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Joe Francis Can’t Land an Attorney Thanks to the IRS, Says Joe Francis

Douche of the Last Decade Joe Francis is having trouble finding a lawyer in North Florida. No, it’s not due to his all around doucheness. And no, it’s not due to his inability to pay his previous attorney, Rick Bateman (who is suing him) $500k. It’s because he claims that the IRS has slapped levies on his hard earned drunk topless girl fortune.


A judge is set to enter a default judgment against J Fran for in a case where four women are suing him for taping them while they were underage. Since Fran can’t find counsel, he had to personally write a motion to request Judge Richard Smoak for leniency.


This is interesting not only because we didn’t know Joe could write but also because we thought the IRS had given up on old Joe after it was reported that his $30 million+ lien was reportedly dropped:

“My efforts to obtain new counsel have been hampered by levies upon my companies’ financial accounts by the Internal Revenue Service,” Francis wrote. “Prospective counsel that have agreed to entertain engagement as counsel in the case require large retainers which could not be facilitated in the time permitted by this Court’s Order of March 12, 2010.”

Joe is confident he’ll bag some representation before the June 10 deadline, saying that barring “unforeseen developments” (i.e. douchiness) he’ll no longer be forced to write words.

Joe Francis blames IRS for attorney-finding troubles [Panama City News Herald]

Accounting News Roundup: Earnings Management and ‘Quadrophobia’; Deloitte vs. PwC on Loan Losses; Joe Francis’ Tax Lien Dropped | 02.15.10

Happy President’s Day! As we mentioned on Friday, we’ll keep you company throughout the day but it will be a little lighter schedule than normal. Most of you are suffering from a Valentine’s Day/Chinese New Year/Olympic Fever hangover anyway.

For Some Firms, a Case of ‘Quadrophobia’ [WSJ]
Shout if you’ve heard this before: a study profiled by the Journal states that “many companies tweak quarterly earnings to meet investor expectations, and the “companies that adjust most often are more likely to restate earnings or be charged with accounting violations.”

So here’s another study on restatements and the companies that you . BFD right? Earnings management is rampant. What makes this particular study unique is the authors looked at the frequency of companies rounding their numbers up to meet expectations and discovered that the number 4 appears less frequently in general and especially in the earnings of companies that restate their financial statements. Naturally, they call it “quadrophobia”:

When they ran the earnings-per-share numbers down to a 10th of a cent, they found that the number “4” appeared less often in the 10ths place than any other digit, and significantly less often than would be expected by chance…

In theory, each digit should appear in the 10ths place 10% of the time. After reviewing nearly 489,000 quarterly results for 22,000 companies from 1980 to 2006, however, the authors found that “4” appeared in the 10ths place only 8.5% of the time. Both “2” and “3” also are underrepresented in the 10ths place; all other digits show up more frequently than expected by chance…

In their most intriguing finding, the authors found that companies that later restate earnings or are charged with accounting violations report significantly fewer 4s. The pattern “appears to be a leading indicator of a company that’s going to have an accounting issue,” Mr. Grundfest said.

So it’s safe to say that you can add Quadrophobic to Patrick Byrne’s list of potential ailments.

Deloitte chief reignites accounting debate [FT]
Deloitte CEO Jim Quigley told the Financial Times that banks should “account for losses in two radically different ways to meet the opposing demands of politicians and accountants.” We’re not crazy about trying to please everyone but Quigs might have a good point here.

This would require banks to report two separate line items on their income statements, one for “incurred losses” and one for “expected losses”. Incurred losses report loan losses as they occur while “expected losses” would require banks to calculate an estimated loss provision over the lives of the loans.

PwC hates this idea saying it would ‘muddy the waters’. Richard Murphy thinks PwC is still living in fantasy land, “PWC is arguing against is anti-cyclical provisioning to ensure capital retention. To put it anothjer [sic] way, PWC wants pro-cyclical accounting that encoruages recklessness.”

Since the waters are already pretty f—ing muddy we’re not sure that it would do much harm. Users of financial statements already have a mind-numbing amount of information to dig through, one additional piece of information — a crucial piece in the case of bank financial statements, we might add — shouldn’t cause too much headache.

Joe Francis Off the Hook for $33 Million Tax Bill [TMZ]
Joe Francis’ IRS troubles seem to have magically disappeared, as TMZ reports that the IRS has dropped its $30+ million lien against the Douche of the Decade.

That eliminates one possible motive for the IRS shotgun shopping spree.

Joe Francis Continues to Get Hassled by the IRS

joe-francis2.jpgOh Joe Francis, why won’t you just take your Douche of the Decade trophy and ride off into the sunset?
Actually we know why. The IRS froze $22 million of Douche of D’s money because he still owes them $23 million for taxes owed in 2001, 2002, and 2003. J. Fran would not stand for such aggression and, being the savvy tax guy that he is, sued the Service to get access to his accounts. He concluded that the IRS was just bent out of shape that he got out of additional jail time.
The IRS claims that the real reason that they’re freezing DoD’s assets is that he tried moving the money offshore after his plea. And unless you’re Joe Francis, you know is not such best course of action these days.
IRS can freeze ‘Girls Gone Wild’ money [Don’t Mess With Taxes]

Review Comments | 12.29.09

Thumbnail image for Joe-Francis.jpg‘Girls Gone Wild’ Founder Sues IRS – The newly crowned Douche of the Decade is in a litigious mood. After threatening to sue Gawker for the prestigious honor he was bestowed, DOTD is now suing the IRS for freezing his assets. Will someone stop to this man douche?[Web CPA]

Bill Would Require Comptroller General to be a CPA – Now there’s an idea. [Web CPA]

Lehman administrators PwC repay $11bn to creditors – Seems like good news. [BBC]

2010: Get Ready for a Tax-a-palooza – “Facing trillions of dollars of expiring Bush-era tax cuts, President Obama and Congress will be forced to make some critical decisions in the new year.” [Tax Vox]

SEC Seeks PAFs: Jan. 13 Deadline – Professional Accounting Fellows. You. [FEI Financial Reporting Blog]

Let’s Talk About the Terrorist Underpants, Shall We? – Yes. Let’s. [DI]

Revealed: How Oscar Nominee Ballots Are Counted – Because we know you were wondering. [The Wrap]

Tax Court Channels Kenny RogersRaj isn’t the only fan. [Tax Update Blog]

Shareholders Win Settlement in Comverse Suit – Deloitte pitched in $275,000. That’s roughly the equivalent to one partner’s Starbucks budget. [Web CPA]

Bouncing Back: Overcoming a Negative Performance Review – Anyone? [FINS]

Tax Accountants to Get Biggest 2010 Raise – Good news already! [TaxProf Blog]

Joe Francis to Declare Bankruptcy, Owes IRS $34 Million

Thumbnail image for Joe-Francis.jpgTragic news from the world of wholesome entertainment as Joe “Back to the business at hand of slapping women” Francis is allegedly going to declare bankruptcy tomorrow after receiving liens for nearly $34 mil.
Not such a good thing for Francis since he just hammered out a plea deal two months ago.
According to Tax Girl, that plea agreement, “requires him to resolve his outstanding tax issues. I mean, it is a resolution – but I’m guessing not so much what IRS had in mind.”
They certainly aren’t apologizing for this one.
Girls Gone Wild Founder To File Bankruptcy, Blames IRS [Tax Girl]
Other GC Coverage of Joe Francis:
SHOCKER: Joe Francis May Have Attracted Slimy Business People
Joe Francis Plans to Argue That Anything Related to Topless Girls is Deductible