The report draws on survey responses from 605 North American accounting firms, spanning firms with less than $5 million in net revenue to some of the profession’s largest organizations. This year, organic growth fell to 7.0% from 7.7%, while total growth, including M&A, slipped from 8.8% to 8.3%.

Profitability moved in the opposite direction.

Net income growth rose to 10.4%, up from 8.1% last year. For IPA Executive Director Chelsea Summers, that divergence is central to understanding what is happening inside firms.

What’s happening, she says, is it looks like firms are “converting the growth that they do get into profits.”

It could have something to do with this:

At the same time, firms appear to be extracting more revenue from their existing capacity. Revenue per work hour increased to $116 from $110, while revenue per FTE rose 2.6% to approximately $226,000.

That productivity gain comes with an important caveat: Revenue per FTE has failed to keep pace with inflation for five consecutive years. IPA’s longer-term data shows inflation-adjusted and nominal revenue per FTE tracking closely through 2020 before beginning to diverge.

IPA’s article and podcast about this talks about some other stuff, like how CAS and IT consulting are growing, pricing trends, succession planning, blah blah. Keep an eye on IPA in the coming weeks, they’ll be digging into the Practice Management Report some more and giving us all a deeper look behind the curtain at firms these days.

In the meantime, feel free to litter the comment section with your thoughts on these figures.

The post For Firms, Growth is Down But Profitability Is Up appeared first on Going Concern.

But there was another bit in that bulletin of note, one that the AICPA has taken issue with. This part, where they throw out Circular 230 provisions as they relate to this brave new world of AI-augmented tax practice:

2. 10.27(a) – Fees: “A practitioner may not charge an unconscionable fee in connection with any matter before the Internal Revenue Service.”

AI can reduce research and drafting time, such that billing clients for manual labor or time that was not actually spent or double billing for AI-assisted tasks may violate § 10.27, depending on the facts (e.g., a noticeable pattern across clients or the size of the billing differentials). Cost savings should be passed on openly, with billing practices that reflect the efficiencies gained from the use of GAI. Practitioners should not only disclose, in general or specific terms as needed, the AI activities performed, but also fairly credit to the client’s account any cost reductions.

Yesterday, Journal of Accountancy published an article outlining the AICPA’s beef with this statement, a beef that has been seasoned by feedback they’ve received from practitioners who operate under the yoke of Circular 230 provisions:

“The IRS statement implies that any efficiencies gained through AI should be directly passed on to the client,” Eva Simpson, CPA, CGMA, AICPA vice president–Member Value, Tax & Advisory Services, said in an email. “That is an overly simplistic view that ignores the full economics of AI adoption, including software licensing costs, implementation expenses, governance requirements, and the significant investment needed to train professionals to use these tools responsibly and effectively. It also overlooks that professional services are increasingly priced based on value delivered, not just time spent, and that the benefits AI creates for clients should be considered as part of that equation.”

AICPA leaders discussed the issue during a recent Town Hall and Washington Tax Brief. Melanie Lauridsen, the AICPA’s vice president–Tax Policy & Advocacy, said the AICPA is working with the IRS on clarifying language and FAQs “because value pricing is something that is just part of business, and you have to be able to include the liability that you’re taking as you go through all of this.”

AICPA chair Jan Lewis, CPA, CGMA, a firm partner and former chair of the AICPA’s Tax Executive Committee, said firms also incur costs to train employees and establish procedures for using AI responsibly.

“We know that that AI-generated work is valuable to our client, and that value, however it is performed by AI or by the profession, has a cost and it has a benefit, and we need to bill for that service based on the value provided,” Lewis said.

Mark Koziel, CPA, CGMA, president and CEO of the AICPA, who said he had heard from CPAs on the issue, said the OPR language is not authoritative and could be “overstepping a little bit.”

Clients no doubt think they deserve a discount if their practitioner is saving tons of time with AI but the AICPA certainly has a point here too.

It’s funny that the profession’s love of the billable hour is coming back to bite here. If time is the primary measure of value and these technologies save time then you’ve shot yourself in the foot if you don’t pass that on to the client. The AICPA is basically making the same argument value pricing fanatics have been making for years, that time is just one piece of a multi-layered puzzle.

The post AICPA Pushes Back on IRS Suggesting CPAs Should Charge Less If They’re Using AI appeared first on Going Concern.

Look, Auditing Hedge Funds Is Hard OK

Deloitte is getting sued, reports AFR:

Deloitte is being sued in the US by investors in collapsed hedge fund strategy Mars FX who allege that the accounting giant helped give credibility to a fund that reported hundreds of millions of dollars in assets before almost $US600 million went missing.

The lawsuit brought by investor Cohen New York alleges that Deloitte may have known that Mars FX executives were in breach of their fiduciary duties when it issued four consecutive years of unqualified audit opinions between 2020 and 2023.

Turns out someone at r/EBPAudits discussed this client in-depth a few months ago:

And Bloomberg talked about the fund back in April.

KPMG Knows All About AI Strategy That Creates Activity

KPMG published something about AI: Is your AI creating value or just activity?

KPMG would know! See also, this article in which we discuss how KPMGers were creating BS activity to comply with the firm’s AI usage rules:

Aussie Firms Rebuke Auditor Rotation While Regulator Digs Deep

Australian firms are against mandatory auditor rotation. Well, some of them are very against it while others are open to it in certain situations:

Accounting firms are pushing back against a federal government proposal to force companies to change auditors every two decades, but are willing to accept a requirement that listed companies put their audit contract out to tender at least once every decade.

PwC, KPMG and Deloitte warned it would be costly, risky and affect audit quality if Australia followed the United Kingdom and adopted British rules that demand listed companies change audit firms after 20 years. In contrast, mid-tier firms Grant Thornton and BDO support the move but only for large organisations that are important to the economy, known as public interest entities.

Meanwhile, the Australian Securities ‌and Investments Commission (ASIC) is going to be busy for the foreseeable future:

Australia’s corporate regulator is examining 551 complaints of potential audit misconduct at the country’s ​Big Four accounting firms, a parliamentary committee heard on Friday.

“The volume that’s being produced is significant,” Chris Savundra, ASIC’s executive director of enforcement and compliance, told the Parliamentary ​Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services.

See what you started, KPMG?

Not a Great Year to Be Into Crypto

Crypto platforms, or rather their customers and wallets, are having a bad year, writes CNBC.

Security audits weren’t enough to keep many cryptocurrency platforms safe from money-losing hacks, crypto market data site CoinGecko said in a report dated Aug. 27.

Between January 2025 and July 2026, cryptocurrency platforms have lost more than $3.63 billion due to a variety of cyberattacks and stolen passkeys, the report said.

Around 88% of the stolen funds and about 60% of the affected platforms had “completed independent security audits,” the report said. It noted most of the attacks targeted areas that checks do not typically cover.

Hopefully the Fraud-Fighting Goes On Either Way

We’re fans of what Auditor Maestas and his people have been doing in New Mexico so this may be an election to watch:

The New Mexico Office of the State Auditor employs 35 people to root out financial fraud, waste or abuse in more than 1,000 public entities in New Mexico, from large state agencies to tiny political entities like acequias or municipal water systems.

The Nov. 3 general election for the office will feature incumbent Democratic State Auditor Joseph Maestas against Republican Joshua James Ryan Lawrence, a business owner and conservative activist who will appear on the ballot as a write-in candidate.

Whoever wins will inherit an office Maestas says public employees are increasingly turning to with credible fraud complaints, and one he says is stretched to complete its mandate due to limited state resources and fewer certified public accountants in the workforce.

Alright, that’s it. Email or text if you have a tip or story for us and have a great week!

The post Tuesday Morning Accounting News Brief: Hedge Fund Audit Earns Deloitte a Lawsuit; Auditor Rotation Not Popular Idea With Big 4 | 9.8.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

Who can just sit around for a year waiting for their career to start? Yikes.

OP who posted this is in consulting, said they know interns in other lines who are also getting pushed back. If that’s you and you wanna talk about it, let us know.

Related:

The post ICYMI: RSM Is Apparently Pushing Back Start Dates For Associates appeared first on Going Concern.

The Job Market

CFO hires increasing; average age of hires decreasing [Journal of Accountancy]
If the first half of 2026 is any indication, opportunities for CFO roles at large companies are on the rise — and younger candidates are getting a closer look. The midyear Crist | Kolder Associates Volatility Report projects an 18.3% CFO turnover rate at Fortune 500 and S&P 500 companies over the entirety of 2026, a level of turnover last surpassed in 2019. The CFO turnover rate in 2025 was a similarly robust 18.1%. The average age of the 72 CFO hires made halfway through 2026 was 48.2 years old, down from an average of 51.9 years for 2025 hires.

Bain Wants to Boost Consultant Hiring by 12% on Client AI Demand [Bloomberg]
Bain wants to add about 1,400 client-facing roles this year to its base of around 12,000 staffers, managing partner and chairman Christophe De Vusser said in an interview. AI is driving double-digit revenue growth at the firm, he said, and Bain needs to expand its headcount to help harness that growth.

Audit

AI sounds the death knell for audit fee inflation [Financial Times]
Auditors make a point of looking for unexpected shifts and unusual trends. They may find some of both among their own fees. Companies’ audit bills have generally increased 4 per cent to 5 per cent a year. Yet last year, the increase, at less than 2 per cent, was basically in line with inflation. There is good reason to think the days of reliable audit-fee increases are numbered.

With $865K spent and no 2024 audit, council questions city’s progress [Valley Breeze (Rhode Island)]
The city of Woonsocket has spent some $865,000 in hopes of completing a financial audit now 18 months past due, leading to ongoing concerns from the state auditor general, officials said last week. Finance Director Christine Chamberland said she now expects to submit the required financial data before Labor Day, and that as more office staffing finally lands in place, the city’s process should become more timely.

Halifax County town penalized after not submitting 2025 audit on time, officials say [WNCN (North Carolina)]
This article from April discusses why Littleton has been struggling to submit timely audits since 2020.
In May, Littleton officials said they submitted their overdue 2021 audit, but their four remaining audits, including last year’s, remained unavailable. Due to not submitting a 2025 audit by the March 31 deadline, according to state officials, Littleton received a notice of noncompliance.

Technology

AI’s productivity boom will likely create a ‘winner-takes-all’ economy, top EY economist warns [Fortune]
Despite promises that AI could prove to be society’s great equalizer, Gregory Daco, the EY-Parthenon chief economist, argues that “productivity growth protects margins, not income.” “You tend to have greater concentration and more of a winner-takes-all type of environment when you have these technological advances,” Daco said in an interview with Fortune’s Eva Roytburg. In almost every technological revolution—the railroad boom of the late 19th century, or the 90s dot-com revolution—large, vertically-integrated firms initially capture the gains, while smaller ones face “persistent cost pressures, persistent policy uncertainty, higher interest rates,” Daco noted.

U.S. Servicemember, KPMG Employee Are Targets of Prediction Markets Crackdown [WSJ]
Remember this analysis from February when people were talking about a bunch of oddly successful bets on KPMG-audited companies? Could be related, or not.
Another case authorities are pursuing focuses on an employee at KPMG, the global accounting and consulting firm, people familiar with that investigation said. The employee is under investigation for betting on whether a specific public company would beat the consensus estimate for quarterly earnings, one of the people said.

Tax

Congress approves funding bill that maintains IRS budget [Journal of Accountancy]
Congress avoided a government shutdown when the House approved a stopgap bill that maintains current funding levels for federal government agencies, including the IRS, and forwarded it to the president for his signature.

IRS audit revenue plunged following workforce reductions, Treasury watchdog finds [CBS News]
Revenue from IRS audits plunged 35% in fiscal 2025 as the agency shed thousands of enforcement workers, according to a new report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, an agency watchdog. The IRS collected a total of $6.5 billion from audits in fiscal 2025, which ended Sept. 30, down from $10 billion a year earlier, TIGTA said in its Aug. 26 report.

Fraud

Belgium seizes €65 million in French McKinsey tax-fraud investigation [Reuters]
Belgian authorities have seized €65 million ($76 ​million) in a French investigation into suspected ‌aggravated tax fraud and money laundering involving the U.S.-based consulting firm McKinsey, French and Belgian prosecutors ​said on Friday. In a statement, McKinsey said ​it was cooperating with French authorities and ⁠denied any wrongdoing.

Utah launches first-of-its-kind team to prosecute fraud, other financial crimes [KSL]
Utah has seen a “five-fold increase” in the amount of money stolen through financial crimes in the past five years, according to Attorney General Derek Brown. That increase is part of why his office on Monday launched a new team focused solely on investigating and prosecuting financial fraud across the state. The Financial Crimes Intelligence Center is the first team of its kind in the state to work with federal agencies and financial institutions to fill gaps in the current fraud prevention system.

The post Friday Footnotes: CFOs Are Getting Younger These Days; AI Pushes One Firm to Hire, Keeps Audit Fees Down | 9.4.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

Eileen Hoggett, who the whistleblower said stashed client board papers in her locker in KPMG’s Sydney office, stepped down from her role as chief ​operating officer in early June while staying on as an audit partner.

