Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

Footnotes: A Republican Circus; You Can’t Always Trust Your Accountant; Tax Fairy?! | 04.10.14

Posted on by Adrienne Gonzalez

The Chicago Public School system used an "accounting trick" to find money. And by "accounting trick" it looks like that means "gladly pay themselves Tuesday for a hamburger today" [WGN]

There's Still Time To Lower Your 2013 Tax Bill (Really!) [Tax Girl via Forbes]

Client Sues Accountant Who Suggested Thieving Lawyer [The Daily Report]

Could it be that the latest twist in the IRS scandal is really just a Republican circus? Say it ain't so! [WaPo]

Federal deficit for first half of year is $413B [On the Money via The Hill]

Head over to the AICPA blog for confessions of a tax season junkie [AICPA]

Above the Law's Elie Mystal is at some conference or something learning all kinds of important things [Twitter]

 

Also on Twitter, did someone say tax fairy? [Twitter]

 

You thought YOU be grindin? Every day JPMorgan is hustlin' [Bloomberg View]

Nasdaq is having a crappy day [Bloomberg]

 

Related Posts

You Don’t Have the Worst Job in the World

r.jpgBecause we know that many of you feel that way on a daily basis. But nope, sorry. Dealbreaker tells us about the prosecutors in the Stanford case piecing shredded documents back together. If your job sucks worse than that, tell us about it because…WHOA.

Is Accounting Fraud Coming to Broadway?

samuel-west.jpgIt goes without saying that the lack of stage and screen productions of anything related to accounting is no accident.
We Americans crave the spoon-fed Hollywood experience and don’t have much patience for cerebral art. The Brits, on the other hand, have decided that accounting fraud is truly meant for the stage because Enron will start showing at the Royal Court Theatre on September 7th and run through November 7th, according to the Theatre’s website. skilling_tie1.jpg
Get the details, after the jump


The comedic tragedy stars Samuel West as Jeff Skilling and it has gotten excellent reviews in previews, indicating that they avoided the accounting aspects completely.
No word on the whether the play will make its way to the States but if it did we’d suggest James Gandolfini as Skilling, merely for the crucial scene where Skilling has a vein pop out of his forehead when he blows a gasket on an earnings call with skeptical analysts. We’d pull for Hugh Jackman as the Arthur Andersen partner but we’re guessing that it would end up being Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Discuss your casting choices in the comments and if you’re in London, you can see the play for as cheap as ten quid so go get yourself some culture.
Enron…The Play [Bruce Carton/Compliance Week]

IASB Chairman Would Like the SEC to Get With It

TOLD YOU.jpgSir David Tweedie, IASB Chairman, would sure appreciate it if the SEC would make up its damn mind about whether or not to commit to converging U.S. GAAP with IFRS. He spoke at the American Association of Accountants (AAA) annual meeting in New York yesterday and figured he might as well call out the SEC, who seems to be stonewalling him. He’s giving them until 2011 to figure it out.
Tweedie has been making like some kind of financial reporting missionary, going all around the world preaching the good word of IFRS. He’s said he’ll have 150 believers by 2011. But everywhere he goes, all anyone can talk about is whether the U.S. is converted yet.
More, after the jump

“That is a question I am asked all around the world. The convergence program is designed to reduce the cost of transition. FASB is riding two horses: US GAAP and trying to converge at the same time, but so are we.”…If you’re going to have global standards, we need the US, but it can’t go on indefinitely,” he said

We’re impressed that the knighted bean counter is putting his foot down here. We figured the SEC and the FASB could just continue doing whatever it is they do and Tweedie would just keeping asking them about it every month or so like they owed him fifty bucks.
Tweedie Warns of 2011 Deadline for IFRS Choice [Web CPA via Accountancy Age]