 through 2018, Parker, 30, doing business as Joseph Parker Tax Services in Connecticut, allegedly used processes such as double billing and credit card fraud to siphon money from his clients without their knowledge.
The scam also involved Parker posing as a woman named “Alyssa Jean Pipes.”
He was charged with first-, second-, third-, and fifth-degree larceny; two counts of third-degree identity theft; payment card fraud; and multiple counts of failure to appear.
Show of hands, who here thought CPA Canada would, by some miracle, be able to get scores from last month’s clusterfuck of a CFE out on time? Anyone? Bueller? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
We understand that it has been an anxious time for students who are waiting to receive their September 2019 CFE exam results.
There have been two parallel processes unfolding since the September CFE, which have not yet been completed:
An independent, third-party review conducted through Borden Ladner Gervais (BLG) into the integrity and reliability of the examination;
The CFE marking process led by the Board of Examiners (a senior committee that oversees the official scoring of the exams) which includes accommodations for the extenuating circumstances that impacted exam-writers.
Given the complexity of these processes and the extent of the disruptions to this year’s examination, the Chair of the Board of Examiners has advised us that the time required to fully assess the exam results will be longer than usual. We want to ensure that all students are treated fairly, and that the due diligence completed is thorough. We know that our writers are anxiously waiting for the results and we are working hard to reach a fair and equitable outcome.
Unfortunately, student results for the September CFE will not be available on November 29th. We sincerely apologize for this delay, but we are confident that it is in the best interests of the students, and the integrity and fairness of the exam marking process.
Subject to the findings of the independent review and marking processes, we anticipate that results will be released in January 2020.
We want to assure you that the profession is working together to resolve this situation as quickly as possible. Additional information will be posted to our website as it becomes available.
Sincerely,
Joy Thomas
President and CEO
CPA Canada
Way to ruin Christmas for so many future CPAs, Joy! I’d say you ruined Thanksgiving too but Canadians are weird and apparently already had theirs. Whatever, you ruined that too. Note that CPA Canada “anticipates” a January 2020 score release, not that they pinky swear promise it will definitely be January when this crack team they hired to unfuck their fuck-up is able to deliver. So don’t get your hopes up. Oh who am I kidding, y’all are future professional accountants, you don’t even have hopes at this point.
PwC and EY accused of complicity in Thomas Cook collapse [FT]
MPs have accused two of the UK’s Big Four accounting groups of being “complicit” in the failure of Thomas Cook, slamming one, the travel group’s former auditor PwC, over an alleged conflict of interest in its pay advice to executives.
Cases against EY and PwC still hanging around like a bad smell [Irish Times] Another take, a longread on how auditors shirk responsibility when companies crash.
Firms & people on the move: Baker Tilly and Weaver open new offices [Accounting Today] Wait, did I just put a roundup in a roundup? Meta.
US CPA faces up to 10 years in jail over Ponzi scheme [economia] Ronald Roach, together with his co-defendant Joseph Bayliss, an electrical contractor, pleaded guilty to playing an important role in the massive scam, which raised the money from 17 investors between 2011 and 2018. Both had made millions out of their fraudulent activities, at the expense of the investors. According to the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California, the owners of the solar energy company at the heart of the fraud, for which Roach provided accounting and tax services, persuaded investors to invest in tax credit investment contracts and sale leaseback investments through promises of gains in the form of tax credits, guaranteed lease payments and profits from the operation of mobile solar generators (MSGs).
How a Tax Break to Help the Poor Went to NBA Owner Dan Gilbert [ProPublica] Gilbert’s relationship with the White House helped him win his desired tax break, an email obtained by ProPublica suggests. In February 2018, as the selection process was underway, a top Michigan economic development official asked her colleague to call Quicken’s executive vice president for government affairs about opportunity zones. “They worked with the White House on it and want to be sure we are coordinated,” wrote the official, Christine Roeder, in an email with the subject line “Quicken.”
Government Questions the Benefits of IRS Audit Campaigns [National Law Review] Upon inspection, it appears that the IRS did not have a systematic approach to choosing which issue would become a campaign. Instead, the approach was seemingly ad hoc, and was open to employee suggestions instead of empirical analysis. The TGITA suggests that going forward the IRS use a more data-driven selection process for its campaigns. The idea would be to analyze where the IRS could get the biggest bang for its resource bucks in terms of dollars as well as compliance goals.
‘You can’t hire your way out of this:’ How PwC trains workers for the future [HR Dive] The plan is aimed not only at upskilling PwC’s 276,000 employees but also at developing and sharing tech for clients and communities. “We consider this a brand-defining commitment building upon a commitment we already made to not leave anyone behind in our firm,” Mike Fenlon, chief people officer at PwC U.S., told HR Dive.
Revealed: KPMG’s secret AECOM team talks [Financial Review] Sources said KPMG was well aware of its need to act quickly and confidentiality and devise a strategy to make sure it didn’t trigger contractual obligations around non-solicitation and non-compete agreements.