She was expelled ​from the partnership weeks later.

The Supreme Court of New South Wales ⁠confirmed Hoggett’s lawsuit on Thursday and that a summons document had been lodged.

“Expulsion means that I get no entitlements. So I don’t get my accrued annual leave, I don’t get the retirement payment which I contributed to as a partner for 21 years, and I did not get paid for the last month up until the date of my expulsion,” Hoggett said at the August 14 hearing at which she struggled to recall what exactly was put in her locker. “So, [it is a] significant financial penalty.” Potentially millions, actually.

It was evidently the first time ever in KPMG Australia’s history that a partner had been forcibly ejected from the partnership. Hoggett joined KPMG at 20 years old and had been at the firm for 33 years when she received a call from the CEO telling her she was getting kicked.

Ex-KPMG Australia executive sues firm after sacking over audit leak scandal [Reuters]

The post Chief Operating Officer Punted From the Partnership Post-Audit Scandal Sues KPMG appeared first on Going Concern.

Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers is co-leading the coalition and published this on his website (any emphasis ours):

Today [August 24], Attorney General Mike Hilgers co-led a coalition of 16 state attorneys general in raising concerns over climate-related financial activism in a letter sent to the “Big 4” accounting firms: Deloitte; Ernst & Young; KPMG; and PricewaterhouseCoopers. The letter addresses the Big 4’s stated commitments to push for climate-related disclosures in financial reporting, contrary to their professional duties of integrity and objectivity. The firms stand to financially benefit from the additional reporting, with the increased costs of compliance being passed onto small businesses and consumers.

The Big 4 have committed to support a framework of climate-based disclosures as part of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures. They were also founding members of the Net Zero Financial Service Providers Alliance, whose members committed to align their products and services with the Paris climate agreement’s goal of achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 or sooner. The Big 4’s climate activist commitments may violate professional duties of integrity and objectivity by creating conflicts of interest.

“The Big 4’s climate commitments force clients to make burdensome climate-related disclosures that drive up the costs of their services and place onerous requirements on farmers and small businesses,” said Attorney General Hilgers. “These costs will ultimately be passed onto consumers, who will be forced to bear the burden of increased prices for food, energy, and other everyday products.”

The letter addresses concerns that the Big 4’s climate activism may violate state consumer protection laws by making deceptive representations and omissions to customers about the firms’ independence when conducting audits. The Big 4 do not disclose their climate commitments, which is inconsistent with their stated commitments to independence, objectivity, transparency, ethics, and integrity. The Big 4 may have also violated state contractual provisions requiring compliance with state law, which could result in penalties and termination of the Big 4’s contracts.

The 38-page letter, which is embedded in full below if you have literally nothing better to do, is co-led by the attorneys general of Texas, Alaska, and Florida and signed by attorneys general of Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and West Virginia.

The letter goes into many specifics with fat stacks of footnotes covering each page. For example:

And brings up old shit:

It ends with 38 questions for the Big 4, many of which are actually demands. Like this one: “Provide copies of all training materials and written guidance for auditors that were created, issued, provided, or used by your firm since 2020 that are related to climate-related disclosures and reporting in company statements, including (a) all documents related to the materiality or lack of materiality of climate-related information, and (b) all documents related to any ISSB (International Sustainability Standards Board) standards or to the [IFRS Foundation’s Sustainability] Bulletin.”

Now we wait to see if firms respond.

The post Big 4 Climate Activism Has a Pretty Convenient Revenue Stream, Say 16 State AGs in Tedious Letter to Firms appeared first on Going Concern.

Can we take this to mean that you can no longer count your impact on the firm in hours billed and work delivered? Or, less cynically, does this mean overachievers will be generously rewarded for doing partner-level strategy work while the underachievers can still get by on doing exactly what’s expected of them and no more?

The post EY Is Rolling Out Nebulous New Rewards appeared first on Going Concern.

That’s Some Real Dirty Dirt

KPMG is dealing with some new but old allegations that have emerged as the firm does the old song and dance for parliament:

Former KPMG partner Philip Henry allegedly treated “female members of staff and clients inappropriately”, including making “unwanted sexual advances” during his tenure, according to allegations from a whistleblower detailed in a letter tabled in federal parliament.

Philip Henry worked at the firm until his publicly reported departure in 2004 and is also accused in the document of allegedly receiving “secret commissions” that were paid “in cash” by a client after he devised tax schemes for them.

In other instances, the document alleges, he received personal gifts from some clients instead of being paid in fees, or to reduce the fees.

The allegations have surfaced as part of a parliamentary inquiry looking at the KPMG audit leaks scandal engulfing the firm.

AFR also covered these allegations here where they mention Henry led the middle market practice.

Well, There’s the Reputational Damage Too Ya Know

Speaking of dirt, alleged or otherwise, the Wirecard whistleblower had something to say to Accounting Times about the nature of the audit profession:

Speaking to Accounting Times in the wake of the KPMG audit scandal and its treatment of the whistleblower who alleged misconduct in the audit department, Pav Gill said the audit profession is riddled with issues “as a whole”.

Specifically, he voiced concerns about the lack of sanctions or repercussions for misconduct or wrongdoing in general, whether it is a failed audit or mishandling of internal whistleblowing.

“I don’t see repercussions that are proportionate to the damage,” he said.

“Even if you look at Wirecard, where EY Germany was the auditor, some auditors surrendered their licenses, and the proceedings against them ended. EY itself and five individual auditors were sanctioned, but were the consequences proportionate to the scale of the failure? If you can prove bad faith or serious misconduct, there must be real accountability.”

Chilly Days For Consulting Ahead

Looks like consulting isn’t going to heat up any time soon. Financial Times put out a long read explaining the situation:

Consultants are on a collision course with their clients over the cost of giant IT projects, as companies look to AI to cut spending on external advisers.

In FT interviews, large and small businesses around the world said they are demanding reduced fees or moving work in-house, aided by new AI tools and software that requires less integration.

“Consulting resources will be needed in very different numbers and also with different skills,” said Jochen Kamp, who is leading an IT overhaul at German drugmaker Bayer. “The traditional consultant as we know them today will certainly have to change. Fewer and fewer of them will be needed.”

EY Thinks WFH Doesn’t Work For Consulting

In related news, EY wants its baby consultants in the office:

Executives at some of the UK’s largest consulting firms said AI had made interpersonal skills increasingly valuable — competencies they argued must be developed in-office.

“This change we’ve seen in the last few years where people have set up their lives to be . . . at home a lot is just not the route to success in the world of AI,” said Sayeh Ghanbari, UK head of consulting at Big Four firm EY. “We’re facing a position where we’re going to have to reduce flexibility, but in order to help the human skills.”

FBI Raids Weren’t Included in the Original Engagement Letter

Macias Gini and O’Connell LLP has an interesting client out in California:

While details remain sparse in the wake of a high-profile FBI raid on the Contra Costa County Assessor’s Office and the homes of its two top officials earlier this year, the independent accounting firm tasked with evaluating that office’s financial compliance is set to be busier than ever following a contract amendment to fund an expanded audit scope and other analysis that was approved by the Board of Supervisors last week.

An amendment increasing the payment limit by $250,000 compared with the existing contract for financial auditing services was approved unanimously by the board as part of the consent calendar at its Aug. 25 meeting.

“Since the execution of the original audit engagement letter, MGO has become aware of increased audit risk in the County, including publicly reported information regarding an ongoing federal investigation involving a County elected official, as well as additional information concerning functions within that office that may be relevant to an assessment of audit risk,” County Administrator Monica Nino wrote in a staff report for last Tuesday’s board agenda.

ABC7 wrote about the raid back in June and quoted the exiting assessor as calling it “trauma and drama” and a “fishing expedition.”

Godspeed, MGO.

Alright, off to work for you. Email or text if you have a tip or story for us. Bye!

The post Monday Morning Accounting News Brief: Some Messy Stuff Coming Out From Under KPMG’s Rug; Baby Consultants Expected to Show Their Faces | 8.31.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

Compensation

Accounting firm salaries rose slightly this year [CFO Brew]
Salaries at accounting firms have gone up this year—but perhaps not at the level where it matters most. According to Accounting Today’s third annual salary survey, median base salaries at accounting firms crept upward in 2026. For senior accountants, they reached a median of $98,500, and for managers, around $142,000. Partners at small firms—defined in this survey as those with fewer than 10 employees—brought home a median salary of $150,000, while those at firms with 10 or more employees made median salaries of $260,000. The median salary at the staff level though, went down slightly: from $75,000 last year to $73,000 this year. That’s a somewhat concerning trend, as lower starting salaries are one reason young people often cite for not entering the accounting profession.

AI

Watchdog says it can’t investigate Deloitte over use of AI in $1.6M government report [The Independent]
A provincial accounting watchdog says it will not be investigating Deloitte following a complaint about the firm’s use of AI in the $1.6-million human resources report it produced for Newfoundland and Labrador’s department of health last year. The Independent has also learned that the provincial government and Deloitte collaborated on a response to a media query about the scandal which prompted the Tony Wakeham government to change its policy around AI disclosure in the public procurement process.

Law & Order

PwC International must face trial of Evergrande scandals claims: Hong Kong High Court [South China Morning Post]
The liquidators of collapsed developer China Evergrande Group have won a legal victory against PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) International, indicating that the firm and two other units of the accounting giant would need to jointly face the largest corporate lawsuit claims in Hong Kong, according to a court judgment on Wednesday.

Court penalises accounting firm $148,000 after ‘cashback’ wage scheme [Human Resources Director]
A Sydney accounting firm made a worker pay her own wages back to it – and a court has now penalised it $148,000. The employee worked as an assistant accountant from July 2019 to December 2020. She held a temporary graduate visa and a bachelor’s degree in accounting. For the first stretch of her employment, the court found, she was not paid at all. What followed was what the agreed facts called a “cashback” scheme. The director required her to pay money to him or the firm. Those funds were then moved through a company account and paid back to her, so the transfers looked like salary.

Tax Matters

Legislators could fix property tax, they ‘just don’t politically want to,’ says revenue chair [Nevada Current]
State Sen. Dina Neal (D-North Las Vegas) this week had the Legislature’s nonpartisan fiscal staff lay out several options to members of the interim committee on revenue, which she chairs. Neal said she included the “educational only” presentation after hearing rumblings about the need for the state to conduct a study on property tax. “We should not spend another hot dime, or six pennies, on another property tax study,” said Neal. “Because we know what the answer is. We just don’t politically want to do any of these solutions.”

Data centers could score a break under next assessor [Axios]
A recent Tribune-Illinois Answers Project collaboration showed that tax breaks for data centers are already contributing to high costs for some residents. Appraisers for a Microsoft data center in Northlake, for example, valued the property at $250 million. Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi’s office, however, assessed it at $873 million by considering upgrades, equipment and personal property that allow it to operate as a data center and contribute to its value, the Tribune reports.

SEC

Executive Pay Disclosure Plan for Public Firms Advanced by SEC [Bloomberg]
The markets watchdog sent its proposal to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget for review on Wednesday, according to an update posted Thursday on the OMB’s website. SEC Chair Paul Atkins has long signaled his intent to overhaul the scope of executive compensation disclosures that have been in place since 1992. At an agency roundtable in June 2025, he described the requirements as a “Frankenstein patchwork of rules,” some of which were congressionally mandated, and many that were not.

Talent

Why tax and finance transformation for utilities is now essential [EY]
Utilities are confronting a talent challenge that cannot be solved through hiring alone. The 2025 EY Tax and Finance Operations (TFO) Survey for Power & Utilities highlights a clear shift in how leaders view the skills required for the future: Virtually all US respondents identify strategic thinking and problem-solving as critical capabilities, on par with tax technical knowledge. At the same time, supply is tightening. More than half of respondents believe fewer accountants entering the profession will be detrimental to their organization, even as regulatory complexity continues to rise. These pressures are further intensified by evolving reporting expectations, which are increasing demands on already stretched teams.

Municipal Madness

Woonsocket Has Paid About $865,000 to Outside Firms While Two City Audits Stay Overdue [Uprise RI]
The figures came out during a discussion of the overdue audits, according to the Woonsocket City Council’s published meeting recording. Councilor James C. Cournoyer put the total at $865,000 — $553,000 to CBIZ, the city’s audit firm, and $310,000 to CLA, an accounting firm hired to supplement city staff — and said that with outstanding bills included the number is “close to $900,000 over 18 months.” “We got an FY23 audit. I’m not sure what else we got, to be very honest with you,” Cournoyer said. He added that he had no issue with the quality of either firm’s work, and that the problem was internal management: “We need to manage this better internally.”

OC Board of Supervisors wants to know if it can subpoena companies investigated in county audit [Orange County Register]
The OC Board of Supervisors wants to know what legal means Orange County has for getting financial records from companies that are not producing records of how taxpayer funding was used. Supervisor Janet Nguyen expressed frustration that businesses are still not providing receipts and other documents to show whether they delivered the services they were contracted to provide.

