As you well know, there's only one correct score on the CPA exam: a passing score. However, some passing scores are more correct than others, as we have explained at length.

The 75 individuals listed below scored better than the other 93,667 people who sat for the CPA exam last year.

For Elijah Watt Sells winners, the magic number is 95.50. And here they are all the people who managed to achieve that, including their schools and employers:

• Jason L. Ackerman (New York), a graduate of Lehigh University with a BS in Business and Engineering and Baruch College with an MS in Taxation, is employed with Wagner, Ferber, Fine & Ackerman PLLC in Floral Park, NY.
• Eric Christopher Albee (Virginia), a graduate of the Virginia Tech with a BS in Business and an MS in Accounting and Information Systems, is employed with Dixon Hughes Goodman, LLP in Richmond, VA.
• Seyed Paul Arab (Tennessee), a graduate of East Tennessee State University with a BBA in Economics, is employed with Home Federal Bank of Tennessee in Knoxville, TN.
• Emily Nichole Baker (Texas), a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Business Administration and a Master in Professional Accounting, is employed with EY in Dallas, TX.
• Angela Katherine Bennion (California), a graduate of Brigham Young University with a BS in Accountancy and a Master of Professional Accountancy, is employed with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in San Jose, CA.
• Christopher Biesboer (Illinois), a graduate of Concordia University Wisconsin with a BS in Accounting and an MBA in Accounting, is employed with KPMG LLP in Chicago, IL.
• Matthew K. Bishop (Tennessee), a graduate of Lipscomb University with a BS in Finance, Economics and Business Management and the University of Memphis with a Juris Doctor degree, is employed with HCA in Nashville, TN.
• George Bloomfield (Ohio), a graduate of Marietta College with a Bachelor in Accounting and The Ohio State University with a Master of Accounting, is employed with Plante Moran in Columbus, OH.
• James Arthur Boudreau II (Florida), a graduate of the University of Florida with a BS in Accounting and a Master of Accounting, is employed with Austin, Gillman & Lovano, P.L.L.C. in Gainesville, FL.
• Benjamin Bowers (Georgia), a graduate of the University of Georgia with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting and a Master of Accountancy, is employed with Bennett Thrasher LLP in Atlanta, GA.
• Paul Douglas Brown (Texas), a graduate of The University of Texas at Tyler with a BA in History and a Master of Accountancy, is employed with Gollob Morgan Peddy in Tyler, TX.
• Trey M. Bruce (Florida), a graduate of the University of Florida with a LLM in Taxation, a Juris Doctor from the Lewis and Clark School, and a BSBA in Economics from the Ohio State University, is employed at the Phillips Harvey Group in Naples, FL.
• Marcos E. Carreño (Massachusetts), a graduate of MIT with a BS and an MS in Aeronautics & Astronautics and Boston College with an MBA and MS in Accounting, is employed with Andersen Tax in Boston, MA.
• Marcos Magnusson de Carvalho (New Hampshire), a graduate of the University of São Paulo with a Bachelor in Accountancy and the Getúlio Vargas Foundation with an MBA in Finance, is employed with PricewaterhouseCoopers Auditores Independentes in São Paulo, Brazil.
• Chia-Jen Chang (New Jersey), a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a BS in Accountancy and the University of Michigan with a Master of Accounting, is employed with EY in New York, NY.
• Kathryn L. Claudy (Pennsylvania), a graduate of Grove City College with a BS in Accounting, is employed with Grossman Yanak & Ford, LLP in Pittsburgh, PA.
• Joel Gavin Cook (South Carolina), a graduate of Furman University with a BA in Accounting and Clemson University with a Master of Professional Accountancy, is employed with Deloitte in Charlotte, NC.
• Charles Coop (New York), a graduate of the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Business Administration and Master in Accounting, is employed with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in New York, NY.
• Augustus Crimm (Texas), a graduate of Southwestern University with a BA in Accounting and History, is employed with Faske Lay & Co., LLP in Georgetown, TX.
• Samuel Crosby (Washington), a graduate of Gonzaga University with a BA in Political Science and a Master of Accountancy, is employed with KPMG in Seattle, WA.
• Trevor J. David (Colorado), a graduate of The University of Colorado Boulder with a BS in Business Administration and a Master of Accounting, is employed with EY in Denver, CO.
• Kimberly E. Deyak (Michigan), a graduate of the Oakland University with a BS in Accounting and a Master of Accounting, is employed with Plante Moran in Clinton Township, MI.
• Alex Engebretson (Michigan), a graduate of the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Business Administration and a Master of Accounting, is employed with Plante Moran in Ann Arbor, MI.
• Brian Chad Erickson (Colorado), a graduate of Metro State University of Denver with a BS in Accounting, is employed with Eide Bailly LLP in Greenwood Village, CO.
• Derek Ettinger (North Carolina), a graduate of the Binghamton University with a BS in Accounting and an MS in Accounting, is employed with Grant Thornton, LLP in Charlotte, NC.
• Grant Jonathan Eudy (Missouri), a graduate of Southeast Missouri State University with a BS in Business Administration, is employed with Beussink, Hey & Roe, PC in Cape Girardeau, MO.
• Nathan Andrew Evenson (Texas), a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor in Business Administration and a Master in Professional Accounting, is employed with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in Houston, TX.
• Tyler Faught (Illinois), a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a BS in Accounting and a Master of Accounting, is employed with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in Chicago, IL.
• Thomas R. Fine (Minnesota), a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a Bachelor of Business Administration and an Integrated Master of Accountancy, is employed with KPMG, LLP in Minneapolis, MN.
• Courtney Folgeman (Massachusetts), a graduate of California Institute of Technology with a BS in Business, Economics and Management and Boston College with an MS in Accounting, is employed with KPMG LLP in Boston, MA.
• Patrick Frey-Frankenfield (Colorado), a graduate of The University of Kansas with a BS in Business and a Master of Accounting, is employed with EKS&H in Denver, CO.
• Joshua Furmage (Ohio), a graduate of The Ohio State University with a BS in Business Administration and Accounting, is employed with EY in Cleveland, OH.
• Paloma Gante (Texas), a graduate of Texas A&M International University with a Bachelor in Business Administration and Accounting, and The University of Texas at Austin with a Master in Professional Accounting, is employed with KPMG LLP in San Antonio, TX.
• Yu-Ting Huang (California), a graduate of National Taiwan University with a Bachelor in Business Administration and The University of Texas at Austin with a Master in Professional Accounting, is employed with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in San Francisco, CA.
• Erika Mary Jackson (North Carolina), a graduate of Wake Forest University with a BS in Accountancy and an MS in Accountancy, is employed with Deloitte in Parsippany, NJ.
• Nicole Lauren Jones (Kansas), a graduate of The University of Kansas with a BS in Accounting and a Master of Accounting, is employed with Grant Thornton, LLP in Kansas City, MO.
• Grant Joslin (Ohio), a graduate of The Ohio State University with a BS in Anthropological Sciences, a BS in Business Administration in Accounting, and a Master of Accounting, is employed with Deloitte in London, United Kingdom.
• Neerav Karia (California), a graduate of Saurashtra University with a Bachelor of Commerce, is employed with Deloitte, Haskins & Sells in Ahmedabad, India.
• Nicholas R. Kemmerle (Ohio), a graduate of Ashland University with a BS in Accounting and a Master in Business Administration, is employed with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in Cleveland, OH.
• Maria Khrakovsky (Connecticut), a graduate of The Ohio State University with a BS in Business Administration, BA in French Language and a Master of Accounting, is employed with Financial Accounting Standards Board in Norwalk, CT.
• David Michael Kinnan (California), a graduate of the University of Kansas with a BS in Accounting and Baker University with an MBA, is employed with Carmel Stone Imports in Palo Alto, CA.
• Andrew T. Lamers (Wisconsin), a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a Bachelor of Business Administration and BS in Accounting, is employed with Deloitte in Milwaukee, WI.
• Jennifer Lin (New York), a graduate of Emory University with a Bachelor of Business Administration, is employed with Grant Thornton, LLP in New York, NY.
• Andre T. Liu (Guam), a graduate of the National Chengchi University with a BA in Economics and a BS in Accounting, is employed with Deloitte in Taiwan.
• Matthew LoCascio (California), a graduate of The University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Business Administration and The University of Southern California with a Master in Accounting, is employed with Deloitte in Los Angeles, CA.
• Diana P. Lynn (Maryland), a graduate of Loyola University Maryland with a Bachelor of Business Administration and Accounting, is employed with EY in Baltimore, MD.
• Alex Mannis (Arkansas), a graduate of the University of Arkansas with a Bachelor of Finance, is employed with the Arkansas Legislative Audit in Little Rock, AR
• Lisa Marchlewski (Michigan), a graduate of the University of Michigan with a BA in Economics and a Master of Accounting, is employed with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in Detroit, MI.
• Kyle McDougle (Massachusetts), a graduate of Bentley University with a BS in Finance and Accounting and an MS in Accounting, is employed with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in Boston, MA.
• Philip Meek (Arkansas), a graduate of the University of Arkansas with a BS in Accounting, Finance and Economics, is employed with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in Springdale, AR.
• Gerard Don Padilla (California), a graduate of the University of the Philippines Diliman with a BS in Business Administration and Accountancy, is employed with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in San Francisco, CA.
• Mark Bogdan Piorkowski (New York), a graduate of Boston College with a BS in Management, is employed with PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP in New York, NY.
• Mark W. Podeschi (Illinois), a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a BS in Accountancy and a Master of Accounting Science, is employed with FTI Consulting in Chicago, IL.
• Michael Rozman Proppe (Michigan), a graduate of the University of Michigan with a BS in Statistics, a Bachelor of Business Administration and a Master of Accounting, is employed with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in Detroit, MI.
• Lacey M. Puls (Wisconsin), a graduate of the University of Wisconsin with a Bachelor of Business Administration and Accounting and a Master of Professional Accountancy, is employed with Smith & Gesteland, LLP in Middleton, WI.
• Scott C. Radmall (Utah), a graduate of Brigham Young University with a BA in Economics and the University of Utah with a Master of Accounting, is employed with Goldman Sachs in Salt Lake City, UT.
• Daniel Rakad (California), a graduate of San Diego State University with a BS in Accountancy, is employed with EY in San Diego, CA.
• Andrew D. Reyes (New York), a graduate of CUNY with a BA in Accounting and Economics and Fordham University with a MS in Taxation, is employed with EY in New York, NY.
• Daniel Paul Rost (Pennsylvania), a graduate of Pennsylvania State University with a BS in Finance and Accounting and an MS in Accounting, is employed with EY in Pittsburgh, PA.
• Addison Nicole Deavers Scott (Arkansas), a graduate of the University of Arkansas with a BSBA in Accounting and Finance, a BSIB in International Economics, and a Master of Accounting, is employed with EY in Rogers, AR.
• Grant Michael Searcy (Utah), a graduate of Brigham Young University-Idaho with a BS in Accounting and The Ohio State University with a Masters in Accounting, is employed with EY in Salt Lake City, UT.
• Grant Tyler Seuferer (Iowa), a graduate of Iowa State University with a Master of Accounting, is employed with Deloitte Tax in Des Moines, IA.
• Emily L. Slaga (Michigan), a graduate of the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Business Administration and a Master of Accounting, is employed with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in Detroit, MI.
• Brent R. Smith (Illinois), a graduate of the University of Notre Dame with a BS in Accounting & Economics and an MS in Accountancy, is employed with Grant Thornton LLP in Chicago, IL.
• Amber Turner (Kansas), a graduate of Wichita State University with a BS in Accounting & Economics and a Master of Accountancy, is employed with Koch Industries in Wichita, KS.
• Christopher Vasile (New York), a graduate of St. John’s University with a BS in Accounting and an MS in Taxation, is employed with KPMG LLP in New York, NY.
• Qiaoli Wang (Illinois), a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with an MS in Accounting, is employed with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in Chicago, IL.
• Michael Thomas Westendorf (Ohio), a graduate of the University of Dayton with a BS in Business Administration and Psychology and an MBA with a concentration in Accounting, is employed with RSM US LLP in Moraine, OH.
• Grzegorz Wiktor (Oregon), a graduate of Polish Open University, Oxford Brookes University, and Portland State University with a Bachelor in Financial Management, is employed at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in Seattle, WA.
• Liang-Han Wuu (Virginia), a graduate of National Taiwan University with a BBA in Accounting and The University of Texas at Dallas with an MS in Accounting, is employed with VPT, Inc. in Blacksburg, VA.
• Bei Ye (Arizona), a graduate of the University of South Florida with a BS in Accounting and the University of Tampa with a MS in Accounting, is employed with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in Phoenix, AZ.
• Austin G. Zarbuck (Illinois), a graduate of Augustana College with a BA in Accounting and Business Administration and The Ohio State University with a Master of Accounting, is employed with Grant Thornton, LLP in Chicago, IL.
• Shanfang (Jennifer) Zheng (New York), a graduate of Tsinghua University with a Bachelor of Accounting and the University of Notre Dame with an MS in Accountancy, is employed with Deloitte in San Francisco, CA.

