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Accounting News Roundup: EY Doesn’t Screw Up the Emmys and Taxing Fantasy Sports | 09.18.17

ernst young equifax

Award shows

Even before the Emmys aired last night, people who watch award shows were probably wondering: “Can the accountants screw it up again?” Of course, EY tabulates the Emmys, and before the show, the Television Academy President seemed confident that everything would be okay:

“Our accounting firm is Ernst & Young,” [Hayma Washington] said on the red carpet Sunday. “We’ve reviewed our policies and procedures. Really confident that it’s something that we won’t have happen.”

Alternatively, “Our accounting firm is not — NOT — PricewaterhouseCoopers.” There still appears to have been some tweeting going on, including pictures backstage, but it was safely out of the hands of the partners responsible for the envelopes. Oh, and there was a musical number by Rachel Bloom, and she offered to make out with them. So that’s fun.

Pay gaps

Here’s an admission you probably didn’t expect a Big 4 firm to make:

Global professional services firm PwC has revealed that it pays its Black, Asian and minority-ethnic staff in the UK almost 13 per cent less than other employees in the country.

In a report on Monday, the company said that it had published the figures in an effort to “shine the spotlight on ethnicity in the workplace and encourage organisations to take action”.

“We need to start looking beyond the narrow lense of gender, otherwise true workplace diversity won’t be achieved,” said Kevin Ellis, chairman and senior partner at PwC.

The UK is requiring companies with more than 250 employees to disclose its gender pay gap starting next year. I guess this is PwC’s way of jumping to the front of the transparency class.

The firm says the gap is “entirely driven by the fact that there are more non-BAME staff in senior higher-paid roles and more BAME staff in junior administrative roles,” which serves as an explanation, I suppose, just not a very reassuring one.

Fantasy sports

This Bloomberg BNA post notes that sixteen states have passed laws regulating daily fantasy sports. Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, and New Jersey all passed legislation this past summer. Of those, only New Hampshire is not taxing the DFS industry. Regardless of the Granite State’s reluctance, at least someone is making money off fantasy football.

Previously, on Going Concern…

In Open Items: Big 4 and weight gain.

In other news:

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Image: Quentin Michon/Wikimedia Commons