Private Equity

HBK sells stake to private equity as it pursues growth [Crain’s Cleveland Business]
HBK, the Canfield-based parent company of HBK CPAs & Consultants and related subsidiaries — including HBKS Wealth Advisors (the dba of HBK Sorce Advisory LLC), a registered investment advisor, and Vertilocity, an IT advisory practice — said that it has accepted a growth investment from H.I.G. Capital, an alternative investment firm in Miami reporting $75 billion in managed capital. Financial terms were not disclosed, but the deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026.

The post Friday Footnotes: Salaries Are Slipping at the Staff Level; PwC International Not Off the Hook in Evergrande Lawsuit | 8.28.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

Rebalance how we tax labor and capital.

As workers are pushed into different jobs, they will need retraining and other support from the social safety net. But they will be working less, which means they will be paying less in income taxes, and government revenues will drop just when the demand for those services is greatest. The funds will have to come from somewhere at a time when budgets are stretched.

I believe we should tax AI tokens and robots. Right now, if you’re an employer and you hire someone, you pay payroll taxes on their earnings. But if you buy a robot, you can usually write it off right away as a business expense. The tax system nudges you toward replacing people with machines.

A tax would slow the rush away from human labor a little and raise money for retraining and a stronger safety net. It would need to be targeted so it does not slow down the purely beneficial uses of AI, like making medicine and education cheaper.

Critics of this idea point out that it’s not optimally efficient in an economic sense, but they’re not considering the broader value of work for individuals and society. And with all the accelerated innovation we will have, we’ll be able to afford a little inefficiency as the price for keeping people employed.

I proposed a robot tax years ago and most of the reaction was that it was a strange idea. I’m still a big proponent of it. Although it is not the whole solution to the threat of AI, it is part of a wise response.

However we raise money for more assistance, it needs to reach the people who need it most, including workers who lose their jobs to AI and robots, people whose hours or wages decline, and communities where the losses are concentrated. We need to start doing that work now so that the systems are ready when the need becomes acute.

As Bill mentioned in his essay, this isn’t a new idea of his. It’s been almost ten years since he said in an interview with Quartz that he thinks robots should be taxed like the humans they replace and just as long since The International Federation of Robotics said they think that idea is dumb. “Bill Gates’ latest idea to tax robots aims to solve a problem that does not exist: empirical analysis of economic data and forecasts shows that automation and the use of robots create new jobs by increasing productivity,” said IFR in 2017.

Robots and tokens tax, yay or nay?

The post Bill Gates Proposes a Tokens and Robots Tax appeared first on Going Concern.

The 18-page settlement agreement, which is embedded in full at the bottom of this article, details the government’s beef:

Taking race or sex into account when making hiring, promotion, and staffing decisions to achieve progress towards non-public race and sex-based workforce composition goals for business units. Employees sometimes described the business unit goals as ”aggressive,” and certain managers were asked to ‘ ‘make[] a commitment” to achieve the goals. These goals were established to “demonstrate [Deloitte’s] commitment to putting [Black and Hispanic/Latinx] cohorts first,” and in some instances, Deloitte recognized that the goals, if achieved, would result in a reduction in the representation ofcertain other racial groups. Business units within Deloitte received monthly summaries tracking the demographic goals within the unit, where representation or advancement towards the goal was highlighted in green, yellow, or red depending on whether the goal was exceeded, met or slightly missed, or significantly below the goal.

Deloitte’s Partners, Principals and Managing Directors (PPMDs) were evaluated, in part, based on their contributions to helping Deloitte achieve its workforce composition goals, while, for a two year period, approximately 150 of Deloitte’s most senior PPMDs’ compensation could be impacted if their business units did not meet the demographic goals set by Deloitte. These PPMDs stood to lose tens of thousands of dollars per year based on whether their business units hit the demographic thresholds Deloitte set for them.

In evaluating themselves against Deloitte’s demographic goals during the year end evaluation and compensation process, some PPMDs cited as evidence of their high level performance, among other factors, ”increas[ing] the total number of Black professionals by at least 11 and Hispanic/Latinx professions by at least 31 in the West region,” reaching “45 percent female experienced hires,” or achieving “100% female MD promotes.”

There’s also a bit in there about taking race and sex into account when trying to shuffle people off the bench:

Deloitte set goals pertaining to the demographics of employees staffed to federal contracts, and sought to make statistically equal the percentage of Deloitte identified Under Represented Minorities (URMs) and non-URMs who were understaffed or ‘·on the bench.” Via the Priority Staffing Report, Deloitte identified employees by race and sex that were available to be staffed on projects and provided names of those employees to staffing managers and suggested that the managers consider staffing those employees, whose utilization would help Deloitte achieve its goal of achieving parity between the percentage of URMs and non-URMs who were understaffed or ..on the bench.” Deloitte considered addressing underutilization of certain demographics as a “lever” to use to achieve its aspirational demographic goals and used it to reduce the differential between URMs and non-URMs staffed to federal contracts.

The government contends these practices were in violation anti-discrimination requirements set forth in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, rules Deloitte is obligated to follow as a federal contractor.

According to the settlement, once Deloitte pays up the government will then pay $4,300,000 of that to the American Alliance for Equal Rights, who filed the original complaint on behalf of a whistleblower.

“Government contractors cannot reward or penalize employees based on race or sex — and labeling the practice DEI does not make it lawful,” said Attorney General Todd Blanche. “The Justice Department will aggressively pursue government contractors that have used taxpayer dollars to fund unlawful discrimination.”

“Merit drives opportunity and promotion. Not someone’s sex or race,” said Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward Jr. “Today’s settlement is yet another example of this Department’s commitment to eliminating woke, unconstitutional practices from American workplaces.”

Also this week, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita announced a separate but related $1.2 million settlement with Deloitte, evidently the first of its kind between a state and a government contractor if the press release is to be believed. So we’re up to $22.7 million if you’re doing math at home. “There is no justification for unlawful discrimination, even when a business claims good intentions or cloaks its practices in the language of DEI,” he said. “Treating people differently in the workplace based on race or sex is destructive and illegal. Companies that do business with the State explicitly pledge not to engage in it. We will continue to vigorously enforce Indiana’s False Claims and Whistleblower Protection Act and work to eliminate illegal DEI discrimination in all its forms.”

A case was also settled in Florida for another $1.2 million, bringing us to a grand total of $23,900,000 out of Deloitte’s pocket. As relator (here, will save you a Google on what that is), the American Alliance for Equal Rights will receive $4,780,000.

The post Deloitte’s DEI Goals Ended Up Slightly More Expensive Than Anticipated appeared first on Going Concern.

We hadn’t heard much about it since but on the occasion of his country’s 80th Indepence Day on August 15, he brought it up again.

Wrote Economic Times:

Among the ambitions he articulated was the need for Indian banks and pharmaceutical companies to secure a place among the world’s top five in their respective sectors. He also emphasised the need for Indian firms in consulting, legal services, accounting and credit ratings to emerge as globally competitive institutions, arguing that India possesses both the talent and capability required to excel in these fields.

…

Indian firms that develop sufficient scale and expertise could expand overseas, generating export revenues and creating high-value employment.

Do they realize the damage they could do if everyone over there who’s working for Western accounting firms quit at the same time? It’s unlikely they’d ever be able to create something that can compete against Big 4 but they sure should cripple them if they wanted.

At this point, it doesn’t look like this idea will get off the ground but you never know.

The post India’s Still Talking About Making Their Own Consulting Firms to Compete With Big 4 appeared first on Going Concern.

When Financial Review reported what they’d heard from sources on July 29, a KPMG spokesperson was quick to say that no decisions had been made yet and Reuters went so far as to push out a headline that almost made it sound like AFR had pulled that number out of their asses. Please, can we just get the actual number already so people can move on.

We promised an update when numbers actually come out and thank goodness, they finally have. As usual, Financial Review has the details:

KPMG will slash 5 per cent of its workforce and cut partner pay by 13 per cent in the first stage of a cost-cutting program triggered by a document-misuse scandal that is affecting future sales and has led to falling demand for the firm’s consulting services.

The big four accounting firm said the cuts would include 27 partners and 360 staff, after it reported that annual revenue for the year to June 30 fell 1 per cent to $2.1 billion. Consulting revenue dropped, but this was offset by growth in the audit, tax, and legal divisions. Average partner pay will be also cut by 13 per cent, or about $72,000, to $645,000.

Consulting revenue didn’t just drop, it plummeted by 16% according to KPMG’s 2026 revenue results published the day before AFR’s article. New CEO John Sams said this about layoffs: “After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to reduce our workforce and restructure parts of the firm. This is not a decision that has been taken lightly, and we know it will have a very real impact on people. With demand for consulting remaining weaker, most of the roles affected will be in our Consulting business. Changes to our business and the professional services landscape have also reduced the need for some roles in Business Services.”

The quote goes on and on: “Our immediate focus is on treating everyone impacted with care, dignity and respect. We are providing practical support and making wellbeing support central to the process. We also recognise how unsettling this will be for colleagues across the firm, and we will continue to communicate openly and support them through this period of change. These changes are intended to put the firm on a more sustainable footing and ensure we remain aligned with the needs of our clients. We will keep assessing the operating environment and respond thoughtfully as circumstances change.”

So it sounds like a bunch of consulting people would have been cut regardless. Audit revenue was up 11%, we’ll have to wait until next year to see this year’s drama reflected in their revenue figures.

The firm expects difficult market conditions to continue into FY27 and beyond, said Sams in the revenue press release.

The post After Consulting Takes a Double-Digit Revenue Hit, KPMG Australia Cuts Workforce By 5 Percent appeared first on Going Concern.

Layoffs Start at KPMG

The Sydney Morning Herald talks about how layoffs went down at KPMG Australia this morning. First, the intro:

When a scandal hits an accounting firm, there’s usually a significant lag between the event and its impact. Monday’s KPMG staff purge will probably be just the start of a multi-year fallout for the business’ earnings, salaries and the tenure of those that remain.

It’s impossible to measure the anger that must be felt by staff who will bear the burden of the failings of a group of senior people whose professional greed or ambition led them to misuse private client documents from Lendlease and Optus to secure lucrative audit contracts with other companies.

We’d argue it’s actually fairly easy to measure that anger on a simple enough scale. Then again, we’ve been unofficially measuring Big 4 staff anger levels for 17 years.

On Monday, the firm’s entire staff was invited to attend an internal town hall at 10.30am. Within 15 minutes of the meeting’s close, the first of the circa 350 staff slated to line up for the plank were being contacted for bad news delivery. By Tuesday, all will know their fate and whether their career will be upended by the “tap and go”.

It could be said that those who lost their jobs this week got a reprieve. They won’t have to work for months or years in a state of impending fearful anticipation as their organisation reacts to the slow-motion decline that will be the result of the audit leak scandal that has smothered the firm this year.

It’s true. No one wants to get the axe, especially in this market, but sometimes it’s a relief when you’re dismissed from a firm in crisis. Or any firm for that matter.

Guess We Need to Read Up on the History of Tires

In an opinion piece for Bloomberg Tax, Andrew Belna, assistant professor of accounting at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, compares the current day private equity rush in public accounting and the pressure of AI to…the tire industry of the early 20th century?

In the early 1900s, the industry was thriving. Tire sales grew about 29% per year from 1909 to 1919 and another 8% per year during the 1920s. Yet despite surging demand from the automobile boom, the number of producers fell by more than 80% between 1922 and 1936. So what happened?

A technological transformation helps explain the shakeout. A 1933 Bureau of Labor Statistics report found that output per man-hour nearly quadrupled between 1914 and 1927. Among the major innovations was the Banbury mixer, which revolutionized raw material processing.

…

Price competition, rising output, and longer-lasting tires all contributed to a collapse in the number of producers in the industry. Survival depended on keeping pace with a rapid succession of innovations. The surviving firms were early entrants and large incumbents that maintained their position at the technological frontier. Their size allowed them to spread research and development costs over larger output, compounding their technological lead.

How AI Is Changing Consulting, Or Something

Elsewhere in the “AI is changing how the work gets done” space, Business Insider ran this: The CEO of the unicorn AI accounting startup, Rillet, says AI is changing who consulting firms hire

“It’s no fun being a consultant implementing your third instance of Oracle Fusion and having three years of your life basically go by in a blink of an eye because you’re transforming Excel spreadsheets and trying to wrangle a very old system,” Nicolas Kopp, CEO of AI-native accounting startup Rillet, told Business Insider.

…

If AI changes how enterprise software is used, then it also changes the kinds of workers consulting firms need to deploy and manage it.

In April, Rillet announced a “corporate development alliance” with EY. It now also works with several consulting firms, including RSM and KPMG, Kopp said.

In the near term, he believes the biggest opportunity for consulting firms is in “change management and implementation.” The longer-term opportunity is to turn their decades of accumulated accounting expertise into “skill files, repositories, agents” that can be layered onto AI systems like Rillet.

Well of course he’d say that.

Deloitte Launches a Role in Tax

In people news, Deloitte announced a guy got a new job in a newly made role:

Deloitte Tax LLP (“Deloitte Tax”) today announced the appointment of Chris Puglia as chief products officer (CPO), a newly established role which underscores Deloitte Tax’s ongoing commitment to marketplace innovation and client-centric value delivery through advanced technology.