If you're keeping score on the accounting firms at home, here's a rundown:

• PwC: 17
• EY: 11
• Deloitte: 9
• KPMG: 6
• Grant Thornton: 6
• Plante Moran: 3

Also, I don't recall ever seeing an aeronautics & astronautics major among the winners, so that's a first. 

The class of 75 EWS winners is the most ever. There were 59 in 2014, 55 in 2013, 39 in 2012, 37 in 2011 and 19 in 2010.  Congrats to all the winners!

The post Here Are the 2015 Elijah Watt Sells Winners appeared first on Going Concern.

Texas A&M professor Mike Shaub put the idea in our heads and now we can't get it out:

Waiting for the photo of Scott London and Phil Mickelson laughing at a firm event in T minus 5, 4, 3…. And it will be totally irrelevant.

— Mike Shaub (@mikeshaub) May 19, 2016

Irrelevant or not, anything's possible right?! In any case, it doesn't sound like Mickelson will face criminal charges like London did and he's going to pay back the money from his ill-gotten gains.

Anyway, we know it's a longshot, but if you come across a photo of these two insider traders together sporting grins from ear to ear, we'd love to see it. We even settle for a photoshopped Phil into the infamous parking lot image as a consolation prize.

The post A Thing We Desperately Wish Were Real: A Photo of Phil Mickelson and Ex-KPMG Partner Scott London Yukking It Up appeared first on Going Concern.

KPMG's auditing

Last fall, the PCAOB released its inspection report for KPMG and the results were not so good. Their 54% deficiency rate placed the firm 4th out of the Big 4. Unfortunately for KPMG UK, the findings of its audit regulator that came out yesterday are similar:

KPMG has fallen behind its rivals in an annual check by the UK watchdog on audit quality, adding pressure to the big four professional services firm that is currently being investigated by the watchdog for three of its audits.

The Financial Reporting Council said on Thursday that of the 22 individual KPMG audits it reviewed in 2015-16, two required “significant improvements”. It was the only one of the six firms surveyed whose audits required significant improvements.

But despite KPMG bringing up the rear, audit quality in the UK is supposedly improving:    

The FRC is on a push to improve audit quality and has set a target that, by 2019, at least 90 per cent of FTSE 350 audits reviewed will be assessed as requiring no more than limited improvements.

This year’s review, which covered KPMG, PwC, Deloitte, EY, BDO and Grant Thornton, showed continued signs of improvement in quality. Seventy-seven per cent of audits were assessed as requiring no more than limited improvements, up from 70 per cent last year.

I think it's interesting that the FRC has set benchmarks for audit quality. One of the frustrating things about PCAOB inspection results is that there's very little guidance on how to interpret them. The few people who do read them go straight to the details, draw their own conclusions and report those. And maybe that's the preferred way to do things, I don't know. But the FRC seems to set the pace of what they expect and tracks firms' progress towards those goals. The PCAOB, as far as I'm aware, doesn't do anything like that. Would it help? Again, I'm not sure, but as I've said before, there's something to be said for salesmanship, especially for a topic that most people don't care to think about.

CPA firms and diversity

I almost skipped this article but I'm glad I didn't, if only for this paragraph: 

As a profession, accounting values conformity to standards more than creative thinking. To achieve a diversity of perspectives, and thereby enrich discussions and debates and reach the better decisions that result from the consideration of different points of view, accounting professionals must challenge existing paradigms. It will not be enough for firms to attract and retain people who meet the traditional definition of diversity. The industry must engage those who will challenge the constraints of the prevailing perspectives of their firms — and be open to new thought processes and opinions.

This more or less explains the embarrassing number of women and minority partners in accounting firms. It really is as simple as that.

Non-GAAP worries

This is a strong case against the evils of non-GAAP reporting but ultimately it falls short for me:

Non-GAAP supporters have argued for years that a company’s homegrown performance indicators are often more meaningful than GAAP numbers. That may be true for the company’s managers, who are focused almost exclusively on the inner workings of their firm. But investors need to compare a firm to its peers and to companies in other industries and countries. They can’t do that if each company uses its own metrics. Moreover, auditors don’t audit non-GAAP financial information. If investors want assurance that the numbers are accurate, they’ll just have to take management’s word for it.

Just like we take GAAP's word for it? Or the auditors' word? Let me know if you're sick of hearing this, but the idea that GAAP is some unimpeachable set of rules is just as silly as the suggestion that homegrown non-GAAP measures are the best way to understand a company's true performance. And don't get me started on auditors. If non-GAAP info was audited, would it really give anyone additional comfort? If 90% of companies are reporting non-GAAP metrics, it seems to me that everyone's just fine with the fact that they're unaudited.  

Previously, on Going Concern…

I wished out loud for a photo of Phil Mickelson and ex-KPMG partner Scott London. And in Open Items, someone wants to know if they're well positioned for a credit ratings agency.

In other news:

• The FAF released their annual report.
• BDO got into Utah.
• Trump’s income tax returns once became public. They showed he didn’t pay a cent.
• FASB Looks to Cut Goodwill Valuation Costs
• LinkedIn 2012 Data Breach May Have Hit Over 100 Million
• Man charged with embezzling thousands from Dollar General

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The post Accounting News Roundup: KPMG’s Auditing and Diversity Problems | 05.20.16 appeared first on Going Concern.

Thomas Avent, KPMG's Southeast region partner-in-charge of mergers and acquisitions is in a bit of trouble. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit against Avent, his stockbroker Raymond Pirrello and Pirrello's friend, Lawrence Penna of insider trading.

The allegations are simple enough: Avent had access to material, non-public information through his KPMG's work of providing tax due diligence to clients. Avent allegedly told Pirrello about three deals: 1) NCR Corp's 2011 purchase of Radiant Systems Inc; 2) TBC Corp's 2011 acquisition of Midas Incorporated Inc, and 3) Ingram Micro Inc's 2012 takeover of BrightPoint Inc.

Pirrello then passed on the info to his pal, Penna. For this information, Penna then made payments to Pirrello (e.g. one for $14,500 to Pirrello's AMEX). And Pirrello made payments and other benefits to Avent (e.g. $50k in cash and arranging someone to buy a $250k "illiquid investment").

Naturally, this is having an affect effect on Avent's work situation:

KPMG said on Friday that it was "deeply troubled" by the allegations and had placed Avent, a 63-year-old Atlanta resident, on administrative leave.

James Cobb, Avent's lawyer, said in an email that the SEC claims were meritless and that his client always followed the law. "Mr. Avent intends to defend this case vigorously, and he is confident that his name will be cleared," Cobb added.

You can read the Reuters report if you want the bare bones. The fun stuff, as usual, is in the SEC's complaint. It includes the blow-by-blow account between all the parties involved. Here's one example from the TBC/Midas deal:

After Midas announced its intent to be sold to TBC, Avent and Pirrello had this snipey text message exchange:

Avent's displeasure didn't end there:

In one case, Avent invested $14k into a penny stock, "because Pirrello was 'convinced [the stock] was going to be very profitable.'" 

It's funny that Avent, Phil Mickelson and Scott London all seem to have the same level of common sense with regards to insider trading. In my fantasies, they've golfed in a three-man scramble together.

SEC accuses KPMG partner in Atlanta, two others of insider trading [Reuters]
Litigation release [SEC]
Complaint [SEC]

The post SEC Accuses KPMG Partner, Two Others With Insider Trading appeared first on Going Concern.

Programming note: There will be no ANR or newsletter tomorrow. More details to come later today.

H&R Block and Watson

Last year, H&R Block drew the ire of CPAs everywhere with some videos that the AICPA didn’t think were very nice. H&R Block CEO Bill Cobb responded with, “Sorry, not sorry,” and we didn’t hear anything more of it. Since then the tax prep chain has been threatened by Donald Trump and snagged Jon Hamm as a pitchman. But now, here in 2017, it’s really pulling out the big guns.

IBM is partnering with H&R Block to make Watson a part of the tax filing process at locations across the US starting on February 6th. After you participate in an initial interview, the artificial intelligence will offer suggestions to Tax Pros (read: experts) looking for deductions, and illustrate the bigger picture for you on a dedicated client screen. Ideally, Watson’s ability to understand context and intent will turn your statements into tangible data that leads to bigger tax breaks.

Although most CPAs don’t compete H&R Block now, there’s no telling how good Watson will get a preparing tax returns. Even if he’s not so good at first, it’ll never complain about long hours during tax season or how crappy the coffee is. Meanwhile, Watson will keep getting better knowing the tax law, start appearing with Jon Hamm in ad spots, mocking CPAs, and that will be all she wrote. You just can’t compete with that kind of moxie.

Layoffs

This is a bummer. The Albany Times Union reports that General Electric will lay off 75 people in its corporate tax office.

GE notified the state Department of Labor on Wednesday that it was closing its tax office at Corporate Woods in Albany, resulting in 75 jobs being eliminated. Those “layoffs” are really part of the deal with PwC, and will take place between March and May when GE’s deal with PwC takes effect.

The story also notes that GE has said that the majority of people working in the tax office will join PwC.

Accountants behaving badly

Lots of accountants who break law do so with nothing more than their own lifestyle in mind. They want fancy cars, homes, vacations and the like to make themselves feel better. Or, they just have a crippling gambling addiction.

So it’s interesting to read about an accountant who was involved with corrupting a local government official. The Washington Post reports that Felix Nelson Ayala of Rockville, Maryland has been charged with bribing a Prince George’s County Council member. Ayala bribed former council member William Campos in exchange for funding of Ayala’s nonprofit by virtue of a discretionary fund. Pretty simple, but the best part, of course, is when Ayala was brought in for questioning:

The accountant initially denied providing Campos with “anything of value” in exchange for the funding his organization received.

Agents then showed Ayala photographs of himself handing Campos envelopes containing a cashier’s check in one instance and cash in another.

He identified himself as the man in the images, the affidavit said.

Essentially, a Scott London moment. That has to feel awful.

Previously, on Going Concern…

Greg Kyte’s Exposure Drafts cartoon addresses tax preparer licensing. Adrienne Gonzalez wrote about drones.

In other news:

• KPMG Portland and Deloitte DC have new managing partners.
• Snap’s Chief Taps Into the ‘Right Now’
• Facebook ordered to pay $500 million in lawsuit against Oculus VR
• If Your Team Agrees on Everything, Working Together Is Pointless
• Happy Groundhog Day.

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Image: Wikimedia Commons

The post Accounting News Roundup: Tax Prep With Watson, GE Layoffs and Bribes | 02.02.17 appeared first on Going Concern.

