Public Accounting Is More Dangerous Than It Looks

“Good morning.”  

 

“David’s dead.”

 

“They found his body in Tel Aviv.”

 

“Shot himself in the head.”

 

“No suicide note.”

 

And thus I found out that one of our high net worth tax clients just checked out a la CSI Middle East.  I didn’t expect David to go out with a bang. He looked every bit like a happily married man. He traveled a lot on account of business but he always made sure to call the office to regale us with his adventures as the Jewish Don Giovanni.  His death may not have been as dramatic as Don Giovanni’s but it was just as bizarre.  The poignancy heightened once I started bugging his widow for a list of things we would need to do the estate tax return.  She’s quite affable, like when she points out that Tel Aviv’s ahead by several hours and that she’ll send the Mossad up my butt if I call her again at 2 am with tax organizer questions.  

 

Mossad?  Pshaw.  I’ve stared down bigger and nastier Goliaths.  Try the tax calculations for a like-kind exchange.  Or keeping track of individual bases in a 100-member strong partnership.   Definitely not for the faint of heart.  CPA firm work is fraught with danger.  Ready to burst, you’re on your way to the restroom, you take one wrong step and you get ambushed with “…do you think it’s appropriate for a nonprofit organization to report its office copier as a capital lease in its financial statements in anticipation of the eventual merger of U.S. GAAP and IFRS…?”   I believe adult diapers were invented as a result of those loaded situations.  I just wish that I had brought mine with me this morning.

         

Inspired by David’s example, I discreetly dispose of my late, belated underwear, went back to my desk and fired up Outlook.  Being email dyslexic I usually miss a lot of classic works such as the one about ‘cadaver-like’ odors emanating from the lunchroom or the thread about HP2175_printer_3 leaving skidmarks on Meg’s priceless 300 page tax return.  But today, as May breathes its last, I was lucky enough to spot a gem from my spy in a previous firm.  Turns out my douchey former boss just got convicted of tax fraud.  

 

I printed it out and taped it on the wall next to my Dilbert calendar.  Why?  Makes it easier to fap to, that’s why.