Deloitte Tax established the CPO role to advance its commitment to providing innovative, technology-enabled solutions amid rapid industry change, including the growing impact of AI. Puglia will guide the end-to-end vision, commercialization and continuous advancement of Deloitte Tax’s technology offerings. The role draws on Puglia’s deep leadership experience, industry acumen and strong understanding of the organization’s strategy, clients, and the evolving role of technology in the tax marketplace.

NTEU Objects to CEO

The IRS employee union filed a lawsuit:

Frank Bisignano’s actions as the IRS’ CEO for the past 10 months are invalid because he hasn’t been confirmed by the Senate, a federal employee union said in a new lawsuit against the agency.

The National Treasury Employees Union is asking a federal court to find that Bisignano was improperly appointed to the job, and to specifically throw out his decision to stop granting advance sick and annual leave requests for IRS employees.

The union filed suit Thursday against the IRS in US District Court for the District of Columbia. It said the hiring of Bisignano to be CEO, “a position that had not existed previously,” violates the Constitution’s appointments clause, which requires the President to nominate and the Senate to confirm principal officers. Even though Bisignano isn’t officially the Commissioner of the IRS, the agency’s own website says the IRS is “led by the Commissioner and the Chief Executive Officer” and its organizational chart places Bisignano at the top, the complaint said.

Gonna wrap this here, not a ton going on. Email or text if you have a tip or story for us and have a good one!

The post Monday Morning Accounting News Brief: The Newspaper Says It’s Probably For the Best If You Got Laid Off From KPMG; IRS Employee Union Has Beef With CEO Role | 8.24.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

Audit

Many audit reports can be summed up by one commenter’s sentiment: “Undervalued, unappreciated, unseen.” That was this person: MCOL in FSO Audit, S2 > S3, $91.4k > $94k, $0 PBB (Performance Based Bonus). Another FSO Audit report from DC: A2 > S1, $97k > $110k, $2.7k PBB. That last one used the feedback portion to share some wisdom with the class: “Folks remember, time spent with family and closed ones should be the highest priority. Busy season for a few months is fine, but not constant busy seasons throughout the year. Another year is not worth it. Compound interest works everywhere, including the bonds and connections you make with your loved ones. I am not wasting another year just to be in the meat grinder. 2 years is enough for industry folks to start poaching you (especially if you have CPA on hand).”

Then you have this person in FSO Audit who’s just grateful for a paycheck: HCOL, A2 -> S1, $89,430 -> $102,800 w/ $3.4k bonus, “I’m grateful to be two years into my career and making six figures. A lot of my peers can’t even find jobs so just happy to be here.”

Then you’ve got this senior-to-manager in Chicago who’s making $113.8k this year, up from $104k last. They’re starting interns at how much these days, remind us?

It’s not all bad. Like a person in a LCOL market who’s making $94.8k in FSO Audit at S2 with a nearly 6% PBB.

GPS Audit

Government & Public Sector Audit isn’t great when you consider how much it costs just to live poorly in Washington. You have two of them in DC: one making $120k who went from S3-S4 reporting no raise and no bonus and another who hit $110k from $97k with a $2.7k bonus when they went from associate to staff. Meanwhile, you have a staff 2 in a LCOL who received only a 1.5% bump from $60k to $60,900 who said they’re working remotely most of the time and have received feedback that they’re not being “proactive.” Fam, they want you to leave.

Tax

Tax appears to be a bit of a mixed bag. Looking at all the numbers, it seems like the firm’s got headcount right and isn’t trying too hard to make anyone hit the door. You’ve got someone in a HCOL reporting a bump from $95k to $112k and a modest $1,150 bonus when they went from staff 1 to staff 2, another HCOL S2-S3 reporting a salary increase of 8% to $119k and a 5% bonus of $5.5k, and a MCOL staff 1-staff 2 who won’t be breaking even on inflation this year with their 3% bump to $88,580.

Risk Consulting

Throwing a few risk consulting numbers out: HCOL S2 > M1, $127k > $157k, $8.3k promo bonus, $5k performance bonus; VHCOL Manager, $0 raise, $0 performance bonus, VHCOL S2 -> S3, $122k -> $130k, $4.75k PBB.

Call us crazy but based on the reported numbers it feels like raises aren’t as widely disrespectful as recent years, perhaps attrition is closer to normal levels after a few years of unusual lows. Then again, we haven’t seen the big salary spreadsheet that gets sent around every year this year.

As mentioned above, hit the thread if you want to cruise the numbers yourself.

The post Compensation Watch ’26: EY Raises and Promotions Feel Marginally Less Bad This Year appeared first on Going Concern.

Prepare to weep, oldtimers:

Intern offers creeping up on $100k? Never thought I’d see the day. No wonder EY is changing up how internships work and implementing an 8-12 month residency rather than the traditional 8-week grind, they want to get their money’s worth.

As we’ve discussed before, it is no longer a fact that interns are basically guaranteed an offer unless they screw up in a significant way. Firms are trimming their intern classes and lowering their graduate hiring targets but at least they’re being generous to those who do receive an offer.

These larger starting salaries are starting to have an effect down the road as jumps to industry aren’t always the huge bump they used to be now but we can talk about that another day.

Is the profession headed in the right direction? Any other unintended consequences of fat intern offers you’d like to discuss? Have at it.

The post Weekend Discussion: Intern Offers Are Down But Also Up appeared first on Going Concern.

Ongoing Big 4 Drama

Evergrande liquidators challenge watchdog’s HK$1 billion settlement with auditor PwC [South China Morning Post]
Hong Kong’s securities market regulator has defended a HK$1 billion (US$128 million) settlement with an accounting firm at the centre of an auditing scandal involving developer China Evergrande Group, saying it has unfettered powers to enforce discipline and a duty to protect the interests of independent investors.

KPMG prepares to unleash ‘project vector’, slashing staff and costs [Financial Review]
KPMG’s board is preparing to sign off on the first stage of a cost-cutting plan known as Project Vector next week, as the accounting and consulting firm has discussions about a financial lifeline from its global parent amid a document misuse scandal that has hit revenue. Project Vector initially will target about two dozen partners and 450 staff, but more partners are expected to leave, including some waiting until end-of-financial-year bonuses are finalised at the end of this month.

KPMG blames auditing rule change for reassessment of whistleblower contract [The Mandarin]
KPMG Australia was providing whistleblower solutions to Reserve Bank of Australia? LOL. See also: KPMG ceases whistleblower hotline service FairCall for big name audit clients
A Freedom of Information request response made to the RBA about its subscription to whistleblower services provided by KPMG reveals the central bank has exchanged emails with unnamed KPMG partners about its audit and assurance division scandal. The accounting firm has said amendments to an audit standard related to fraud have now created an obstacle to providing the RBA’s whistleblower hotline service, FairCall, to audit clients.

KPMG’s audit scandal puts the credibility of Australia’s biggest companies under a cloud [SmartCompany Opinion]
After [a Senate committee on] Friday, if not well before it, it’s hard to take any claim by KPMG seriously. We can’t even believe KPMG about itself, let alone the companies it audits — in some cases, it is alleged, having secured the job by cheating. There was the deputy general counsel who told the committee on corporations and financial services that KPMG partners lied to him to cover up their cheating to win audit contracts. That’s a ringing endorsement for KPMG audits right there. There was the now-sacked chief operating officer Eileen Hoggett, who’d insisted that one of the central claims from the whistleblower who launched this scandal — that confidential documents used to win work with other firms had been kept in a locker — was not true, only for an email to emerge in which Hoggett instructed her EA to let someone look at the confidential material in the locker. Hoggett professed she couldn’t recall sending the email (dispatched with a smiley emoticon) and that, while she took full accountability, she hadn’t lied. Hoggett also claims mystification as to why KPMG sacked her.

People

Former KPMG partners given period practising ban [AccountantsDaily]
On Thursday (13 August), former KPMG partners Eileen Hoggett and Paul Rogers were ordered to cancel their Certificates of Public Practice (CPP) during the period of the CA ANZ disciplinary tribunal’s undertaking, preventing them from practising as a principal at any firm that provides audit services or acting as a registered company auditor (RCA) for a specified period. Hoggett is one of the former partners at the centre of allegations currently engulfing KPMG of misuse of client data by the audit division, which were revealed by a whistleblower. KPMG is being investigated for both misconduct in the audit division as well as its treatment of the whistleblower. Hoggett is one of the former partners at the centre of allegations currently engulfing KPMG of misuse of client data by the audit division, which were revealed by a whistleblower. KPMG is being investigated for both misconduct in the audit division as well as its treatment of the whistleblower.

Meet Marney MacKenna, EY’s New Dallas Office Leader [D Magazine]
“Dallas is so exciting for our profession,” MacKenna said. “I lean in on the growth of data centers. There’s growth in real estate, healthcare, life sciences, and the number of headquarters that continue to move to Dallas.”

PwC extends CEO tenure of Kevin Burrowes as firm returns to growth [Consultancy.com.au]
The partnership of Big Four professional services firm PwC has re-elected chief executive officer Kevin Burrowes to a second term following the firm’s return to growth for the first time since 2023.

Lawyer, banker, author: How PwC chair John Green reinvented himself [Financial Review]
John Green, the chairman of professional services firm PwC, had been a mergers and acquisitions lawyer at Ashurst and Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer (or at least their predecessors) for 17 years. He loved the role but after nearly two decades he felt he was on “rinse and repeat”. He needed something different.

Tax

Kentucky judge allows case arguing period product tax is unconstitutional to proceed [Kentucky Lantern]
This comes roughly a month after the judge heard arguments over the state’s motion to dismiss the case that Alex Baldon and Skylar Davis filed in March. These women assert that Kentucky is discriminating against women on the basis of sex by taxing period products like tampons and pads when no comparable product for males is thus taxed.

IRS updates FAQs on qualified overtime compensation deduction [PwC]
The IRS released Fact Sheet 2026-13 on August 6, updating its frequently asked questions (FAQs) on the individual income tax deduction for qualified overtime compensation, commonly referred to as “No Tax on Overtime.” The Fact Sheet supersedes the January 2026 FAQs (Fact Sheet 2026-01), removes guidance applicable only to the 2025 tax year, and adds more detailed rules for 2026 through 2028.

Mergers & Acquisitions

Perspectives from the Profession: An Acquisition Strategy to Solve the Ownership Crisis [INSIDE Public Accounting]
The traditional succession model asks a junior partner to buy out the founder at full price, usually financed against their personal balance sheet. For a firm doing $3 million in revenue, the buyout price might sit between $2.5 million and $4 million, depending on the multiple. The partner is expected to service that debt, maintain margins, keep clients happy through a leadership change and somehow grow the practice all at once. Most people in their thirties and forties look at that deal and walk away. Not because they lack ambition, but because they would be taking on enormous financial exposure without the structural support to make the gamble work. And so, they make the reasonable choice to take a salaried role at a larger firm and leave the practice without a real owner.

After about 30 acquisitions, is Aprio still the same firm? [CFO Brew]
Yes and no, longtime CEO Richard Kopelman says.

Omaha-based RIA Stevens Capital Partners nears $1B, buys Dallas CPA firm [InvestmentNews]
The acquired practice belongs to Joe DePetris, a Dallas-based certified public accountant who spent more than three decades serving individual and business clients before deciding it was time to step back.

Mike’s Fort Wayne firm is up for grabs:

Please repost!

We are considering selling our CPA firm for the right price.

Please contact me by email at Mike@sbscpagroup.com if you have interest. Those with interest I will send more information.

2 Million in annual revenue. Over 40% of the work is bookkeeping and…

— Mike Sylvester, CPA (@FortWayneCPA) August 17, 2026

Firm Watch

Wipfli releases fiscal year 2026 annual report highlighting strategic growth and continued investment. [PR Newswire]
“The success of FY26 reflects the dedication of our people and the trust our clients place in us every day,” said Kurt Gresens, CEO of Wipfli. “We remained focused on creating positive impact for our clients while continuing to invest in the talent, innovation and capabilities that will further drive our firm forward.”

Municipal Madness

Okolona schools had been losing money for years, audit finds [Mississippi Today]
Okolona schools have also seen declining enrollment but school officials were spending more, particularly on consulting services and travel, said Stephanie Palmertree, co-founder of Novum Advisory, a Madison-based firm. Palmertree also was a longtime top official in the Office of the State Auditor before leaving in 2024 to start Novum. Missing annual financial audits and federal pandemic relief funds — one-time money that the district was using instead as recurring revenue — masked the district’s “profound state of financial disrepair,” Palmertree said.

Security

Personal files taken in Buford accounting firm data breach [FOX5 Atlanta]
Forrestall CPAs LLC discovered the security incident, secured its systems and launched an investigation alongside a cybersecurity firm. Investigators determined that an unauthorized person viewed and obtained specific files from the network. The firm secured its systems, brought in a cybersecurity company and reported the matter to law enforcement, according to a release from the company.