Technology

Maybe it’s just me, but I get the sense that the accounting profession is thin-skinned about its future. Any criticism of CPAs, how they conduct business, and their ability to adapt to the changing world is met with a defensive response akin to, “WE GET TECHNOLOGY. WE ARE WITH IT.” For example, AICPA President, CEO and part-time haberdasher Barry Melancon felt the need to call out Mark Cuban for saying that he wouldn’t want to be an accountant right now:

Melancon disagreed with billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, star of the TV show “Shark Tank” and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, who predicted that accountants might become obsolete. Cuban recently told CNBC, “I would not want to be a CPA right now. I would not want to be an accountant right now. I would rather be a philosophy major.”

Melancon disputed Cuban’s argument that advances in technology mean accounting isn’t a profession for the future. “I would argue that’s a very superficial comment,” he said. “That’s a comment from a person who really doesn’t understand what the profession is about and how we have been actually moving to the higher cognitive skills in management accounting, public accounting—however you want to define it, in advisory, auditing or accounting—for some time now. We are also embracing those changes.”

Isn’t the best way to respond to Mark Cuban is to actually get on Shark Tank and demonstrate your underappreciated technology chops so he’ll invest in your harebrained idea? Telling a room full of CPAs that Cuban doesn’t know what he’s talking about kinda falls flat, especially when something like this happens:

Melancon had mixed success in demonstrating how Amazon’s Alexa bot technology could be used by accountants. He tried to demonstrate Alexa’s translation skills, asking Alexa to say, “Welcome to this meeting in Washington, D.C.,” in Mandarin Chinese. However, Alexa replied, “Sorry, I’m having trouble accessing your translating skill now.”

To be fair, even getting Alexa to play decent music can be a challenge sometimes.

Elsewhere in let’s-all-become-philosophers news: Automation and the end of accounting

Kamp KPMG

Yesterday’s groundbreaking for KPMG’s monstrous new training center was big news in Central Florida, including one report that said it will include “A KPMG museum that will showcase KPMG’s heritage, values and purpose-led culture.”

Are accounting firm museums a thing?  If so, what kind of artifacts do they have? Will it contain Peat’s abacus? I’m sure there will be an adding machine or two. I envision the first spreadsheet encased in bulletproof glass, roped off, sorta like the Mona Lisa. Do you think they’ll be able to get a hold of Scott London’s ticket stubs to that Springsteen concert? Will it be open to the public? I have so many questions.

Previously, on Going Concern…

I also contributed to the glut of news on KPMG’s new ginormous training center, where future visitors will be reminded not to mishandle leaked info from the PCAOB. In Open Items, a high school student asks about an EY internship.

In other news:

• CEOs Want Their Offices Back
• Proof! CEOs hurt companies by golfing too much
• U.S. Consulting Spending Tops $58 billion in 2016
• Why Warren Buffett Took Out an Ad on the Same Page as One for a Strip Club
• Sorry, you can’t protest security screening by getting naked for the TSA

Get the Accounting News Roundup in your inbox every weekday by signing up here.

The post Accounting News Roundup: Embracing Technology and A KPMG Museum | 05.23.17 appeared first on Going Concern.

Businessman telling businesswoman about how he’ll be working late, but not as late as her, and not be judged for it.

Convenience tests

This Bloomberg BNA article discusses the strange but very real issue for workers who work from home but also work in an office…that’s in a different state. New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Nebraska all have what’s called a “convenience versus necessity test” and it sounds pretty inconvenient:

Under a convenience versus necessity test, the state where the employer is located taxes the employee on all income earned from the employer when the out-of-state work is performed for the employee’s convenience, rather than out of necessity to the employer. This includes even income earned while telecommuting outside of the state. This circumstance can ultimately lead to double taxation for some telecommuting taxpayers.

And if you think that you can claim necessity just because, New York says NOPE:

[T]he home office must contain, or be near, specialized facilities that cannot be made available at the employer’s workplace. If this is not the case, the taxpayer must demonstrate that seven out of 16 specialized factors are met in order to qualify.

I think most people — accountants, certainly — would suffer through a soul-crushing commute to avoid double taxation. But maybe I’m wrong about that.

Insider trading

Insider trading isn’t always directly relevant to our content here at Going Concern, but when it is, it does not disappoint. Anyway, this litigation release issued by the SEC yesterday is too good not to share:

The SEC’s complaint, filed on May 31, 2016, alleged that Steven V. McClatchey, an investment banker, had regular access to highly confidential nonpublic information about impending transactions being pursued for investment bank clients. From 2014 to 2015, McClatchey allegedly abused his fiduciary duty and tipped this confidential nonpublic information to his close friend Gary J. Pusey. Pusey then allegedly used the information to trade in advance of ten mergers and acquisitions deals, generating approximately $76,000 in illegal profits. In return, Pusey, who worked as a plumber, allegedly gave McClatchey a few thousand dollars in cash and also renovated a bathroom in McClatchey’s home.

Look, I’m not suggesting that any of you should share material, non-public information with a contractor in exchange for a new bathroom. But if you did, most people wouldn’t blame you.

Accountants behaving badly

Accountants who behave badly usually do so intentionally. The accountant is either living beyond their means or has a gambling problem or is greedy or whatever. For the first time that I can remember, I came across a story that involves an accountant behaving badly unintentionally, without even knowing she was running afoul of the law:

When Tammy Duryea checked her mail at her Bluffton home last Saturday, she found a letter asking that a speeding ticket older than her nearly 19-year-old marriage be paid to the Hilton Head Magistrate Court.

“I’m planning to contest this,” Duryea said on Friday. “It’s only $55, but it’s just the principle of the thing. First of all, I don’t think I would ever have a ticket and not have paid for it. I’m an accountant by trade. I’m not delinquent with my bills. And do you know how many times I’ve renewed my driver’s license? They would have said I owed this or had a warrant out.”

An accountant would say “I’m not delinquent with my bills,” though, wouldn’t she? It seems like the perfect excuse for avoiding a speeding ticket for 24 years.

Previously, on Going Concern…

We kicked off a new series of videos featuring CPA review legend Tim Gearty talking about the new revenue recognition rules. In Open Items, someone wants to know if they need to re-take their ethics exam.

In other news:

• How Disney Wants to Take On Netflix With Its Own Streaming Services
• Anthony Scaramucci is the least powerful person in the world.
• 2nd time unpaid taxes have come back to bite SF’s gated enclave
• “They do appear to be trying to circumvent the SEC’s wishes. It’s quite interesting that they would be willing to do this.”
• Working long hours harms women but protects men, study shows

The post Accounting News Roundup: Convenience vs. Necessity Tests and Free Bathroom Renovations | 08.09.17 appeared first on Going Concern.

White House Turf Battle Threatens to Delay Tax Law Rollout [NYT]
Last week, we mentioned the dance off between Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, and this NYT story reports the latest details. Mulvaney believes “the I.R.S. should be subject to greater accountability,” and that OMB should be the hall monitor. However, adding another level of red tape — “which Mr. Trump famously hates in other areas of regulation” — could slow things down even further, much to the chagrin of businesses and accountants eager for some explanations on the trickier aspects of the new tax law.

Longfin Collapse Puts Focus on Lax IPO Rules [WSJ]
The fintech company listed under the JOBS Act’s Reg A+, allowing it avoid certain “accounting and disclosure standards for conventional IPOs.” Its stock price fell 30 percent yesterday, the day after it disclosed that it was under SEC investigation and “reported material weaknesses in financial controls.”

Accounting watchdog eyes ‘front-to-back’ audit of annual reports [FT]
The U.K.’s Financial Reporting Council “is considering expanding auditors’ responsibilities by requiring them to examine the entirety of companies’ annual reports and accounts” which would include “strategic reports, director reports and corporate governance statements.”

WPP Is Looking at CEO Martin Sorrell’s Possible Misuse of Assets and Allegations of Improper Behavior​ [WSJ]
A spokesman for the mega agency “said the amounts involved weren’t material to the company.”

These 2 accountants ditched their City careers to teach arts and crafts instead [BI]
Diana Muendo and Sam Lehane left EY and KPMG to create M.Y.O. (Make Your Own), a studio that teaches ceramic painting, pottery, and calligraphy.

Previously, on Going Concern…

Our partner, Gleim CPA Review, covered the new CPA Exam renovation that went live on April 1st.

I told everyone to leave Scott Foster, the accountant-turned-Chicago-Blackhawks-folk-hero goalie, alone. He has accounting to do.

Megan Lewczyk wrote about some of the new features in Excel 2019.

In Open Items, someone’s missing the inflation adjustment in starting salaries at Deloitte.

From the archives: Busy Season Problems: Auditing During a Tornado; See also: Selling Pot Out of Your Tax Prep Business Named ‘420 Multi Services’ Will Only Fool People for So Long

In other news:

• Cheaper bacon and pricier gadgets — how a trade war with China would impact you
• Paul Gillis has a cameo in The China Hustle.
• Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will testify before Congress next week
• The NYSE put out the Swiss flag for Spotify’s debut. The company is Swedish.
• Yelling ‘Dilly Dilly!’ Will Get You Kicked Out of The Masters

Get the Accounting News Roundup in your inbox every weekday by signing up here.

See something we missed? Have a tip, correction, comment, or complaint? Email us at editor@goingconcern.com.

The post Accounting News Roundup: Red Tape, Easy IPOs and Creative Accountants | 04.04.18 appeared first on Going Concern.

The trick to fraud is maintaining control. If you’re siphoning company funds into a bank account that you own through a dummy vendor, it’s key that you’re the person who approves those transactions and it’s even ideal if you can literally or figuratively cut the check. Yes, those are atrocious internal controls, but as we’ve documented on this site many, many times, lots of businesses have atrocious internal controls. Also, it helps if management is clueless.

Anyway, if you’re a business owner or manager and you have the slightest inkling that something untoward is going on in your accounting department, try this: Promote your prime suspect and reassign all their responsibilities to someone else.

This story from the Deseret News reports on the allegations against Daniel Scott Richardson, who is accused of swiping more than $1 million from his former employer, Pegus Research Inc., and includes how the jig was upped:

From about April 2013 through December 2016, prosecutors say Richardson made “180 unauthorized transactions totaling just under $1.3 million.”

Some of the items Richardson purchased using his company’s money included a Hawaiian vacation; two Lincoln SUVs for more than $50,000; hotel stays; groceries; tens of thousands of dollars of airline tickets from Delta, including trips to London, Amsterdam and Australia; European hotel stays; $10,000 at Pottery Barn; and thousands of dollars of purchases from Apple and Amazon, the charges state.

The fraud was discovered by the person who took Richardson’s position after Richardson was promoted to senior accountant, according to the charges. He was fired on Dec. 5, 2016.

What’s not clear is if Pegus thought Richardson was doing a great job or if they got wind of his globetrotting or his spending sprees at Pottery Barn and wanted to flush out their suspicions. If it’s the latter, then good for them. If it’s the former, well, then catching a fraudster by dumb luck works too.

[Deseret News]

Image: iStock/AntonioGuillem

The post Suspect Someone of Fraud? Give Them a Promotion appeared first on Going Concern.

I find it fitting that one of my last posts as editor would be about career-limiting moves. When I started Going Concern, many people probably thought that I was making a big mistake; that writing critical things about Big 4 firms and airing their dirty laundry would be a severe detriment to my future employability. To a certain extent, I suppose those people are right; it’s highly unlikely that I’ll be working at a Big 4 firm or any accounting firm anytime soon. But that’s okay, I’ve left that possibility behind.

However, if you’re making a go of an accounting career, specifically as an auditor of public companies, there seem to be pitfalls all around you. It’s strange, though, because these pitfalls should be pretty easy to avoid. A few rules of thumb:

• Don’t share material, non-public information with outsiders;
• Don’t use confidential PCAOB information to help you plan for inspections;
• Don’t have intimate relationships with clients;
• Don’t audit when you’re not supposed to be auditing; and
• For the love of God, don’t improperly alter audit workpapers.

