Audit v. Tax Archives

Ernst & Young Video Accurately Portrays First Year Associates in Their New Habitat

This came by way of Jersey (this Jersey, you idiots) and the footage is incredible.

A few things that I observed and/or learned from watching this video:

1. “Duckling syndrome” is something I was familiar with but not that it had a name or was a syndrome.

2. All tax professionals seem to behave exactly the same, no matter where you encounter them.

3. Apparently this was filmed on a casual Friday based on the denim worn by the guy that appears at the 4:00 mark.

4. Timesheets are due at 5:30 on Fridays?

One thing that was less surprising:

1. “At some critical stage in their development, tax professionals generally fail to attain the basic skills necessary for social interaction.”

Leave your own observations below.

A Multitude of Big 4 Auditors Can Confirm This

[J]ust because a person has the initials CPA after his/her name does not mean that he/she knows his/her arse from a hole in the ground when it comes to preparing 1040s.

That comes courtesy of the Wandering Tax Pro, Robert D. Flach. It got the attention of Joe Kristan, who came to the defense of CPAs everywhere but did admit that some CPAs have no business being near tax forms:

[Robert] then spends his next 10 paragraphs elaborating on our shortcomings. And that’s fine, to a point. Not all CPAs are qualified tax preparers. By the same token, not every lawyer is capable of defending you on a murder charge. But the guy you want by your side when the state wants to send you to the chair is definitely going to be a lawyer. And while not all CPAs should be your tax advisor, many of the best tax advisors are CPAs.

Case in point: many relatives and clueless friends of auditors still ask said auditors to prepare their tax returns. In most cases, a) this is a HUGE mistake and b) they don’t want to help you anyway.