The post Friday Footnotes: Firm in Whistleblower Scandal Ends Whistleblower Service For Clients; Evergrande Liquidators Mad at Regulators For Settling | 8.21.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

The long and short of it is that this intern season is probably the last “traditional” intern season in assurance. Because things are changing so quickly (read into that what you will), EY is moving from 8 weeks of interning –> offer to a “Career Residency” that stretches for 8 to 12 months during which time the younguns are trained up on more than just how to stay busy and not annoy the people above you in a completely foreign environment.

Wrote BI:

Participants will remain employed part-time, work remotely on EY projects, receive personalized coaching, and participate in skills development before potentially joining the firm full-time.

EY is launching the residency as AI reshapes the skills entry-level workers need and pushes firms to rethink how quickly new hires can contribute.

“Professional services is really changing at a rapid pace right now, and the workforce is changing right alongside it,” Ginnie Carlier, EY Americas’ chief talent and culture officer, told Business Insider. Workers, she added, are increasingly looking for employers that can “help them stay relevant and grow.”

The important bit:

The Career Residency will initially launch for interns working on assurance, who typically intern during the winter or summer before their senior year. Participants will continue taking college classes while working part-time for EY during their senior year.

EY thinks the extended incubation period will help them help newbies develop skills like “judgment, professional skepticism, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication through simulations and real-world EY work.”

There will evidently be little change to the application process and it sounds like there will still be a chance not to receive an offer at the end of it. But if residents make it through all that and secure an offer, BI said that “[o]ffers will also include a pay bump that will depend on performance, business needs, and completion of the residency’s criteria and assessments.”

We’re curious how this all will work. Will the interns residents get personally trained up in the art of critical thinking by specialized resident-wranglers or will overworked managers get stuck with them and plop them in front of computers to watch a bunch of training all day?

Assuming this works out well, we suppose it’s nice that firms are starting to think about how to train up the next generation, something that should have been completely thought out before they started sending all their busy work overseas.

The post EY Is Giving Audit Interns 8 to 12 Months to Prove They’re Useful appeared first on Going Concern.

There are 100 Special Agent positions open at the moment with a salary range of $57,188 – $102,887. Pay scale is GL 7-9, depending on your education and/or experience, it’s all explained in detail at that link. Because our audience consists primarily of millennials, many of whom are quite old now, we feel obligated to let you know that there’s a maximum age restriction of 37 due to retirement rules unless you have prior applicable federal service.

Duties are listed as the following:

• The Criminal Investigator plans and conducts investigations relative to criminal statutes of tax administration and financial crimes and other related offenses, which vary in levels or complexity.
• The work involves investigations analyzing precedent setting legal or investigative questions, complex or unusual accounting problems.
• The Criminal Investigator analyzes information obtained from diversified sources gathered over a wide section of the country; situations where the interrelationship of facts and evidence identification is difficult because of the numerous holding companies, entities, etc., involved; and cases including a mixture of legal and illegal activities; international transfers of funds; working with DOJ and IRS Foreign country attaches to obtain records; and cryptocurrency investigations.
• Performs other investigative and enforcement duties such as testifying as a Government witness, assisting the U.S. Attorney during the preparation of cases for trial, and conducting collateral inquiries.
• Obtains, evaluates, integrates, and recommends action on information items to identify large areas of
• noncompliance (e.g., major profession, occupation, industry, or wide geographic area).

The job posting closes on August 27 so if you’re thinking about it, you better get on it.

The post The IRS is Looking For a Few Good Special Agents appeared first on Going Concern.

KPMG had this to say about LaRue in their press release:

A member of KPMG’s management committee, LaRue will oversee the firm’s talent and culture strategies and all human resources activities, including such areas as workforce planning and deployment, total rewards, recruiting, talent management, learning and others.

Jason previously served as National Managing Partner of Talent & Culture at KPMG. Over the course of his 20 years with the firm, he has played a pivotal role in advancing talent and culture initiatives that strengthen the organization and fuel client success.

He serves as a board member for Blessings in a Backpack and an advisory board member for Fairfield University’s John Charles Meditz College of Arts and Sciences.

According to their website, Blessings in a Backpack Blessings provides food on weekends for kids who might otherwise go hungry. Awww.

KPMG US Chair and CEO Tim Walsh seems especially hopeful LaRue has what it takes to bring in and raise up fresh meat in what will be the rapidly changing years ahead, writing on LinkedIn:

KPMG’s best-in-class talent strategy and career development are part of the reason I was able to grow from intern to CEO. As technology reshapes the workforce and client expectations continue to evolve, attracting, developing, and retaining talent has never been more important.

I’m pleased to share that Jason LaRue has been selected as KPMG’s next Vice Chair of Talent & Culture.

Jason brings unrivaled knowledge, perspective, and the forward-looking vision needed to accelerate our talent transformation. Over more than 20 years with KPMG, he has developed a deep understanding of our business, our people, and the role Talent & Culture plays in helping both succeed. His expertise and strategic vision, paired with an appetite for change, meet the moment while also honoring our culture.

We’ll be watching with great interest.

The post Sandy Torchia is Out, Jason LaRue is in as Vice Chair of Talent & Culture at KPMG appeared first on Going Concern.

The PCAOB dropped six big inspection reports last week: BDO USA, Deloitte, EY, Grant Thornton, KPMG, and PwC. For this article we’re focusing on Big 4, we’ll do those other two in a separate article. For the record, those other two had deficiency rates in the 30s while the three of the four Big 4 came in at single digits.

If you’re interested in more historical data, definitely check out this article by Richard Palmer, PhD, CPA for CPA Journal. The chart below shows that Big 4 firms had been on a slow deficiency slide throughout the 2010s then rocketed back up when we hit the dreaded 2020s:

Things continued to suck but now that we’re midway through the decade, it appears firms have figured out how to audit to the PCAOB’s satisfaction once again.

TLDR: For their 2025 PCAOB inspection reports, Deloitte and EY came in at a 5% deficiency rate, PwC got 9%, and rounding out the bottom as usual was KPMG at a still respectable 13%.

We don’t need to dive too deep into individual reports because no one cares but those much lower deficiency rates are something worth discussing. Those of you eager to suggest conspiratorially that the numbers have been fudged due to foxes being in charge of the henhouse will need to reserve those comments for next year’s inspection reports as those appointments were made earlier this year and therefore weren’t in effect during the 2025 inspection cycle.

The category for Most Improved has got to go to EY, who climbed their way to 5% from an all-time high of 46% in 2022. Quite naturally, they bragged about this and made a pretty chart for their most recent audit quality report:

We are proud to announce that our transformation is already having a significant positive impact on our audit practice. The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) recently issued our 2025 inspection report, which shows that the percentage of audits in which the PCAOB identified a Part 1.A finding improved dramatically to 5% from 28% in 2024. These results are the best we have ever had.

Not sure if “dramatically” is the word we would have chosen, that conveys a theatrical quality rather than a practical one. Drastically? Substantially? Whatever, not our copy to write.

Anyway, Deloitte didn’t have nearly as far to climb as they peaked at 21% in 2023. Still, single digit deficiencies is worth a modest golf clap.

On PwC’s end, they’ve managed to pull fairly steady low deficiency numbers after hitting a high of 30% in 2019. Points for consistency, we suppose.

While KPMG’s 13% is the highest of the Big 4, it too shows a steady improvement for them:

Before we wrap this up can we make a request to the PCAOB? Please make the boxes on these charts bigger, it’s nigh impossible for old eyes to detect these different shades of blue on dirty monitors. Please and thank you.

Feel free to discuss your thoughts on firms’ inspection report performance in the comments. Or just complain about PCAOB paper pushing, you can do that too.

The post The PCAOB Won’t Be Wagging Their Disappointed Finger at Big 4 Firms This Year appeared first on Going Concern.

We’ll end this here, pretty sure you guys don’t care to read another half a dozen articles about some township with disastrous financial records. Email or text if you have a tip or story, I always appreciate getting the heads up on things I may have missed. Have a good week!

The post Monday Morning Accounting News Brief: No More Traditional Audit Internships at EY; Guy Has Some Choice Words For Big 4 | 8.17.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

AI

PwC’s US CEO built an AI assistant called ‘PG’s Whisperer.’ He talks to it all day. [Business Insider]
Well at least someone is glazing up ol’ PG, he’s not too popular among the flesh and blood plebs below him.
The Big Four leader told Business Insider that he “got nudged” to experiment with AI more and now keeps two chat systems open on his phone and computer throughout the day. He declined to name which models he uses, but said his go-to tool is a custom AI model he dubbed “PG’s Whisperer,” which he created using two different models. “I use PG’s Whisperer all day long, and then I contrast and compare information,” Griggs said.

The Big Four have now all been caught passing off generative content as ‘thought leadership’ [Consultancy.uk]
The consulting industry’s four biggest players have long used whitepapers and surveys as a means to drum up business – indicating expertise on key specialisms and topical issues their clients are responding to. But in their haste to present as ‘artificial intelligence-led’, KPMG, Deloitte, EY, and now PwC, have potentially alienated customers on this front, by releasing so-called ‘thought leadership’ which has been alleged to be majority-generated by AI.

EY Launching Unit to Keep a Lid on Artificial Intelligence Costs [Bloomberg]
EY is hiring a head of “agent economics” to oversee the growing ranks of its AI-powered workforce, in a sign that white-collar companies are increasing scrutiny on whether their investments in AI technology are justifying the huge cost. The executive will lead the firm’s new AI value realization office to give leadership “end-to-end visibility of where and how our investments in AI are driving material and tangible impact in our business,” said Dan Diasio, EY global consulting AI leader.

Audit Firms Rebuilding Around AI Earn 22-Point Profitability Edge, Study Finds [Tech Times]
Audit and advisory firms that have structurally rebuilt their operations around AI now outperform firms that use AI only occasionally by 22 percentage points on profitability — and the gap appears to be compounding, not stabilizing. That is the headline finding from a new survey released August 13 by Fieldguide, a San Francisco-based platform used by accounting and advisory firms to run engagement workflows. The research was commissioned by Fieldguide and conducted by TrendCandy; readers should weigh the findings in that commercial context, as all statistics are self-reported and the study describes correlation, not causation.

Big 4

EY vaults from bottom to top of Big Four US audit quality league table [Financial Times]
EY has shed its status as the Big Four accounting firm with the worst record in US audit inspections, vaulting to lead the regulator’s audit quality league table jointly with Deloitte. The improvement comes after EY US restructured its audit division, invested in new technology and shed some tricky clients, having labelled its performance since 2021 as “unacceptable”.

KPMG Australia facing ‘many more’ whistleblower misconduct claims, parliamentary probe hears [Reuters]
“Many, many more” whistleblowers have come forward with reports ​of misconduct at KPMG Australia, a parliamentary committee probing alleged client data leaks at the firm heard on Friday, raising concerns about a broader pattern ‌of wrongdoing. The scandal erupted in March following allegations made by an anonymous whistleblower that KPMG misused confidential client information to bid for audit contracts.

KPMG instructed to disclose any payments made to staff who raised wrongdoing [Accounting Times]
“I’m looking for a comprehensive list of matters which have been dealt with in this way,” Greens Senator Barbara Pocock told the former partners at a parliamentary hearing, adding that she would be seeking cases of settlement payments of a minimum of $10,000. “Now they may extend across a wide range of issues. They may be about issues of ethics or internal behaviour. They may relate to sexual harassment. There may be other matters, but I’m seeking an appropriately anonymised listing of that.”

Cheerleaders of the Profession

There has never been a better time to become a CPA [The Journal Record (Oklahoma)]
Writes Mark Neumeister, CPA, 2026-2027 OSCPA chair and tax partner at Arledge:
Technology, including artificial intelligence, is changing how CPAs work, but it cannot replace the qualities that define the profession. It can’t build trust, exercise professional judgment, or understand a client’s unique circumstances. When families are planning for the future or business owners are making critical financial decisions, people still need people. For students exploring career options, or professionals considering a career change, there has never been a better time to become a CPA. It offers opportunities in public accounting, private industry, government, education, nonprofit organizations, and entrepreneurship. Whether you’re helping a Fortune 500 company navigate complex regulations or advising a local small business, no two CPA careers look exactly alike.

Industry Trends

What Grant Thornton’s acquisition of CBIZ actually signals [Thomson Reuters]
Expect 8 to 10 publicly traded CPA firms to be acquired within three to five years — The Big Four are simply too large for private equity to absorb; and that leaves only a narrow top-tier of firms running alongside the broader PE consolidation wave.

Law & Order

Ex-Deloitte IT manager remanded for stealing 423 laptops to fund stock trading [South China Morning Post]
A former Deloitte information technology (IT) manager has been remanded in custody pending sentence for stealing 423 laptops from the accounting firm’s Hong Kong office over 17 months to fund his stock trading addiction. Ho Man-kit, 40, pleaded guilty to a count of theft at the District Court on Tuesday, after he misappropriated Lenovo computers worth HK$1.2 million (US$153,000) and sold them to an electronics recycler between September 2021 and February 2023. Under caution, Ho said he had lost all illegal proceeds through unsuccessful stock trading and remained in debt.