I mention that last one because the PCAOB issued a couple of disciplinary orders last week where auditors obviously couldn’t help themselves and went ahead and improperly changed audit workpapers. In each case, the person who did the improper altering was fired.

This is unfortunate because getting fired is not fun, but it’s especially unfortunate because it’s entirely avoidable! Here’s the order against Adam Sanderson, formerly of Deloitte UK:

Come on, man. Don’t do that!

Likewise, don’t do what Elliot Kim, formerly of KPMG, did:

Oh. Oh, no.

To make matters only slightly worse, “Kim did not correct Senior Manager B or otherwise disclose that the screenshot was inaccurate,” when PCAOB inspectors asked about it. The firm found out later that that was the case, and they fired Kim.

Both of these guys succumbed to the temptation to try to fix an error. But why? The PCAOB has already explained that not doing something is probably better than doing something:

The consequences of providing improperly altered audit documentation to PCAOB inspectors or investigators may in many cases be far more severe than would be the consequences of the PCAOB staff identifying the audit deficiency that the revisions to the documentation attempt to obscure.

I suppose it’s possible that in each of these instances, the impropriety may not have been discovered, the inspection result would have been slightly worse, and Sanderson and Kim would not have been fired. But why take the risk? It seems to be way less risky to accept the fact that a mistake in documentation was made, let the PCAOB discover it, add it to their list of infractions, and keep your job. Similarly, if they felt pressure from their superiors, it seems like any repercussions wouldn’t be as serious as getting fired. Sure, it might result in a lousy performance review, but chances are you were going to get a lousy performance review anyway.

Image: iStock/marchmeena29

The post Reminder: If You Improperly Alter Audit Workpapers and Are Found Out, You Will Be Fired appeared first on Going Concern.

This Accounting Today article on the perks KPMG is offering to its 30,000 U.S. employees this summer got me thinking about the summer employee perks, or lack thereof, I’ve received during my career.

And I’m not just focusing on my last 19 years as a writer and/or editor. I’m going all the way back to my first job in high school working at Dairy Queen.

Sure, I was given a small employee discount when I worked at Sports Authority during summer breaks from college (and they still went out of business), and I currently get to work from home and can set my hours, as long as the work gets done—all very nice perks. But the best summer employee perk I’ve ever been given was when I worked at DQ: I got to bring home free ice cream at the end of every shift.

It could be anything, you guys: Butterfinger Blizzard made with chocolate soft serve, chocolate malt, hot fudge sundae, banana split, Peanut Buster Parfait—anything. And this made barely making minimum wage tolerable.

And sometimes I could bring home a free bag of assorted Dilly Bars for my family, which made me very popular on muggy, hot summer days/evenings.

But KPMG is pulling out all the stops for its employees this summer, according to AT:

Among the rewards the Big Four firm is offering staff are $500 gift cards, a barbecue package from Omaha Steaks, summer office parties, and the opportunity to leave at 3:00 p.m. on Fridays from Memorial Day until Labor Day.

The article doesn’t say what type of gift card employees receive through KPMG’s Encore recognition program, but could you image if it was a $500 Amazon gift card? Think of all the funny graphic T-shirts you could buy, like this one:

That’s what I would do.

And the Omaha Steaks barbecue package is probably nothing to sneeze at, after looking at the prices of all the different BBQ packages the business promotes on its website.

Margaret Teegan, a managing director in KPMG’s human resources department, told AT that employees can order the Omaha Steaks package anytime from Memorial Day to Labor Day, and they can ship the box of meats and seasonings to anywhere they want.

“It’s really designed around celebrating with their families and friends,” said Teegan. “We look at our people as more than just who they come to work with. We recognize it takes their families and friends to help them be successful, so our gifts are always designed around something that can be shared.”

It seems that KPMG has been offering gifts to its employees for the past 15 years. The summertime gift-giving started about 10 years ago, and the firm continues its year-end holiday gift program. Last summer, KPMG gave its employees an ice cream package, including toppings to make sundaes, which Teegan said “was a very big hit.” (See, everyone loves free ice cream.)

Adrienne called BS on this quote from Teegan, but I thought it was touching:

“We get hundreds of thank-you notes throughout the year thanking KPMG for the gifts. Sometimes we get them from the children of our employees. Little children will say, ‘My mom works at the best place in the world.’ Just based on the feedback that we get from people and the gratitude and thanks, I would say it definitely is a very big morale booster, which is why the firm has continued to invest in this for so many years.”

How in the world could Scott London or those five now-former KPMG executives who are caught up in the whole PCAOB inspection leak scandal jeopardize receiving all of these perks? Was getting jailed for a year for insider trading or illegally helping your firm improve its audit inspection results (allegedly!) worth not getting a $500 gift card or free ice cream?

And I bet you there isn’t a day that goes by that Caleb doesn’t regret giving up a promising career at KPMG to start this dumb website. He could have gotten a package of delicious meats from Omaha Steaks.

So, now that the comment section is back open, let’s hear ’em. What are the best summer employee perks that you’ve received during your accounting career? If you want to include a perk or two from an odd summer job, that’s fine, too.

The Accounting News Roundup newsletter is back! Every Friday you’ll get a recap of recent content posted on Going Concern, On This Date in Going Concern History, list of hot remote and hybrid accounting jobs, and more. Sign up here today.

The post Do KPMG’s Summer Employee Perks Put All Other Summer Employee Perks to Shame? appeared first on Going Concern.

You can add Daniel Senn to the list of current and not-so-current KPMG employees and representatives, such as Scott London, Andrei Postrado, Thomas Avent, and Phil Mickelson (but not his KPMG hat), who have either been accused of, or found guilty of, insider trading.

Senn, a Klynveldian auditor from 2007 to 2013, was convicted of insider trading by Switzerland’s top criminal court over trades he made in 2011 on an undisclosed takeover bid, according to a Bloomberg report.

Senn was the lead auditor of Julius Baer, the third-largest wealth manager in Switzerland, and he reportedly had “direct knowledge of confidential information” relating to Julius Baer’s plans to take over a small rival bank in 2011, which according to published reports was private Swiss bank Sarasin.

According to Finews.com, Senn was at a Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority meeting in September 2011 when the planned takeover was discussed.

Finews.com reported:

After the Finma meeting Senn bought 2,000 Sarasin shares for 50,000 Swiss francs ($49,900), and shortly afterwards increased his stake, with the shares then being booked onto an account held by his children.

In October the takeover discussions were revealed and the Sarasin shares jumped 15 percent, giving Senn a profit of 30,000 francs. Julius Baer didn’t eventually do a deal with Sarasin, which was taken over by [Brazilian-Swiss private bank] Safra.

He was indicted on insider trading charges in July.

Senn was fined 5,000 Swiss francs ($5,050) and faces a further penalty of 68,800 francs if he breaks the terms of his two-year probation, according to Bloomberg. He also must give back the 29,073 francs in profits to the Swiss government and pay 13,192 francs in court costs.

The Accounting News Roundup newsletter is back! Every Friday you’ll get a recap of recent content posted on Going Concern, On This Date in Going Concern History, list of hot remote and hybrid accounting jobs, and more. Sign up here today.

Image: Flickr/rjoygamesport

The post Another Former KPMG Employee Gets Into Trouble for Insider Trading appeared first on Going Concern.

As you guys know, the editorial team at Going Concern has no shortage of opinions. But this year, we wanted to do something a little different. We wanted to hear from professionals who we consider to be influencers in the accounting profession. Or maybe we’re a fan of their contributions to the industry, or maybe we admire their gusto. Whatever the reason, we value their thoughts and wanted to share them with you.

We asked them to look both behind and forward by answering two simple questions. We wanted their honest opinions. Here’s what they told us:

Jim Bourke

What has been the most difficult and/or rewarding thing to happen in your professional career in 2018?

The most difficult thing also happened to be the most rewarding. So far this year (and I have more flights still to come before the end of the year), I have had “butt in seat miles” of over 390,000. If you fly around the world (at the equator) that will get you 24,901 miles. So that means that I flew around the world about 15 ½ times. I don’t even want to share how many days I spent in metal tubes.

For all those who travel in connection with this profession, you know it can be a living hell! Time away from home and family, dealing with weather delays, dealing with irate passengers, dealing with frustrated flight attendants and crews, and the list goes on, not to mention servicing our clients while doing all of this, is really super difficult, but at the same time super rewarding. It’s rewarding because I get to meet so many interesting people, experience interesting cultures, and listen to so many cool stories about how they are all dealing with global technology challenges—and that’s my thing. I love preaching about technology and how it rules our world. Technology brings the world together and that resonates no matter where I go. Unlike tax and audit, technology is the same language around the globe.

This photo was from a technology conference that I presented at in Amman, Jordan a few months ago. The people pictured may all look different on the outside, but on the inside, we are all the same and we all have a genuine passion for the same profession!

Will robots take over the accounting profession in 2019? Yes or no?

No, although they could probably do a better job than some of the people that we know!

Jim Bourke, CPA.CITP.CFF.CGMA, is managing director of advisory services at Withum. You can follow Jim on Twitter @JimBourke.

Tom Hood

What has been the most difficult and/or rewarding thing to happen in your professional career in 2018?

Most difficult was learning to ride the lime scooter for our holiday video.

Most rewarding was getting “traction” with the implementation of the MACPA-BLI Strategic Plan with our resident implementer, Bill Sheridan. He has taught us how to increase accountability and velocity of our strategy across our whole organization using the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS).

Will robots take over the accounting profession in 2019? Yes or no?

Absolutely YES! What I mean by that is we will finally be liberated from being relegated to bookkeepers moving numbers from one application to another. The bots and machines (artificial intelligence) are actually here for small practices and small businesses, and if used properly can allow you to move into those higher and more valuable opportunities. Think of it as new superpowers available to all of us!

Tom Hood, CPA, CITP, CGMA, is CEO of the Maryland Association of CPAs and the Business Learning Institute. You can follow Tom on Twitter @tomhood.

Chris Hooper

What has been the most difficult and/or rewarding thing to happen in your professional career in 2018?

I recently became a father, so trying to manage the competing demands of work and home was definitely a challenge.

The most rewarding thing was probably the continued expansion of Accodex internationally. I’ve racked up plenty of frequent flyer miles.

Will robots take over the accounting profession in 2019? Yes or no?

Not in 2019. Ask again next year.

Chris Hooper is CEO of Accodex. You can follow Chris on Twitter @ChrisHooper87.

Elizabeth Pittelkow Kittner

What has been the most difficult and/or rewarding thing to happen in your professional career in 2018?

The most difficult and rewarding part of my professional career in 2018 has been working as the controller for a full year at a new company. I have learned new systems, led a new team, and worked on new projects. Our company is the result of several acquisitions over recent years, so we have integrated our financials, processes, and cultures. It has been exciting to contribute to molding our path for success.

Will robots take over the accounting profession in 2019? Yes or no?

No, robots will not take over the accounting profession in 2019. We will see an increase in the usage of artificial intelligence and machine learning, and we will still need accountants to review the integrity of data inputs and make decisions based on data outputs.

Elizabeth Pittelkow Kittner, CPA, CITP, CGMA, is controller at Litera Microsystems. You can follow Elizabeth on Twitter @Pittelkow or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Greg Kyte

What has been the most difficult and/or rewarding thing to happen in your professional career in 2018?

The most difficult thing to happen to my career in 2018 was fucking up my own taxes. I forgot to submit a new W-4 for myself in 2017, resulting in a massive tax liability in 2018.

The most rewarding thing to happen in my professional career in 2018 was averaging eight-hour workdays because I don’t work in public accounting.

Will robots take over the accounting profession in 2019? Yes or no?

Robots will not take over the accounting profession in 2019. I mean, they won’t take over my job. They will take over lots of jobs. But it will be gradual. Like boiling a frog. I’m also not going to boil a frog in 2019.

Greg Kyte, CPA, is founder of Comedy CPE and cartoonist for this dumb website. You can follow Greg on Twitter @gregkyte.

Mike McGuire

What has been the most difficult and/or rewarding thing to happen in your professional career in 2018?

The most rewarding part of my year was working with my colleagues here at Grant Thornton to launch our enterprise-wide “ideation platform.” Now, we can better collaborate and solve challenges—and that’s the very definition of rewarding.

Will robots take over the accounting profession in 2019? Yes or no?

Robots won’t take over, but they may make the mundane and repetitive work go away—allowing us to use our thinking skills to solve challenging business problems. My Grant Thornton colleague, JT Kostman, likes to say that robotics is about giving technology the ability to learn from humans so we can be even more creative and innovative with technology. In other words, robots will depend on us as much as we depend on them. They’re here to stay—and so are we.

Mike McGuire is CEO of Grant Thornton LLP. You can follow Mike on Twitter @mikemcguireCLT.

Francine McKenna

What has been the most difficult and/or rewarding thing to happen in your professional career in 2018?

The most difficult think to watch professionally this year was news of the indictments of the KPMG partners for the alleged theft of inspection data from the PCAOB. I am a KPMG Consulting and BearingPoint alum and this is the third strike for KPMG leadership in the last 15 years: KPMG tax fraud in 2005 and deferred prosecution agreement, Scott London insider trading case, and now this.

The most rewarding thing for me has been all the speaking engagements at MAcc programs this year. It gives me a chance to talk to students about the profession face to face, explain these stories that no one from the firms talks to them about, and answer questions, as well as lend my support as they embark on their careers in the Big 4. In 2018 I visited Ohio State University twice, Marquette University, Texas A&M University via Skype, Loyola Marymount University, and had Baylor University visit the Wall Street Journal newsroom in Washington, DC.

Will robots take over the accounting profession in 2019? Yes or no?

No. If robots took over, they would be able to do 100% sampling, and then the Big 4 would have no excuse to say that the audit was not designed to detect fraud. The firms will never let that happen. What would partners do if they couldn’t give clients an out via “judgment and discretion?” Since a judge told PwC that it was the auditors’ duty to design and perform an audit to detect fraud and handed down the biggest legal judgment ever against a firm after a bench trial for the Colonial Bank fraud this year—$625 million—I think we may see that argument less and less anyway.

Francine McKenna is a reporter for MarketWatch and the founder and managing editor of re: The Auditors. You can follow Francine on Twitter @retheauditors.

Caleb Newquist

What has been the most difficult and/or rewarding thing to happen in your professional career in 2018?

At the risk of sounding obnoxious, one thing I found especially difficult this year was ceding creative control over my work. Don’t misunderstand, it’s not entirely a bad thing, and I still wield a large degree of control of what I’m working on and what I write. Before I left Going Concern, I basically did what I wanted, when I wanted, answering only to an audience of accountants who, to a large extent, understood where I was coming from.

Nowadays, I have a lot of non-accountants giving me feedback on my work and ideas about what they’d like me to do, including some stuff that isn’t writing about accounting. This is all happening within the confines of a growing business, so I no longer have the luxury of writing open letters to lazy taxpayers or bad poetry for auditors. Again, not in and of itself a bad thing, just something I had gotten used to not having to consider.

But listening to what other people think, including non-accountants, has forced me to approach work in a new way, and that’s forced me to … ugh … grow as a person and as a professional. I have to admit, that’s pretty rewarding! Sure, I don’t get to mock Big 4 firms or awful accountants on a daily basis, but I’m fine with that.

Also, I have a lot of meetings in my schedule after taking nearly a decade off from them. I’d be lying if I said that didn’t take some getting used to.

Will robots take over the accounting profession in 2019? Yes or no?

No, accountants will be fine, if only because a Butlerian Jihad is underway that will save the profession. I’m not saying the AICPA, IMA, et al. will be the ones to go guerrilla on the machines; no, the accountants will simply be unwitting beneficiaries of an anti-technological movement carried out by groups that are far more daring. A re-emboldened segment of accountants will cheer the return to hand-prepared tax returns, ledgers, and timesheets while the robots are led away in chains to their destruction. A dark age for technology, sure, but the redawn of a gilded age in accounting.

Caleb Newquist is the editor-at-large at Gusto and the founding editor of Going Concern. You can follow Caleb on Twitter @cnewquist.

Blake Oliver

What has been the most difficult and/or rewarding thing to happen in your professional career in 2018?

I finally got my CPA! As an accountant on the tech side, I managed to get away without having it for a long time. I ran my own small firm and made it to manager at a large firm not being a CPA. Plenty of people told me I shouldn’t even bother, especially since I left public to go work at FloQast. But I’m really glad I did. Despite all the doom and gloom from plenty of people in the profession about the declining value of the CPA, I’ve definitely felt my credibility rise in the community since adding CPA to the end of my name on LinkedIn. And I learned a lot along the way that’s been helpful to my career, even though I’ll never do tax or audit myself. If you’re already part of the way there, my advice is to push through to the end. It’s worth it.

Will robots take over the accounting profession in 2019? Yes or no?

No. We aren’t making enough new CPAs to replace the boomers who are retiring, which is good news for the rest of us. Even with the growth of automation, a recent report projects 140,300 new accounting jobs by 2026. In fact, accountants and auditors are No. 10 on their list of jobs projected to grow most. The only other white-collar professions ahead of us on the list are software engineer and operations manager. Now, that doesn’t mean our jobs won’t be disrupted; we’ll likely have to learn new skills to adapt. But those of us who can master tools like cloud ERP and close management software will have excellent career prospects.

Blake Oliver, CPA, is senior product marketing manager at FloQast. You can follow Blake on Twitter @BlakeTOliver.

Jody Padar

What has been the most difficult and/or rewarding thing to happen in your professional career in 2018?

My husband just turned 50, and I’m not that far behind. Between my hot flashes, my daughter leaving for college, and my cloud accounting firm New Vision CPA Group becoming a teenager, it seemed that I needed to do something new and exciting with my life. So, I joined an accounting artificial intelligence-focused tech startup, Botkeeper, funded by Google. Now, I work for a 30-year-old!  

OMG. I never saw that coming. Hello, midlife crisis? Or the next radical step in my journey to make a difference in the CPA profession.

How did this happen? Well, actually, I asked! Yes, I asked. When there’s something that intrigues you and you know you have the skills to do the job, step up to the plate and ask. That’s something I would have never had the confidence to do when I left my old-school firm almost 13 years ago. If there is one thing you learn as an entrepreneur and in building a business it is that nothing happens if you don’t ask.

When I saw the opportunity to build something new and utilize what I do best, I couldn’t resist. I am an accounting ambassador and bot advisor. Perfect role for me, right?!

What’s it like to work at a young tech startup? Fun! Exciting! Fast! Sometimes overwhelming! I feel like a “mentern”—part mentor and part intern—all at the same time. And I refuse to stay at the shared Airbnb—like the “Real World” house—when they travel to conferences. For sure, that reference carbon dated me!

What’s it like to work for a leader, a millennial, who could be my son? Awesome! Refreshing! I’ve spent the last decade fighting old-school baby-boomer partners and trying to get them to embrace the cloud and other new technologies.

However, those partners’ business model and retirement plans have locked them into broken firm models that are slowly dying, and it’s getting faster by the season. My career was spent looking up to and learning from older CPAs who were so busy that they couldn’t see the world around them changing. But the market has significantly changed, and now the old-school firm owners are hungry for tech out of fear they will be left behind.

Now, I can follow someone who sees the future as I do and isn’t stuck in “that’s the way we did it last year.” A leader who has skills built for the future. I can be a supportive leader utilizing my best legacy skills and learning new ones. Do you see why I’m so excited?

Watch out, 2019, it going to be radical!

Will robots take over the accounting profession in 2019? Yes or no?

Absolutely they will. Quite frankly, they are already here. But you still need humans, too. It’s not all or nothing. Our firm of three people is utilizing them today!

But what’s a bot? As I’ve learned in my short time in technology, most accountants don’t know. They think they know, but they don’t. Basically, it’s an algorithm or a line of code, not a robot. You can copy and paste the code, so they multiply indefinitely to fill the talent shortage. Some of my bots have been smarter than my new hires.

Machine learning and AI is way harder to understand than that. The really cool part is you, as a CPA, don’t need to understand all of the details. All you need to know is that you want the bot “sitting in the cube next to you” doing some repetitive task with data. Then the technology folks take it from there. Finally, we can have time to do the work we really want to and be better advisors for our customers. Or, really, just go home early!

Jody Padar, CPA, MST, is CEO and principal at New Vision CPA Group and the author of The Radical CPA and From Success to Significance: The Radical CPA Guide. She is now the accounting ambassador and bot advisor at Botkeeper. You can follow Jody on Twitter @jodypadarcpa.

Kristen Rampe

What has been the most difficult and/or rewarding thing to happen in your professional career in 2018?

The most rewarding thing that’s happened this year is that I found a way to link my love for improv with my love for professional development. It started with stepping out of my own comfort zone to facilitate a program for a networking event early in 2018. Since then, I’ve been honored to help over 250 professionals dip their toes into improv. We laugh, we learn, we make shit up. It’s great.

Will robots take over the accounting profession in 2019? Yes or no?

Yes, and they will all look like the stick figures in Greg Kyte’s cartoons.

Kristen Rampe is the owner of Kristen Rampe Consulting, and creator and facilitator of Slide Deck Improv. You can follow Kristen on Twitter @KristenRampe or @slidedeckimprov.

Tim Ryan

What has been the most difficult and/or rewarding thing to happen in your professional career in 2018?

This year, the coalition that I co-founded, the CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion, reached over 500 signatory members. CEO Action is the largest-ever CEO-led initiative to advance diversity and inclusion in the workplace, and we recognize that in order to drive real change, we must create opportunities for CEOs and the workforce (current employees and the future workforce of students) to collectively create and participate in diverse and inclusive environments. As a co-founder, I raise the issue of diversity and inclusion in nearly every meeting that I have, and growing our signatory base has taken a tremendous amount of effort but is also incredibly rewarding when I think about what we can accomplish working together.

Seeing the signatory number grow from 150 to over 500 in just one year shows that business leaders are understanding the urgency and critical importance of creating more diverse and inclusive workplaces, communicating with their employees in more meaningful ways, and taking their place as not just business leaders but also leaders in the community.

Will robots take over the accounting profession in 2019? Yes or no?

I hope not—who will I talk to all day? Although robots and artificial intelligence are a remarkably complex issue, they will not take over the accounting profession in 2019. Questions like these are something I hear often from our people—there is a real concern out there that technology will replace humans, and we as leaders need to help educate our people that we need both in order to be successful! Rather, robotics and AI will encourage a gradual evolution in the market that will allow us to augment humans’ role in business rather than restrict it. The partnership between man and machine will allow humans to do quicker, more efficient, and more brilliant work. Moreover, accounting work will have enhanced quality, consistency, and speediness, and accountants will be able to do more than ever before with available data.

All of this said, advancements to our industry brought about by robots and AI can only be harnessed to their fullest extent when we properly prepare our people to work with them. That is why at PwC we are upskilling all of our 55,000 U.S. employees through our PwC Digital Fitness App, which assesses each person’s digital fluency and provides them with on-demand training to help them learn skills in robotics, AI, machine learning, and other advanced technology. We’re also training thousands of our employees through a Digital Accelerators program, which gives select employees advanced digital and tech training so that they can become learning ambassadors with their colleagues and teach them their new tech-enabled skills.

Tim Ryan is U.S. chairman and senior partner of PwC. You can follow Tim on Twitter @Timothy_F_Ryan.

Bill Sheridan

What has been the most difficult and/or rewarding thing to happen in your professional career in 2018?