Romeo Santos Sues Accounting Firm for $2.3 Million Over Alleged Tax Errors, Mismanagement [Rolling Stone]
Grammy-nominated Latin music superstar Romeo Santos is suing his accounting and business management firm, claiming more than $2 million in losses. In a lawsuit filed in Miami federal court, Santos alleges the firm Morrison Brown Argiz & Farra LLP, now known as BDO, failed to file his complex, multi-state tax returns correctly and let his large cash balance sit idle in his checking account, “earning nothing.”

New Jersey township CFO charged with theft by deception [CFO.com]
Cameron Keng, CFO of Franklin Township, New Jersey, was arrested Aug. 4 and charged with one count of third-degree theft by deception, according to a news release issued by Renée Robeson, prosecutor for Hunterdon County. Keng’s arrest came after Unity Bank found a double-billing scheme amid its investigation into payroll fee transactions in Franklin Township.

Tax

Man mistakenly declared dead by IRS [KJCT]
An Alabama man found himself in a frustrating and bizarre scenario when he was declared dead by the IRS while he was still alive.

Another Taxpayer Who Bought Tribal Tax Credits Sues Promoter [Bloomberg Tax]
A Florida taxpayer is suing his financial adviser after buying nonexistent sovereign tribal tax credits. Miami entrepreneur Damian Martinez said in a complaint that he paid $219,000 for $365,000 worth of tax credits on his 2024 federal income tax return. But the IRS disallowed the credits and assessed interest and penalties. Martinez is suing Wealth Innovation Group, a Utah tax strategy firm, and Carson Grover, the director of advanced planning at WIG.

IRS staffing cuts delayed paper returns and refunds, report says [The Tax Adviser]
Well duh.
Most taxpayers experienced a relatively normal 2026 filing season, but those who relied on paper returns, paper refund checks, or IRS in-person customer service faced longer delays as staffing losses and technology problems slowed agency operations, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. The report, dated July 23 and released Monday, found that the IRS’s individual paper return processing system could not process 2025 tax year returns during the first six weeks of filing season, while a scanning system used for business paper returns was unavailable throughout filing season.

IRS Proposes Rules on Reporting Exception for Certain Trusts [Bloomberg Tax]
The IRS on Friday proposed rules on reporting requirements for certain trusts on charitable contributions. The rules (REG-109082-25, RIN 1545-BR58) created an exception for when a trust’s only charitable deduction comes from contributions made by partnerships or S corporations where the trust holds interest, the trust doesn’t need to report the deduction on Form 1041-A.

The post Friday Footnotes: IT Manager at Stole 423 Deloitte Laptops to Fund His Stock Trading Addiction; AI Agents at EY to Get Their Own Executive Manager | 8.14.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

Like all federal agencies, the IRS is required under the The Drug-Free Workplace Act of 1988 to maintain a drug-free workplace. TIGTA says this is especially important for tax administration because it goes without saying, you don’t want a bunch of maniacs on PCP handling taxpayer data.

A DFWP [Drug-Free Workforce Plan] is essential to the IRS in supporting employee health and safety, achieving the agency’s mission, and maintaining a productive workforce. The IRS has an obligation to eliminate illegal drug use from its workforce due to its tax administration responsibilities and the sensitive nature of its work.

We mention PCP because that’s one of the five drugs the IRS is supposed to be regularly testing certain employees for, along with marijuana, cocaine, amphetamines, and opiates. If they can’t tell someone’s on PCP by sight alone they have bigger problems.

Under its own DFWP, the IRS is supposed to be randomly testing 10 percent of employees in sensitive positions like those with security clearances and people who have a work gun (which they call TDP, Testing Designated Positions) and applicants for Criminal Investigation positions when they’ve gotten far enough in the application process to have the job in the bag. Additionally, the IRS is supposed to test employees suspected of drug use…which they didn’t do at all from 2022-2024.

Said TIGTA:

However, frontline managers, in consultation with the HCO [Human Capital Office], did not refer employees for testing when they suspected employees were using drugs. Instead, they contacted our Office of Investigations (OI) to investigate the misconduct. For example, HCO management provided a list of five employees where drug use was suspected in Fiscal Year (FY) 2024; however, testing was not conducted. In addition, from October 2022 through April 2025, OI received investigative referrals for 78 employees based on allegations of illegal drug issues. The fact that these employees were referred to OI suggests management had enough of a concern and should have tested for reasonable suspicion.

These acronyms are getting out of hand.

So basically, instead of sending suspected drug users off to the lab to confirm suspected drug use first, managers fast tracked their suspicions to the Office of Investigations. TIGTA says the DFWP training managers get “does not provide sufficient information about reasonable suspicion testing” and instead only provides “a list of criteria the manager should consider for reasonable suspicion, such as a pattern of abnormal conduct, erratic behavior, or a non-negative test.” This training also “provides a conflicting message” as it tells managers to call OI if an employee snitches on another employee.

OI does not have the authority to drug test employees but they did complete some investigations. TIGTA shared that OI received 78 referrals during the covered period and some of them sound quite serious. We don’t know for sure but we do know this section of the report got the black bar treatment:

Once OI completes its investigation, it provides the results to the employee’s manager, who works with HCO management for final disciplinary determinations. From October 2022 through April 2025, OI received investigative referrals for 78 employees based on allegations of illegal drug issues. According to OI, an investigation should only be initiated if additional information indicates the drug issue occurred on government time, on government property, or was accompanied by other criminal activity (e.g., sale, purchase or possession of drugs on government property). Our analysis of OI’s case management system data identified that OI opened investigative cases for 22 IRS employees based on the 78 referrals for potential drug issues. After completing these investigations, OI referred 11 employees for prosecution; however, the Department of Justice declined to prosecute them. According to OI, the remaining 11 employees were not referred for prosecution because OI did not develop evidence of criminal activity.

For the 11 employees that were referred and subsequently declined for prosecution, IRS management determined the following actions were warranted:

• 3 employees received disciplinary actions including suspension, reprimand, or written counseling.
• 3 employees resigned or retired.

For the remaining five employees, management did not take action as follows:

• 3 employee cases were closed without action or withdrawn.
• 2 employee cases were closed, but there were no corrective actions documented.

Looking at the numbers, the IRS had a little over 81,000 total employees as of October 2021 and a little over 100,000 as of October 2024. 78 suspected drug users out of that many people is impressive, inspector findings aside. Must have been all those anti-drug PSAs shoved down our throats in the 80s.

On the random drug testing side, the IRS didn’t meet its 10 percent target, though they came close in 2023.

We get black bars again on the part about retests. Not sure what they were covering up here but we’re dying to know since it’s a paragraph on negative dilute test results. For those of you who don’t know, negative dilute means they suspect the testee drank an obscene amount of water to get the drugs out of their system before the test. It doesn’t always mean there was nefarious intent, only that it’s possible they attempted to get drug concentrations low enough to be undetectable by a drug test by chugging water.

Lastly, TIGTA found that the DFWP manager (DPM) is tracking all of this with spreadsheets, a practice considered suboptimal by GAO internal control standards:

The DPM manually tracks drug testing activities using spreadsheets, email correspondence, and third-party database records. Although the records are maintained in a centralized location, we determined that this centralized location lacks automated controls and continues to rely on manual processes. According to the Government Accountability Office’s Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, effective internal controls require management to establish and operate a system that provides reasonable assurance that the organization will achieve its objectives for operations, reporting, and compliance. As it is currently structured, the DFWP does not provide the assurance it is meeting its mission as evidenced by the inaccurate depiction of a drug-free workforce in the ASR [Annual Summary Report] and not meeting the minimum requirement to test 10 percent of the TDP employees.

Full report, along with TIGTA recommendations, can be found here.

The post The IRS’s Drug-Free Workforce Plan Tested Positive For Low Effort appeared first on Going Concern.

First, special shout-out to Jim here who was first to submit comment and had a lot to say about the CCP.

Before we wrap this up, honorable mention goes to the AICPA who said in their letter that the PCAOB should consider issuing staff guidance rather than standards on certain topics, including how “existing requirements apply to new circumstances, such as technology-enabled and AI-assisted procedures.” Why reinvent the wheel and all that.

All 33 letters can be found here if you’re having trouble sleeping later tonight. And keep an eye on the PCAOB data and technology page, which last got a new spotlight back in 2024.

The post Firms (and Some Guy Obsessed With China) Have Weighed in on the PCAOB Turning an Eye to AI appeared first on Going Concern.

The gist is:

While 93% of audit leaders report some level of AI use, only 38% have an AI strategy, according to a survey by Gartner, Inc., a business and technology insights company.

The webinar poll of 743 audit professionals, taken in 2026, revealed that generative AI (GenAI) use cases in internal audit center on isolated tasks, such as engagement preplanning, drafting audit issues, and reviewing drafts (see Table 1). Less than a third are using AI for audit testing (30%), and only a small fraction is applying AI to broader departmental activities such as quality assurance reviews (12%).

Let’s get Table 1 in here:

If you look closely at the bottom of the table, you’ll realize that these numbers could be skewed in favor of professionals who are embracing AI, possibly driving the overall AI use figure higher than it would be if you polled 743 audit professionals at random. We would expect people who attend a webinar entitled “Advancing AI in Audit: Prioritizing AI Use Cases” to be, at minimum, interested in AI if not fully down with implementing it and using it. No?

Gartner’s conclusion is that adoption is good and all but auditors could be doing more:

Gartner analysts say that while AI adoption in audit is high, many teams are still struggling to clearly define and communicate the value it delivers.

This means taking a deliberate approach that links AI initiatives to audit quality, consistency and risk insights. They said audit leaders should not just point to adoption levels or productivity gains as a measure of success.

“Focusing narrowly on productivity or adoption metrics risks underrepresenting and even missing out on AI’s potentially broader impact on audit outcomes and decision-making,” said James Bourke, Director Analyst in Gartner’s Risk & Audit Practice.

It goes without saying Gartner is selling an AI tool, so naturally they’d say that. Hey, we don’t hate the hustle.

The post Audit Leaders Currently in the “Throw AI at the Wall and See What Sticks” Phase appeared first on Going Concern.

Tax and Finance Leaders Are Sweating Tax Complexity

You internationally-minded tax nerds out there will like this one from Deloitte, it’s their 2026 Global Tax Policy Survey. They surveyed 1,010 tax and finance leaders across 28 jurisdictions and found that tax complexity is the top issue affecting global tax and finance leaders in 2026.

There’s Levels to This

Aprio made a new commercial, the spot is called Levels and they’re running it in the Washington, DC market to start.

And before you spend all afternoon AI-vestigating, yes AI was used to make this in some capacity:

Did the set make anyone else think of this?

That’s it for this news brief. As always, I invite you to email or text the tipline if you have a tip or story for us. Don’t worry if you think we may have seen it already, we’re not like Flock with eyeballs everywhere and appreciate all scoop even if it’s not fresh.

Alright, go out there and have a good week or else.

The post Monday Morning Accounting News Brief: NYT Puts Big 4 Tax Strategy Out There; You Mean to Say KPMG Fudged the Truth!? | 8.10.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

SEC

A CPA Walks into Enforcement: The SEC Announces a New Reporting Unit [JD Supra]
On August 5, 2026, the SEC announced a new Financial Reporting and Accounting Unit within its Division of Enforcement. Staffed by both attorneys and accountants, the unit is purpose-built to pursue financial reporting fraud and misconduct in the accounting and auditing space—signaling that these matters will now receive dedicated expertise and focus inside Enforcement.

The Powers That Be

NASBA Announces Updated 2026–2027 Leadership Slate [NASBA]
Acting in accordance with NASBA’s Bylaws, the NASBA Nominating Committee approved Katrina L. Salazar, CPA, CGMA, as chair nominee and J. Andy Bonner, Jr., CPA, as vice chair nominee.

Tax

In ancient Rome, tax fraud was punishable by death [Popular Science]
Archaeologists in western Turkey recently discovered a detailed account of 1,600-year-old tax fraud so brazen that ancient Rome made it a deadly offense. Initially believed to be funerary ode inscriptions, the Late Antiquity stone tablets actually provide vital missing information in a notably widespread corruption case that spanned more than a decade—and even implicated the estate of Emperor Valentinian III’s daughter, Placidia.

3M Win Offers Companies a Roadmap for Similar Fights With IRS [Bloomberg Tax]
When the US Tax Court formally wiped out 3M Co.’s contested $4.85 million-plus tax bill this week, it capped off a legal victory for the company that practitioners say could be replicated by other multinationals locked in transfer pricing disputes with the IRS. “It may be remembered as one of the first major transfer pricing cases illustrating” how the Supreme Court’s Loper Bright ruling could reshape judicial review of Treasury regulations, said Sid Paruthi, a principal at Baker Tilly specializing in transfer pricing.

Union representing IRS workers asks judge to block Trump tax audit immunity deal [AP]
The labor union representing Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service workers asked a judge Thursday to block a sweeping tax audit immunity agreement for President Donald Trump, arguing it would force career employees to choose between following a political order and abiding by the law.

AI tax debate misses the threat that’s already here [Brookings Institution]
On Thursday, Senator Wyden (D-Ore.) proposed limiting tax benefits for new data centers and levying a new excise tax “to help the communities and workers most impacted as data center construction continues.” He is one of many lawmakers who want to use taxes to address worries that AI could eliminate jobs, inflict environmental harms, and have broader negative consequences for society and global security. Proposals so far range from taxing the computing power to build or use AI models, the energy they consume, or the windfall profits accruing to AI companies themselves. But the debate has jumped to “which tax?” before answering two fundamental questions: What are lawmakers trying to accomplish? And what can a tax actually do about it?

New York City Homeowners Sue Over Mamdani’s Pied-à-Terre Tax Rollout [Wall Street Journal]
A group of aggrieved New York City homeowners are suing to delay Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s looming pied-à-terre tax, an early legal challenge to the new surcharge that took effect about a month ago. The lawsuit isn’t arguing against the tax as a whole. Rather, the suit argues the law has to date been improperly executed. It alleges the Department of Finance hasn’t done proper due diligence to identify owners of luxury pieds-à-terre. Instead, the suit claims, the city is illegally placing the onus on property owners to prove that they don’t owe the tax rather than forcing city officials to verify that for themselves.

The Higher Your State Income Tax Rate, the More Expensive Your Burrito [Americans for Tax Reform]
Americans for Tax Reform compared the state personal income tax rates of the top 20 most expensive burrito locations vs. the state personal income tax rates of the 20 least expensive burrito locations.

CONSUMER ALERT: Viral video promotes fake federal property tax form [Douglas County Colorado]
The Douglas County Assessor’s Office is warning older homeowners about a viral online video spreading false claims about a nonexistent federal property tax relief program. The video claims that Congress passed a law providing significant property tax savings for older homeowners. It directs viewers to contact their county assessor and request a “Senior Homeowner Tax Review Request,” which the video claims is “mandated by federal law.” There is no federal form, federal law or federal stimulus program called the “Senior Homeowner Tax Review Request.”

AI

KPMG Intern Pulse Survey: As AI Reshapes Entry-Level Work, Gen Z Prioritizes Career Growth and Critical Thinking [KPMG]
76% of the 906 summer interns tapped for the KPMG Intern Pulse Survey say future career success will require both human skill and knowing how to direct AI well.

Companies Adopt AI Faster Than They Can Govern It, Deloitte Says [Bloomberg]
Nearly six in 10 finance chiefs in a recent Deloitte survey said pressure to deploy AI quickly while managing risks was a key concern. Almost half of respondents pointed to cost uncertainty or a lack of visibility into how AI is being used internally, underscoring how governance is increasingly focused on understanding where AI is deployed, what it costs and whether it is delivering measurable returns.

Law & Order

KPMG Stuck With SVB Investors’ Fraud Claim in Bank Failure Suit [Bloomberg Law]
KPMG LLP must defend against Silicon Valley Bank investors’ allegations that the major accounting firm issued misleadingly clean audits when the regional bank was on the brink of collapse. The investors adequately alleged an inference of intent or recklessness for their securities fraud claim, Judge Noël Wise said Wednesday, allowing them to proceed with an amended complaint and rejecting KPMG’s motion to dismiss it.

Firm Watch

One of Nation’s Largest Accounting Firms Moving to Downtown [Urban Milwaukee]
Wipfli will relocate its headquarters and 169 employees from Wauwatosa to the sixth floor of the Huron Building at 511 N. Broadway. “After 22 years in our current office, moving our headquarters to the Huron Building marks a significant new chapter for Wipfli,” said CEO Kurt Gresens in a statement. “Milwaukee is our headquarters and establishing our home in the Historic Financial District reflects our confidence in the city and our long-term commitment to our people, our clients and the Milwaukee community.”

Office Space

PwC’s Embankment HQ to get major makeover ahead of Canary Wharf move [City AM]
The current headquarters of Big Four giant PwC at 1 Embankment Place is set to be transformed into a “sustainable workspace” in a bid to attract and retain major firms as renters, as it awaits planning permission. City-based property and asset management firm Bridgemont said on Friday it has submitted a planning application to Westminster City Council to “transform” the current air-rights development located above Charing Cross Station, which PwC will leave in 2030 as the firm relocates to Canary Wharf.

The post Friday Footnotes: Archaeologists Dig Up 1,600-Year-Old Tax Fraud; Forget Ja Rule, Let’s Ask KPMG Interns What They Think | 8.7.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

Although his firm has slashed the number of graduate roles, shed countless employees in the past few years, and even canceled the big yearly intern bash at Disney, and even though AI is transforming consulting like an HGTV renovation show host with a sledgehammer to a non-load bearing wall, he told BI that he’d be fine with his kids going into consulting:

The Big Four executive said he has three kids, one who has been in the workforce for about a year and two who are still in college. Two of them may go into consulting, he said, and he’s supportive of this plan.

Griggs said that anyone who has worked inside a professional services firm can see that the core work in accounting, consulting, and finance hasn’t fundamentally changed.

He goes on to give AI a big shout-out and says that he’s supportive of higher education:

While consultants and accountants aren’t disappearing, AI is reshaping the skills those jobs require. Griggs said PwC is hiring more people from nontraditional backgrounds and expects to see more liberal arts majors in consulting and other business roles because AI can amplify the need for “broad knowledge.”

With that in mind, the CEO said he’s a “big believer” in master’s degrees and would support his kids going to MBA programs.

Meanwhile, one of PwC’s own recent surveys says that 86% of financial services leaders agree that AI skills training is more valuable than an MBA.

Before we wrap this up we need to talk about the correction at the bottom:

Important distinction.

The post PwC CEO Said He’s Cool With It If His Kids Want to Go Into Consulting appeared first on Going Concern.

But let’s focus on the 2026 list as it stands. Here are the top 20, in order:

We didn’t cover the list last year but we do have 2024 to compare it to so here’s some math. In 2024, the top 20 firms on the IPA Top 500 had a combined reported revenue of $117,736,275,471. For 2026, it’s a little over $130 billion: $130,456,989,043.

The smallest firm that still made the top 100 is Global Tax Management Inc. with $67,736,406 in revenue while the absolute last firm on the top 500 list is Traphagen & Traphagen CPAs LLC of Oradell, NJ with $6,124,123. We will not be adding up the entire 500, don’t even ask.

Do you guys at least get a pizza if your firm makes the top 100? We hope so.

The post IPA’s Top 500 Is Out and Everybody’s Measuring appeared first on Going Concern.

The press release isn’t trying to sell anything so it’s fairly brief and noticeably lacking in jargon. There are two quotes though, guess we can throw those in here.

Said Girzadas: “It is a privilege to serve as the CEO of Deloitte US, and I am honored by the opportunity to continue to lead the firm. As we look to the future, I am energized to build on our momentum, working with Lara as our US chair. Our focus remains on delivering the full strength of our multidisciplinary model to create value for our clients, fulfilling our responsibilities to serve the capital markets, and providing a leading talent experience for our people.”

And Abrash: “I am deeply honored by the trust our partners and principals have placed in me and grateful for the opportunity to continue serving our partnership as US chair. I approach this next term with the same humility, conviction, and sense of responsibility that has guided me from day one. Effective, transparent governance remains foundational to how we lead, and I look forward to continuing to work closely with Jason and the management team to help our clients navigate an increasingly complex world and leave our firm stronger for the next generations of owners and leaders.”

Let’s go live to Reddit reaction:

Hmm. We weren’t aware there was any talk of succession? Perhaps the partnership decided that current year is transformative and tumultuous enough without throwing new leadership on the pile too.

The post Jason Girzadas and Lara Abrash Both Score a Second Term at Deloitte US appeared first on Going Concern.

That wasn’t so bad, was it? Email or text if you have a tip or story for us and thanks to everyone who raced to send us the GT/CBIZ news last week, appreciate you. Byyyyye.

The post Monday Morning Accounting News Brief: Chief Purpose Officer Dips Out of KPMG Dumpster Fire; EY Teases a New Quantum Computer | 8.3.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

Tax

IRS could be required to publicly report wait times and backlogs [Government Executive]
A bipartisan bill focused on improving customer service at the IRS is headed for a full Senate vote. The Senate Finance Committee advanced the Taxpayer Assistance and Service Act in a 26-1 vote during a Thursday markup hearing. The bill contains over 60 IRS reforms proposed by Republicans and Democrats on the committee and the agency’s National Taxpayer Advocate.

Statement From National Taxpayer Advocate Erin M. Collins Regarding Senate Finance Committee Approval of the TAS Act [National Taxpayer Advocate]
““It is especially encouraging that virtually all these bills have advanced with strong bipartisan support. Tax administration may not always attract headlines, but it profoundly affects nearly every individual, family, and business in the country.”

AI

EY says its ‘invisible’ AI router has helped cut token consumption by up to 60% [Business Insider] EY does not let every employee query go straight to the smartest AI model in the room. The Big Four firm has introduced an “invisible” router to help manage its internal AI spending, Dan Diasio, EY’s global consulting AI leader, told Business Insider. Rolled out globally in April, the router sits behind some of EY’s specialized AI tools and acts as an intermediary to direct employees towards the best AI model for the task at hand. The router, together with training and governance strategies, has helped reduce token consumption by 60% since its implementation in April, EY said.

The 2 biggest mistakes companies are making with AI, according to PwC’s US CEO [Business Insider] TLDR: “1) AI isn’t fundamentally a technology transformation, 2) believing AI alone can fix a broken business.
Griggs, who started at the Big Four consulting giant as an intern roughly 30 years ago, said that he sees AI as the “greatest opportunity” of his career, and there’s no question about it enhancing productivity. The real question is what companies should do with it.

As AI use in cybersecurity rises, so do the risks [Journal of Accountancy]
The gap between deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in cybersecurity and confidence in those tools is widening as organizations struggle to establish governance for effective implementation, a global survey shows. Active use of AI in cybersecurity strategy among IT and security professionals rose from 50% to 78% in one year, according to 2026 SANS AI Survey Insights by SANS Institute, an information and cybersecurity training company. At the same time, increased deployment has produced more failures.

India

“India is becoming one of the world’s most important accounting talent hubs”: CPA Australia CEO Chris Freeland AM [EdexLive]
As the accounting profession undergoes rapid transformation driven by artificial intelligence, digital technologies, and cross-border business, globally recognised qualifications are becoming increasingly valuable for professionals seeking international careers. Against this backdrop, CPA Australia has renewed its Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA) with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI). The agreement enables eligible members of both professional bodies to pursue membership through a streamlined pathway, strengthening professional mobility and collaboration between India and Australia. During his visit to India for the signing ceremony, Chris Freeland AM, Chief Executive Officer of CPA Australia, spoke to EdexLive in an email interview about the significance of the renewed partnership, India’s emergence as a global accounting and finance talent hub, the opportunities created by the country’s expanding Global Capability Centre (GCC) ecosystem, and how artificial intelligence and continuous upskilling are reshaping the future of the profession.

Audit

UK regulator probes KPMG, two accountants over Wood Group audits [Reuters]
Britain’s accounting watchdog said on Thursday ​it had opened a probe into KPMG’s financial ‌audit of British oilfield services and engineering firm Wood Group for the fiscal year ended December 2023. The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) also said ​it would probe two individual accountants, whom it did ​not name, for financial statements and communication in ⁠relation to the firm’s Projects Business Unit from 2022 ​to 2024.

Sanders, Grassley reintroduce bill fining Pentagon for audit failures [The Hill]
The senators’ legislation, called the Audit the Pentagon Act, stipulates that if any component of the Pentagon does not pass a clean audit, it would have 2 percent of its budget withheld and would be sent over to the Treasury Department to slash the national deficit. “The Pentagon has been plagued by a massive amount of waste, fraud and financial mismanagement for decades. Year after year, the Pentagon fails an audit, and year after year, Congress hands it another blank check,” Sanders said in a statement. “At a moment when the administration has dragged us into an unconstitutional war with Iran and is demanding the largest military budget in our history to pay for it, the Pentagon still cannot tell us where trillions of dollars have gone.”

News

Ex-KPMG Partner to Run Global Accounting, Sustainability Body [Bloomberg Tax]
A former KPMG partner will lead the strategy and funding approach of the body that sets international accounting and sustainability standards for companies to follow, it announced Thursday. Laura Forzani will become the International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation’s managing director Sept. 1. The foundation is the parent organization of both the International Accounting Standards Board and the International Sustainability Standards Board.

By the Numbers

How many employees work at Deloitte Digital US? [Revelio Labs]
Deloitte Digital US’s workforce has declined 20.4% from 2023 to 2026, down 1.4% year over year in 2026. It fell to a low of 6,032 in 2026 Q1 before recovering. Its workforce is concentrated most in India (21.3%), followed by the United States (16.1%) and the United Kingdom (11.0%), with Spain, its fastest-growing location.