The most difficult thing to happen to me in 2018 was my loss of time. I don’t have any. It’s all accounted for. I can’t do anything new anymore, because my calendar is filled. I’d love to help you out, but … take a look at my calendar. I’ve got no time. And I’m not alone. Everyone feels that way. The fact is, we MAKE time for the stuff that’s important to us, so if I’m not doing it, what does that tell you?

The most rewarding thing to happen in 2018 was, in my expanding role as Entrepreneurial Operating System implementer and business coach, I’m helping more leaders take their organizations to the next level. That’s rewarding in a way I never expected, and it’s intoxicating. I want MORE of it. This idea of helping people? It’s amazing. When you see it work, you want more of it. You want to keep doing it. And that’s what I want in 2019—more success for more clients.

Will robots take over the accounting profession in 2019? Yes or no?

The short answer: Yes. The long answer: They’ll take over the mindless, tedious, number-crunching stuff that accountants have had to do for generations. We won’t have to do that stuff anymore. We’ll be able to focus on more value-added stuff, like helping our clients go beyond the numbers, and take their organizations to the next level because they can see the stories that the numbers are telling them. Robots won’t steal our jobs; they’ll free us up to do better work for our clients.

Bill Sheridan is chief communications officer and professional EOS implementer for the Maryland Association of CPAs and the Business Learning Institute. You can follow Bill on Twitter @BillSheridan.

Donny C. Shimamoto

What has been the most difficult and/or rewarding thing to happen in your professional career in 2018?

2018 started off as an extremely difficult year with a large client that didn’t follow our advice on a practice management system migration, to which we then had to go into full firefighting mode to help get the converted data reconciled and fill in the gap for missing functionality. This also was one of the most rewarding challenges because it confirmed my ability to address the human side of these types of challenges, in giving the managing partner peace of mind that we could help fix the situation and also in giving the controller for the firm hope that we could get her through this. It is these types of human aspects to projects that I find the most rewarding about my career.

Will robots take over the accounting profession in 2019? Yes or no?

No, robots will not take over the accounting profession. They may take over the bulk of the bookkeeping, accounting clerk, audit staff, and tax staff tasks, but that is a good thing because it will allow accountants to focus on where we add the most value, which is in the analysis of information and identifying the insights to help support better decision-making.

Donny C. Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, is founder and managing director of IntrapriseTechKnowlogies LLC. You can follow Donny on Twitter @donnyitk.  

Dr. Sean Stein Smith

What has been the most difficult and/or rewarding thing to happen in your professional career in 2018?

The most challenging thing I faced this year was also the most rewarding, and that was being able to discuss, present, and engage so much about emerging technologies with fellow practitioners. In 2018 I had the great opportunity to present over 20 times across the country discussing blockchain and other emerging technologies, but that also presented me with a challenge as to 1) making sure I was keeping myself up on emerging trends in these areas, and 2) presenting and articulating these topics in a way that is understandable. That said, 2018 was an exciting time to be in the profession, with a lot of exciting debate and conversations going on, and 2019 is shaping up to be even better.

Will robots take over the accounting profession in 2019? Yes or no?

No, absolutely not. Will some tasks be augmented or automated with robots and other automation tools? Sure, but that will just open the door for proactive CPAs to engage in the strategic and advisory tasks that many have clamored to be doing for decades.

Dr. Sean Stein Smith, CPA, CMA, CGMA, CFE, is an assistant professor at Lehman College of City University of New York, and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Wall Street Blockchain Alliance. You can follow Sean on Twitter @SeanSteinSmith.

Ralph Albert Thomas

What has been the most difficult and/or rewarding thing to happen in your professional career in 2018?

The most rewarding thing to happen in 2018 was the progress that the NJCPA made as a thought leader in our state capitol. Three years ago, a member survey revealed support for being more active in Trenton, so the Society undertook an effort to leverage and capitalize on first-hand expertise of NJCPA members to shape policy issues that are important to CPAs and their clients. In 2018, we were active participants in supporting issues that we believe are good for business and the public interests. Two of our members proposed and helped draft legislation that will stimulate the New Jersey economy by saving Garden State business owners millions of dollars and promoting investment in startup companies.

Will robots take over the accounting profession in 2019? Yes or no?

Robots are NOT going to replace all humans in the accounting profession (at least not until the robot uprising). There will be changes in 2019, no doubt, but those changes won’t completely eliminate the need for human accountants; they will just alter their contributions. We’re still a long way from artificial intelligence providing the insight, interpretation, and explanation that a CPA can provide. You’re always going to need CPAs and accountants to interpret the information and present it to clients in a clear and concise format.

Rather than fear changes that AI will make to accounting tasks, it’s an opportunity for accounting professionals to be excited. The profession is going to become more interesting as repetitive tasks shift to machines. Not only will CPAs become more productive and proficient, but they will be able to handle more clients and deliver more value because they can determine actionable insight.

Ralph Albert Thomas, CPA, CGMA, is CEO and executive director of the New Jersey Society of CPAs. You can follow Ralph on Twitter @RalphAThomas.

Amy Vetter

What has been the most difficult and/or rewarding thing to happen in your professional career in 2018?

This year I went out on my own as a professional keynote speaker, corporate board member, and also developed The B3 Method Institute. It was definitely a scary decision to leave a corporate job that I enjoyed to start a business, not knowing how it would be received. I cannot begin to describe how grateful I am to this profession and how supportive people have been of my transition to speaking professionally. The outpouring of support was nothing I could have imagined when I made this decision. I have been so fortunate to speak all over the country this year, at accounting and financial professional conferences, as well as being invited to speak at firm retreats.

I have also launched online learning content to help people stay on this journey and implement real change into their lives, and now hold board positions to advise technology companies on their go-to-market strategies. Seeing people inspired to make a change in their personal or work lives, and hearing their stories they share with me, is so rewarding. It makes the work and effort that I put into my business all worth it, and I am excited to continue to grow the business in the coming year.

Will robots take over the accounting profession in 2019? Yes or no?

No. They are making their way into the profession, but we still have a long way to go. I do believe those that are figuring out how to implement it now in their workflow processes will get ahead of the pack and start setting a standard of what clients should expect. So, even if they won’t take over yet, it doesn’t mean not to make this a priority of learning more about these latest trends and how you can become more knowledgeable. Knowledge is power, and if you start becoming a subject-matter expert in something that not all people know about, you will find lots of opportunity for yourself in the future.

Amy Vetter, CPA.CITP, CGMA, is CEO of The B3 Method Institute. You can follow Amy on Twitter @AmyVetterCPA.

The post Some of Our Favorite Accounting People Put a Bow on 2018 and Talk Robots in 2019 appeared first on Going Concern.

In this age of pervasive unavoidable media, everyone has a platform, a handle, a persona, a BRAND. Or at least they want to. The reality is that no one gives a shit about your brand or your proprietary hashtag that is 50 million light-years away from trending.

It’s bleak to think about, but the truth is that the vast majority of us are wholly insignificant in the greater context of the universe. If you zoom in to our own, individual little worlds, then that significance increases, of course, but even if you are influential in your relative sphere, you’re still highly meh.

But who’s the mehest among us? Hard to say; it’s a tight race! If we keep things within the confines of the accounting world, however, I think we can at least get things down to a handful or so.

Auditors

Honestly, did anyone ever care about auditors? Why else do we have #auditorpride? It’s not as if auditors were shoved in the closet for the whole of human history and then, fed up with not being treated as human, burst onto the scene singing show tunes demanding respect. They’re here! They like bagels and schmear! GET USED TO IT.

And their effectiveness has more or less always been debatable! It shouldn’t take a massive company going bankrupt every five years to remind people of that fact.

Cloud experts

I wrote a cloud explainer for laggards recently, and you know what I learned—who cares if they’re behind the times? I feel like if some self-identified cloud guru was harping on the next big thing in accounting, I’d ignore their advice out of spite. Oh, the internet allows you to do things that weren’t possible before? KNOCK ME OVER WITH A FEATHER. We ended up with infinite free porn and a bullhorn for authoritarians disguised as a cute bird. I’ll get on the cloud when I damn well please.

Deloitte

Seriously. Get over yourselves.

EY’s HR department

I have to believe that someone in EY’s HR department has muttered to themselves, “Well, at least Harvey Weinstein isn’t a partner.”

The 10% of controllers who’ve just resigned themselves to committing fraud

From a survey: “Among the 64 percent who said they have felt pressure to misrepresent their company’s performance, 10 percent reported this is a regular part of their job.”

Yep! There’s a not insignificant number of controllers who’ve looked at their situation and decided, “To hell with it! No one even cares.”

KPMG’s head of tradecraft

If you’re following the trial of ex-KPMG partner David Middendorf, it’s pretty clear that this particular band of thieves were in way over their heads from the beginning. They really had no business trying to pull any of this off. (Allegedly!) Whoever’s job it is at KPMG to teach partners how to keep their cool when conducting shady business failed miserably. I wouldn’t put them in the category of accepting paper bags of cash from a golf buddy in a Starbucks parking lot, but they’re still a bunch of morons.

PwC’s Oscars team

I mean, obviously. And sure, things have gone off without a hitch the last couple of years, but: Guys! You’re just counting ballots, stuffing the results in envelopes, and handing them to celebrities. A team of gifted eighth graders could pull this off.

The robot that’s supposed to take Barry Melancon’s job

Adrienne has a hunch that AICPA President, CEO, and Cardi B fashion consultant Barry Melancon is the robot that is supposed to take Barry Melancon’s job. And if she’s right, then the future is going to be really dull if our sentient robot overlords are going to be old white dudes.

Caleb Newquist

Speaking of old white dudes, I’m becoming one! Not in the cultural sense, I’d like to think, but, rather, in the literal sense. I’m middle-aged! I’m white! I’m a man! I’m building a repertoire of Dad jokes. Virtually no one cares what I have to say about accounting. Which is fine! There’s enough white dudes in accounting telling people what to think.  

The post A List of Prominent Accounting Incompetence appeared first on Going Concern.

Whelp it’s that time of year again, the time when we recognize the efforts of an elite handful of CPA exam candidates whose performance on one of the toughest professional examinations out there ranks the best of the best. The AICPA handed out 110 Elijah Watt Sells Awards for 2018 last week, and as is tradition around these parts, we will recognize each and every one of them.

In order to qualify for the award, candidates must score at least a cumulative 95.50 across all four parts of the exam and pass each part on their first try. Additionally, 2018 award winners completed testing in that year.

Now, let’s get to recognizing, shall we? At the end, we’ll tally up the firm totals so we can hold a brief dick measuring contest, as is also tradition around these parts. TL;DR straight to the bottom if you’re looking for that.

Kelsey M. Alexander (Colorado), a graduate of University of Colorado Boulder with a BS in Business Administration and MS in Accounting, is employed with KPMG in Denver, Colorado.

Ruicheng Richard Bai (California), a graduate of University of California, Berkeley with a BS in Business Administration and a BA in Statistics, is employed with Deloitte Tax LLP in San Francisco, California.

Hayden C. Bauer (Kansas), a graduate of the University of Notre Dame with a BBA in Accountancy and a Master of Accountancy from the University of Arkansas is employed with KPMG in Chicago, Illinois.

Michelle Bauer (Washington), a graduate of University of Washington with a BABA in Accounting and Information Systems, is employed with Moss Adams LLP in Seattle, Washington.

Bridget J. Bauman (Texas), a graduate of Texas A&M University with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting & Business Honors and Master of Science in Accounting, is employed with Bray International, Inc., in Houston, Texas.

Alice M. Begovich (Virginia), a graduate of The University of Dayton with a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering and Master of Accountancy from The University of Tennessee is employed with Deloitte Tax LLP in McLean, Virginia.

Mary Kate Breese (Pennsylvania), a graduate of Grove City College with a BS in Accounting and in Finance is employed with Felix and Gloekler, P.C. in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Asher Brown (Oklahoma), a graduate of The University of Oklahoma with a BBA in Accounting and Masters of Accountancy is employed with Grant Thornton, LLP in Oklahoma City, OK.

Matthew Brooks (Texas), a graduate of Brigham Young University with a BA in French Studies and a MS in Accounting from The University of Texas at Dallas is employed with Deloitte Tax, LLP in Dallas, Texas.

John Browning (New York), a graduate of University of North Carolina at Asheville with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics in Economics; and Master of Science in Accountancy from Wake Forest University, is employed with KPMG in New York, NY.

Katherine Brunt (Texas), a graduate of Texas A&M University with a BBA in Accounting and Business Honors and a Masters of Financial Management is employed with EY, LLP in Dallas, Texas.

Emily Buzby (Florida), a graduate of the University of Florida with a BS in Accounting and MS in Accounting, is employed with KPMG in Jacksonville, Florida.

Guillermo Andrew Casay (Maryland), a graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park with a BS in Accounting and Finance is employed with the FDIC in Arlington, VA.

Joseph S. Cassata (Illinois), a graduate of DePaul University with a BSC in Accounting and Management, is employed with Wellen Capital in Chicago, IL.

Jamie Castor (Texas), a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin with a BS in Mathematics and Sports Management and an Advanced Technical Certificate in Accounting from Austin Community College, is employed with EY, LLP in Houston, TX.

Michaela K. Christian (Iowa), a graduate of Iowa State University with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and Bachelor of Science in Finance, is employed with RSM US LLP in Des Moines, IA.

Nathan Claflin (Wisconsin), a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire with a BBA in Accounting, is employed with EY in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Margaret Collins (North Carolina), a graduate of Wake Forest University with a BS in Accounting and MS in Accountancy employed with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Douglas Coons (Nebraska), a graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and a Master of Science in Accountancy from the University of Notre Dame is employed with Deloitte in Omaha, Nebraska.

Clare Creighton (North Carolina), a graduate of Rice University with a Bachelor of Arts in Cognitive Sciences and Master of Accountancy from University of North Carolina at Charlotte, is employed with Richey May & Co. in Charlotte, NC.

Christopher D’Agostino (Michigan), a graduate of Walsh College with a bachelor’s degree in accounting is employed with Rehmann in Troy, Michigan.

Thomas Deal (Oregon), a graduate of Santa Clara University with a BS in Accountancy is employed with KPMG LLP in Portland, OR.

William Joseph Donohue III (Ohio), a graduate of The Ohio State University with a BSBA in Marketing and Master of Accountancy from Cleveland State University is employed with KeyBank in Cleveland, Ohio.

Michael Dougherty (Florida), a graduate of The University of Florida with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and Master of Accounting from The University of Florida (if applicable) is employed with Dixon Hughes Goodman, LLP in Jacksonville, Florida.

Gogo Duale (California), a graduate of Aston University with a BSc in Economics and Management, an MSc in African Development from the London School of Economics and a Certificate in Accounting from UCLA Extension is employed with KPMG in Los Angeles, California.

Jesse Eles (Connecticut), a graduate of the University of Connecticut with a BS in Accounting is employed with Ernst & Young in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Timothy Fallon (Alaska), a graduate of University of Wisconsin – La Crosse with a BS in Accountancy, is employed with KPMG LLP in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Sijie (Jessie) Fang (Illinois), a graduate of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a BS in Accounting and Marketing and MS in Accounting, is employed with KPMG in Chicago, Illinois.

Marielle Fesmire (California), a graduate of University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a BA in Business Economics is employed with PwC, LLP in Los Angeles, CA.

Stephen Flessner (Maryland), a graduate of University of Maryland, College Park with a BS in Accounting and a BS in Finance is employed with EY, LLP in Baltimore, MD.

Brian P. Frey (District of Columbia; Virginia), a graduate of the University of Maryland with a BS in Accounting and a BS in Information Systems, is employed with KPMG LLP in Washington, DC.

Amy Fursa (Minnesota), a graduate of College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University with a BA in Accounting is employed with Ernst & Young, LLP in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Natalie Gilbert (Texas), a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin with a BBA in Accounting and a Masters in Professional Accounting, is employed with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Houston, Texas.

Sanyam Goel (New Hampshire), a graduate of Delhi University with a Bachelor of Commerce, is employed at Shyam Goel and Associates in New Delhi.

Katherine Griesemer (Tennessee), a graduate of Lee University with a BS in Accounting and Finance and is employed with Unity Dance Troupe in Cleveland, Tennessee.

Johnathan Grimaldi (New York), a graduate of Boston College Carroll School of Management with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and Finance is employed with PwC in New York, New York.

Alex Gunnerson (Oregon), a graduate of Brigham Young University with a Bachelors Degree in Accounting and Masters of Taxation (also Brigham Young University) is employed with KPMG in Portland, Oregon.

Wesley Davis Guymon (California), a graduate of Utah Valley University with a BS in Accounting and MS in Accounting from Southern Utah University, is employed with CVF Capital Partners in Davis, California.

Caleb Guzman (Texas), a graduate of Texas A&M University with a BBA in Accounting and MS in Accounting is employed with EY, LLP in Houston, Texas.

Justin Henry (Wisconsin), a graduate of University of Wisconsin – Whitewater with a Bachelors of Business Administration in Accounting and Masters of Professional Accountancy from University of Wisconsin – Whitewater (if applicable) is employed with CliftonLarsonAllen in Madison, WI.

Tori Hardiek (Indiana), a graduate of Butler University with a BS and MS in Accounting, is employed with Somerset CPAs and Advisors in Indianapolis, IN.

Lauren Heller (Hawaii), a graduate of Rice University with a B.A. in Mathematical Economic Analysis and Master of Accounting is employed with J.P. Morgan in Houston, Texas.

Sarah Henderson (West Virginia), a graduate of University of Charleston with a BS in Accounting and Finance is employed with Suttle & Stalnaker, PLLC in Charleston, West Virginia.

Nathan Herrmann (Colorado), a graduate of Oklahoma State University with a B.S. and M.S. in Accounting, is employed with KPMG, LLP in Denver, CO.

Adam Heussner (Minnesota), a graduate of University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire with a BBA in Accounting, is employed with PricewaterhouseCoopers of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

James P. Hodson (Pennsylvania), a graduate of West Chester University of Pennsylvania with a BS in Accounting and Finance, is employed with EY in Philadelphia, PA.

Timothy Hubner (Illinois), a graduate of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a Bachelor’s in Accounting and a Bachelor’s in Finance and is employed with KPMG in Chicago, Illinois.

Brenden Hull (Georgia), a graduate of the University of Georgia with a BBA in Accounting and International Business and a Master of Accountancy, is employed with CohnReznick LLP in Atlanta, Georgia.

Michael Janenko (Pennsylvania), a graduate of DeSales University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting and Finance and MBA from DeSales University is employed with Olympus America Inc in Center Valley, PA.

Laura Elise Jones (Texas), a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting and Master in Professional Accounting is employed with KPMG in Dallas, Texas.

Szu Yin Chen Keen (Oregon), a graduate of National Chiao-Tung University with a BA in Management Science and MBA from Willamette University is employed with Doty, Pruett, Wilson PC in Salem, Oregon.

Minjae Kim (Texas), a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin with a BBA in Accounting/Business Honors Program and Master in Professional Accounting, is employed with Analysis Group in Dallas, Texas.

Michael Kimble (Kentucky), a graduate of University of Louisville with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in Accounting and a Master of Accounting from William & Mary, is employed with BKD CPAs & Advisors in Louisville, KY.

Mizuki Kio (California), a graduate of University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a BA in Business Economics is employed with Deloitte Tax, LLP in Los Angeles, California.

Katherine Kress (Wisconsin), a graduate of University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh with a BBA in Accounting, is employed with CliftonLarsonAllen LLP in Appleton, WI.

Collin Kuntz (Missouri), a graduate of Truman State University with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and a Master’s in Accountancy is employed with Bayer in St. Louis, Missouri.

Mike Lamers (Wisconsin), a graduate of University of Wisconsin-Madison with a BBA in Accounting and Finance, is employed with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Nathaniel Levy (Arizona), a graduate of Northern Arizona University with a Bachelors of Accountancy and Master of Business Administration (Accounting focus) from Northern Arizona University is employed with KPMG in Phoenix, Arizona.

Xiaoxuan Li (California), a graduate of UCLA with a Bachelor of Arts in Business Economics, is employed with Pricewaterhouse Coopers in Los Angeles, California.

Corey Lockridge (Tennessee), a graduate of Vanderbilt University with a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics and Economics and a Master of Accountancy, is employed with PwC in Atlanta, GA.

Michael Lundberg (Utah), a graduate of Brigham Young University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting and Master of Accountancy Degree from Brigham Young University is employed with Grant Thornton LLP in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Benjamin C. Lyford (Missouri), a graduate of Missouri State University with a Bachelor’s of Science in Accounting and Master of Accountancy from Missouri State University is employed with BKD LLP in Springfield, Missouri.

Ziheng Ma (New York), a graduate of Hainan University with a BS in Accounting and a MS in Accounting from Fordham University, is employed with KCH & Co., P.C. in New York, NY.

Matthew Maley (Minnesota), a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a BBA in Accounting and a Master of Accountancy is employed with General Mills in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Philip Mann (Texas), a graduate of Texas A&M University with a BBA in Accounting and MS in Accounting is employed with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Fort Worth, Texas.

Caleb Martin (Indiana), a graduate of IUPUI with a BSB in Accounting, Finance, and International Studies, is employed with Katz, Sapper & Miller, LLP in Indianapolis, IN.

Jennifer Mason (Arizona), a graduate of University of Phoenix with a Bachelor of Science in Business with a concentration in Accounting and Master of Science in Accountancy from University of Phoenix is employed with Kindly Care, Inc. in Gilbert, Arizona.

Ashley McDowell (Colorado), a graduate of University of Nebraska – Lincoln with a BS in Accounting and a Master of Professional Accountancy is employed with BKD, LLP in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Jake McElmury (Minnesota), a graduate of University of Minnesota-Twin Cities with a BSB in Accounting and Finance, is employed with Deloitte in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Ryan McMillen (Illinois), a graduate of University of South Carolina with a BS in Accounting and Finance and Master of Accountancy is employed with Ernst & Young, LLP, in Chicago, IL.

Max Michaels (California), a graduate of University of San Diego with a BA in Accountancy is employed with EY LLP in San Diego, CA.

Scott Mikus (Pennsylvania), a graduate of University of Pittsburgh with a BS in Accounting and Finance, is employed with BNY Mellon in Wilmington, Delaware.

Matt Moran (Illinois), a graduate of the University of Iowa with a BBA in Accounting and Finance, is employed with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Chicago, Illinois.

Joel Morris (Oregon), a graduate of Portland State University with a B.S. in Accounting and Finance, is employed with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Portland, Oregon.

Yusi Mu (California), a graduate of Nankai University with a Bachelor of Management and a Master of Accounting from University of Southern California, is employed with EY in Los Angeles, CA.

Patrick Nanna (Massachusetts), a graduate of Northeastern University with a BSBA in Accounting and MS in Accounting, is employed with Deloitte & Touche LLP in Boston, Massachusetts.

David Newell (Missouri), a graduate of Truman State University with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and is earning a Master of Accounting with Data Analytics from Villanova University and is employed with KPMG in St. Louis, Missouri.

Tom Neyer (Missouri), a graduate of University of Missouri–Columbia with a BS and MS in Accountancy, is employed with Grant Thornton in St. Louis, Missouri.

Sarah Olson (Illinois), a graduate of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a BS and MS in Accountancy is employed with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Chicago, Illinois.

Aaron Pannell (Florida), a graduate of Florida State University with a B.S. Accounting and a Master of Accounting from Florida State University is employed with EY in Tampa, FL.

Joseph Pearson (South Carolina), a graduate of Brigham Young University with a bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Master of Accountancy is employed with Deloitte in Phoenix, Arizona.

Dustin S. Peck (Pennsylvania), a graduate of Messiah College with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting is employed with Trout, Ebersole & Groff, LLP in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Steven Pochini (Michigan), a graduate of the University of Notre Dame with a BBA in accountancy and theology and an MS in accountancy is employed with Plante Moran in Ann Arbor, MI.

Allyson Randle (South Carolina), a graduate of Clemson University with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and Master of Professional Accountancy from Clemson University is employed with Ernst & Young in Greenville, SC.

Kelsey Ray (Oklahoma), a graduate of Oklahoma State University with a BS and MS in Accounting is employed with EY in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Matthew Reid (Georgia), a graduate of Purdue University with a BS in Management, an MBA from Indiana University, and an LL.M. in International Finance from Goethe University Frankfurt, is employed with BrandSafway in Atlanta, Georgia.

Nicholas Reilly (Illinois), a graduate of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a BS and MS in Accountancy, is employed with BDO USA, LLP in Chicago, Illinois.

Oscar Ryland (Ohio), a graduate of Miami University with a BS in Accounting and Finance is employed with Grant Thornton LLP in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Anthony Salazer (Louisiana), a graduate of Tulane University with a Finance and Marketing Undergraduate Degree and a Master of Accounting Degree is employed with EY in New Orleans, LA.

Brandon Salk (Rhode Island), a graduate of Bryant University with a BS in Business Administration and MS in Taxation, is employed with Grant Thornton, LLP in Westborough, Massachusetts.

Anne Salloom (New York), a graduate of Holy Cross with a Bachelor of Arts in Classics and a Master of Science in Accounting and MBA from Northeastern University, is employed with PwC in New York, New York.

Matthew Sorensen (Minnesota), a graduate of The University of Minnesota – Twin Cities with a BSB in Accounting and Finance is employed with KPMG in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Andee Soza (Arizona), a graduate of Brigham Young University with a Bachelor of Science in Accountancy and Master of Accountancy from Brigham Young University is employed with KPMG, LLP in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Ted Spilde (Minnesota), a graduate of Hamline University with a BBA in Accounting and Master of Accounting with Data and Analytics from the University of Missouri is employed with KPMG in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Lawrence Stark (MA), a graduate of University of Vermont with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Master of Accountancy from University of Vermont is employed with PwC in Boston, MA.

Regan B. Stewart (Texas), a graduate of Brigham Young University with a BS in Accounting and MS in Accounting is employed with EY LLP in Dallas, Texas.

David Stone (Maine), a graduate of the University of Southern Maine with a BS in Accounting and Economics and MBA from Thomas College, is employed with BerryDunn in Portland, Maine.

Cailin Yoho Thompson (West Virginia), a graduate of West Virginia University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in Accounting and a Master of Accountancy from West Virginia University is employed with Suttle & Stalnaker, PLLC in Parkersburg, WV.

Ryan Thorsen (Colorado), a graduate of Brigham Young University with a BS in Accounting and MS in Tax, is employed with KPMG in Denver, Colorado.

Sharon Tucker (Illinois), a graduate of Northern Illinois University with a Bachelor’s of Science – Accountancy, and Masters of Accounting Science, is employed with Tighe, Kress & Orr in Elgin, Illinois.

Kurt Urbanski (Indiana), a graduate of Purdue University North Central with a BS in Accounting is employed with Crowe LLP in South Bend, Indiana.

Vanessa Vandamas (Florida), a graduate of Florida International University with a Bachelor of Accounting and a Master of Accounting is employed with Deloitte in Miami, FL.

Kerry Walley (Illinois), a graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting is employed with True Partner’s Consulting, LLC in Chicago, IL.

Austin Wang (New Jersey), a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis with a BA in Japanese and Economics and MA in East Asian Studies and a Master in International Economic Policy from Sciences Po Paris, is employed with Inteplast Group in Livingston, New Jersey.

Kaylie Windham (Texas), a graduate of Texas A&M University with a BBA in Business Honors and Accounting and an MS in Accounting is employed with EY, LLP in Houston, Texas.

Warren Wolf (Arkansas), a graduate of Louisiana Tech University with a Bachelor’s of Science in Accounting and a Master of Accountancy is employed with the Louisiana Legislative Auditor in Monroe, Louisiana.

Siying (Clara) Yang (Illinois), a graduate of University of Notre Dame with a BBA in Accountancy and ACMS (Applied and Computational Mathematics and Statics) is employed with Deloitte in Chicago, Illinois.

Xiaoqing Ye (California), a graduate of Shanghai University with a BA in Economics and MS in Accountancy from San Diego State University is employed with BDO USA, LLP in San Diego, California.

Alexandra Yunker (New York), a graduate of Fordham University with a BS in Accounting and MBA, is employed with Grant Thornton LLP in Boston, Massachusetts.

Joe Zywicki (Michigan), a graduate of Michigan State University with a B.A. in Accounting and is employed with KPMG Deal Advisory in Chicago, IL.

Totals:
Deloitte 10
EY 4
KPMG 20
PwC 5

Well dang, who saw that coming? I certainly didn’t. Good work, House of Klynveld!

Now, inb4 someone chimes in that the Watt Sells Award is stupid and its winners dumb for aiming for anything above a 75 since passing is all that matters in the grand scheme of things, it’s kind of cool that the AICPA recognizes exceptional performance on the exam. As they mention in their press release, it’s a prestigious award few achieve, one earned solely through effort. Award winners, you should be proud.

Plus there’s a $20,000 bonus for Elijah Watt Sells winners at some firms, at least there used to be. I’m gonna go ahead and assume that’s still the case as I’m too lazy to pick up the phone and call around to ask. Yeah, let’s go with that.

Congrats winners!

The post Hey Y’all, Let’s Get Salty About These 2018 Elijah Watt Sells Award Winners appeared first on Going Concern.

July 20, 2009 was the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the Moon. It also happened to be the first day that Going Concern was live on the Internet. 

So now July 20, 2019 is here, and it’s their 50th and 10th anniversaries, respectively. A big coincidence? Or a cosmic signature that will forever be remembered in the annals of history? You’ll have to decide, but I think it’s clearly something beyond all of our control.

OK, maybe an irreverent, yappy accounting site doesn’t have much to do with our species’ most significant achievement, but they’re both fanciful endeavors that turned out just fine. Maybe even better than expected.

I had spent about a month building up Going Concern’s archive before the site went live. The first morning it was online, I slept through my alarm that had been getting me up at the crack of dawn to keep an East Coast publishing schedule. So yeah, the first day didn’t start off so hot.

I whipped together a morning link wrap and then managed to publish nine more posts to meet the expected daily quota. I remember my first publisher, David Minkin, asking me if I thought 10 posts a day was doable. “Yeah, should be,” I said, having no idea what I was agreeing to. I had people helping me, after all: namely Francine McKenna (one post per week) and Adrienne Gonzalez (three posts per week), so only having to come up with 46 more articles would be a breeze.

This gif sums up what my typical workday was like pretty well:

What transpired over the next 10 years is kinda hard to explain. Going Concern became a thing, much more than just a blog run by a Big 4 refugee, thanks to many different people who’ve contributed to its success. 

In those early days, especially, Going Concern became a must-read for the hundreds of accountants laid off during the financial crisis, if for no other reason to gossip in the digital unemployment line. Many of you wrote looking for career advice. We were sent farewell emails, some better than others. The Big 4 leftovers continued to dish as they were sucked in deeper, burned out, or engaging in some insider trading. 

There’s been a lot of snark (almost all of it warranted), a hatchet job here and there, and more than a few unsubstantiated rumors. But, I have to say, I think we were appropriately upfront and transparent about those unsubstantiated rumors. There was, dare I say, lots of decent journalism too—10 years of it. That’s far longer than my career in public accounting (5 ½ years), and most of your public accounting careers, too. And Adrienne can denigrate it all she wants, but it’s the steadiest gig she’s ever had. 

I left GC full-time last year, but AG and Jason have this thing handled; God knows there’s plenty of crazy stuff going on in this profession to keep them busy. KPMG antics alone could staff an entire desk.

The point is, Going Concern will continue, and the accounting profession is better for it. Even if some people think the whole thing was faked or a waste of money, it remains a giant leap for accountant kind.

The post Going Concern: 10 Years Of Giving You the Moon appeared first on Going Concern.

The last man standing in the KPMG insider trading case (the one not involving Scott London) has finally fallen.

From the SEC:

Today [Aug. 14], jurors in Atlanta federal court returned a verdict finding New Jersey securities broker Raymond J. Pirrello, Jr. liable for insider trading in advance of three merger and acquisition transactions.

Pirrello was the broker for former KPMG Atlanta partner Thomas Avent Jr., who opted not to go to trial and went the settlement route. The court approved a deal on Aug. 2 that allowed Avent, former partner-in-charge of the KPMG mergers and acquisitions tax practice for the Southeast region, to pay a $125,000 civil penalty without admitting to the allegations against him. And as part of the deal, Avent agreed to testify in Pirrello’s trial.

Avent, who worked at KPMG from 1999 until 2016, was accused of accepting cash from Pirrello in exchange for insider information that Pirrello and his longtime friend, Lawrence Penna, turned into profits.

In a civil complaint filed against the three men in 2016, the SEC accused Avent of having access to material, non-public information regarding three separate acquisitions, which he gave to Pirrello. The SEC said Avent performed tax work on each transaction in his role with KPMG. The three acquisitions were:

• NCR Corp.’s 2011 purchase of Radiant Systems Inc.
• TBC Corp.’s 2011 acquisition of Midas Incorporated Inc.
• Ingram Micro Inc.’s 2012 takeover of BrightPoint Inc.

Pirrello then passed on the info to his buddy, Penna, who he had known since he was a teenager. Penna arranged to buy stocks or call options of all three target companies before the acquisitions were announced to the public. As a result, Penna got an illegal jump on other investors, and he and his family made at least $107,922 in illicit insider-trading profits, according to the SEC.

For this information, Penna then made payments to Pirrello. Within two weeks after one of the acquisition announcements, Penna paid $7,000 toward Pirrello’s American Express credit card bill. One week after another announcement, Penna paid $14,500 toward Pirrello’s AMEX bill, according to the complaint.

And while the illegal tips and insider trading were occuring, Pirrello made payments and provided other benefits to Avent, such as paying him $50,000 in cash and arranging for another one of his brokerage clients to buy an illiquid $250,000 investment that Avent wanted to sell.

The jury found Pirrello liable on all counts, including that he violated sections 10(b) and 14(e) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and rules 10b-5 and 14e-3.

In October 2016, Penna entered into a consent judgment to end the claims against him, agreeing, without admitting liability, to disgorge $79,922 in ill-gotten gains and to pay $11,766 in prejudgment interest and an additional $79,922 civil penalty, according to Law360.

The agreement also prohibits Penna from making future transactions based on non-public information in violation of the Securities Exchange Act.

The post Ex-KPMG Partner’s Broker Probably Won’t Be Doing Any Insider Trading For a While appeared first on Going Concern.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In all, the fraud totaled $321,854.

The post Accountants Behaving Badly: EY Gal Pleads Guilty to Fraud, PwCer Fired for Upskirt Pics, Grand Theft Guilt appeared first on Going Concern.

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.

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.

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.

Ruiz, 21, faces one count of murder with a deadly weapon. He appeared in court on Sept. 21.

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.

The post Accountants Behaving Badly: Naughty Kitty, Fancy Fraud, Cokehead Jailed appeared first on Going Concern.

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.

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, 33, pleaded guilty to a charge of fraud over $5,000 in June.

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.

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.

The post Accountants Behaving Badly: Train Station Turd, College Crook, Fake CPA’s Fraud appeared first on Going Concern.