The post Friday Footnotes: EY Silently Blocks Tokenmaxxing; Uniting Across the Aisle to Make the IRS Report Wait Times | 7.31.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

AFR wrote:

Details of the job cuts were shared with selected partners this week, along with a warning to unhappy members of KPMG Australia’s 700-strong partnership: support the new local leadership team of chief executive John Sams and chairman Michael Ebeid or leave.

Officially, KPMG told AFR that “it was still reviewing its ‘operating model, cost base and workforce needs’ for 2026-27 and no decisions had been made regarding specific cuts.” Let’s add the second part of the quote in here because ugh:

[Any cuts] would be communicated to staff once they were and the firm was “determined to make responsible decisions that position the firm for a sustainable future”, he noted.

Yeah thanks for that. Here we were wondering if they’d just abruptly yoink everyone’s laptop access and say nothing.

Shortly after the AFR story was published Reuters quickly put up a story of their own in which a KPMG spokesperson is quoted as saying “nuh uh” (paraphrased). That’s the narrative Reuters decided to roll with rather than focusing on the prospect of 10% of KPMG’s workforce getting axed:

“We are reviewing our operating model, ⁠cost base and workforce needs. It is important to note that ​no decisions have been made regarding any specific measures or potential impact ​on roles,” a KPMG spokesperson said.

The spokesperson added the firm was continuing to evaluate “a range of options to ensure the firm remains well positioned for the challenges ahead.”

Going back to AFR’s story, it sounds like what they wrote aligns with what the KPMG spokesperson said to Reuters. Cuts need to happen, cuts were delayed due to a serious leadership shakeup (and tedious ongoing parliamentary inquiries), cuts can now happen.

The planned cuts, which will be the hardest felt within the advisory business, are in response to the revenue problem created by this scandal. While partners were told that job cuts may be needed earlier this month, KPMG’s leadership had stalled making any decisions until a permanent CEO was in place. With [John] Sams’ appointment, it can now proceed with the redundancies.

He plans to pull the trigger within a month. But the firm is moving more slowly than it usually would on the cuts because of several factors: it is the audit division’s busy season; the firm’s leadership is deep in preparations for a second hearing of the joint parliamentary inquiry into the scandal, and KPMG International executives are visiting.

Mind you John Sams’ appointment was only announced mere days ago so yeah, the firm might need a few days or weeks to finalize the red line on Potential_Firing_List_final_FINAL.xlsx.

Oh and just by the way, one of Sams’ first tasks as CEO is to “implement cost savings.” It’s safe to assume that there will be layoffs, it just remains to be seen how many and when. AFR had reported a few weeks ago that it was looking more like hundreds of layoffs were coming, though one source did tell them at the time the number would be closer to 1,000.

Guess all we can do is wait and see.

The post Layoff Watch ’26: KPMG Australia May or May Not Be Letting 1,000 People Go appeared first on Going Concern.

Just as EY was moving on from the 2023 MOVEit data breach in which more than 30,000 Bank of America customers may have had their personal information compromised, a fresh breach has popped up. It sounds like it could be another financial services customer of EY’s was involved, as they said the following in the firm’s notice to potentially affected individuals:

EY provides professional tax services to a wide range of financial institutions globally. In the course of providing these tax services, EY received certain personal financial information relating to your investment holdings with [EY CUSTOMER].

You may have noticed that [EY CUSTOMER] is a placeholder. As of now, we don’t know which EY client was involved.

EY began informing affected individuals and relevant state authorities on July 13. In their notice filed with the California Attorney General, which we’ve embedded in its entirety below, they say:

EY uses a third-party information technology service management platform to help EY information technology provide support to EY teams performing tax-related work for clients. Support tickets submitted through the platform may include documents containing client tax information. On April 23, 2026, EY identified anomalous activity within that platform.

They then launched an incident response and brought in an independent cybersecurity firm.

We don’t know which third-party IT service was involved as they haven’t said. Nor have they named any hacker group involved. Clearly this article is begging for an update, hopefully soon.

The personal information affected includes “certain financial information contained in or used to prepare tax filings.” The firm says they are “not aware of any misuse or further exposure of your personal information as a result of this incident.” As is standard protocol in a data breach like this, they are offering free access to two Experian products, Identity works and Identity Restoration.

There is already a potential class action lawsuit in the works.

Update: The ShinyHunters group has claimed they’re behind the breach and gave EY until July 31 to reach out, reports Bleeping Computer. The group said to BC it was with a supply chain attack and stolen credentials they were able to access EY’s Jira, GitHub, and Azure environments, though this hasn’t been confirmed by the firm. EY remains pretty tight lipped about this one.

The post EY’s Latest Data Breach Comes With a Fun New Game: Guess the Client (UPDATE) appeared first on Going Concern.

Grant Thornton announced this morning — via press release, how else — that with the help of the deep pockets of their private equity pals at New Mountain Capital they’re buying CBIZ in an all-cash transaction.

They helpfully broke out the key points thusly:

Largest transaction of its kind in more than 25 years; creates the fifth largest professional services, tax and advisory provider in the U.S.

New Mountain Capital makes new equity investment to enable the transaction

Enhances AI-enabled capabilities, multinational reach, industry specialization and service breadth — while creating strong cultural and strategic fit with a shared commitment to quality and client experience

CBIZ Benefits and Insurance Services segment to be set up for growth as independent company backed by New Mountain Capital

CBIZ shareholders to receive $55.00 per share in cash

Let’s get the obligatory quotes out of the way while we’re here:

According to Jim Peko, chief executive officer of Grant Thornton Advisors LLC and leader of the Grant Thornton Advisors multinational platform: “By combining our multinational platform with CBIZ’s strong market presence, we’re broadening our ability to support businesses through every stage of growth — from early development to global scale. Together, we’ll bring the quality, scope and capabilities clients need to navigate an increasingly complex and rapidly evolving business environment.”

Jerry Grisko, president and chief executive officer of CBIZ, said: “This is a historic combination with a complementary cultural and strategic fit. CBIZ has grown rapidly over many years to become a leading professional services provider. Joining Grant Thornton Advisors accelerates the realization of that vision, creating a stronger firm with new and exciting opportunities for our team members and enhanced service offerings for clients, while delivering significant value to CBIZ shareholders.”

Andre Moura, managing director of New Mountain Capital, said: “We’re pleased to continue to support Grant Thornton Advisors’ strategic growth plan, a journey we have been on together since May 2024. Following the acquisition of CBIZ, Grant Thornton in the U.S. will be the fifth largest professional services, tax and advisory provider in the nation and one of the most forward-thinking firms in the world regarding AI. That scale and forward momentum will put the combined firm in a stronger position than ever to serve its clients and create meaningful opportunities for its partners and staff.”

They also laid out an ambitious strategic plan that includes becoming “the employer of choice for top talent.”

• Build a differentiated professional services, tax and advisory provider. Following the acquisition of CBIZ, Grant Thornton Advisors will be better positioned to serve clients at all stages of growth with enhanced service offerings, multinational reach and premier technological resources across professional services, tax and advisory services.
• Accelerate technology and AI-enabled service delivery. The newly formed firm will support more clients with sophisticated AI-enabled service delivery, focused on using AI to transform client service, empower people and unlock new opportunities for growth.
• Enable greater depth of specialized industry expertise with expanded capabilities. The addition of CBIZ provides Grant Thornton Advisors with greater ability to deliver more tailored insights and solutions for clients, driven by a deep understanding of, and experience in, their specific industry.
• Strengthen client experience and service quality. Upon combination with CBIZ, Grant Thornton Advisors will maintain a strong focus on quality, applicable independence requirements, trust and client service — reflecting an ongoing commitment to its clients and purpose-built operating model.
• Increase the ability to invest in innovation, talent and technology. The combined firm will be the employer of choice for top talent in the industry, positioning the organization for long-term success in a fast-moving marketplace and creating even more opportunities for employees to grow, build rewarding careers and do their best work.

We have many questions about this but the main one is this: will all those Marcum procedures CBIZ started adopting go the way of the dodo and will remaining staff have to once again adapt to someone else’s way of working? Poor staff.

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. You can also reach out via email or text if you wanna talk about it.

The post Well Here’s a Surprise: Grant Thornton is Buying CBIZ For $5 Billion appeared first on Going Concern.

The firm put out a press release way back in 2011 when announcing a “a high energy, unforgettable experience” in Orlando for some 2,400 interns and it’s been a whole thing ever since. Here’s a guy who made an 8-minute video about his experience in 2024:

It was nice while it lasted, we suppose.

The post In Case You Didn’t Hear, PwC Interns Won’t Be Swarming Disney World This Year appeared first on Going Concern.

Alright that’s it for this news brief, a bit slow out there. Email or text if you have a tip or story for us and have a great week, you.

The post Monday Morning Accounting News Brief: Do More Work to Get More Work, Says PwC Leader; Can You Teach Interns to Think? | 7.27.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

Offshoring

Big Four’s use of offshore auditors sparks concern from UK accounting watchdog [Financial Times]
The Financial Reporting Council said on Wednesday that accounting firms were increasingly incorporating offshore teams into UK audit work under “extended team models”. This included relying on offshore teams for work requiring “professional judgement”, it said, moving beyond the longstanding practice of using overseas staff for routine testing and administrative work.

Why the FRC is targeting offshore audit work and what your firm must do [AccountancyAge]
While the Big Four (PwC, Deloitte, EY, and KPMG) and mid-tier practices have relied on offshore hubs for years to offset UK staffing shortages, the regulator’s message is unequivocal: you can outsource the work, but you cannot outsource accountability.

The Early Career Gauntlet

Accounting’s next challenge: Guarding what AI can’t replace [CFO Dive]
Writes Trullion CEO Artie Minson:
AI is now capable of performing many of the tasks that used to occupy a staff auditor’s first two years. It reads PDFs and extracts data in seconds, not days. It tests entire populations rather than small samples. It matches records in real time instead of during the late nights of a tight audit deadline. For firms, that’s an obvious win on cost and quality. But it raises questions about the new wave of professionals. If a new accountant never spends the early years of their career understanding how transactions flow through accounting records and how different systems should and should not correlate to one another, do they still build the instinct and experience that comes from doing it the hard way?

UK CFOs cite cost as top reason for pull back on graduate hiring [CFO.com]
Sixty-four percent of the U.K. CFOs working in FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 companies surveyed by Deloitte said broader business cost-control efforts will reduce graduate hiring over the next 12 months, making it the biggest factor weighing on recruitment plans. The findings come from Deloitte’s latest CFO Survey of U.K.-based finance chiefs. The survey suggests AI is beginning to reshape workforce planning, but many organizations are still making hiring decisions primarily through tighter budgets and cost discipline. Artificial intelligence ranked as the second biggest “dampener of demand” for new graduate hires, selected by 47% of respondents, followed by outsourcing at 33%.

Audit

South Korea opens big 4 audits to mid-sized firms, tightens quality oversight [Chosun Biz]
Financial authorities will revamp the auditor designation system so that capable mid-sized accounting firms can also be designated as auditors for large listed companies. In addition, large accounting firms will be required to set up audit quality oversight committees centered on external experts, and the eligibility requirements for CEOs of listed companies’ auditors will be strengthened to raise the overall quality of audits.

Regulator flags BDO’s ‘unacceptable’ audit issues for fifth year in a row [City AM]
The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) said in its yearly audit quality report that BDO’s overall audit quality fell below expected standards and “has received unsatisfactory results from regulatory inspections” consistently for five years. The firm was found to have performed the worst among the six largest audit firms.

Federal Contracts

‘Stop feeding the beast’: Newly released data reveals Labor’s ongoing ‘addiction’ to KPMG [PS News]
Newly published biannual government data on consulting services shows the Big Four accounting firm has new contracts worth more than $2 million, and between January and July this year it held active contracts worth $51.4 million. Ironically, one of its current contracts is with the Australian Public Service Commission to teach ethics and leadership to public service leaders.

Municipal Madness

In rare Idaho state audit of a city, report finds major procedural shortcomings in Kamiah’s spending [Idaho Capital Sun]
“The level of missing documentation across all financial transactions reviewed is very concerning,” the report said. “We were unable to determine if the missing documentation was due to incompetence or fraudulent activities, but it does call into question the integrity of many transactions.”

Cary residents call for Council resignations after state audit details questionable spending [WRAL]
Calls for Cary Town Council members to resign are growing after a state audit uncovered years of questionable spending and raised concerns about the town’s financial oversight. Residents packed a Cary Town Council meeting this week, with the session lasting more than five hours. It was the first council meeting since the release of the state’s 2,600-page audit.

Milton City Council frets over lack of communication in audit crisis [Pensacola News Journal]
As the city of Milton works to dig out from a financial disaster and yet another credibility crisis, City Manager Ed Spears was called upon July 23 to explain to the City Council why they didn’t learn sooner about a “discrepancy” of approximately $590,906 existing between city financial records and bank balances.

Macquarie orders ‘integrity’ review amid questions over KPMG audit win [Financial Review]
Macquarie chairman Glenn Stevens says the investment banking and asset management giant will review the appointment of KPMG as its auditor, raising the prospect that it could ditch the firm before it starts in the role. Stevens, a former Reserve Bank of Australia governor, said the Macquarie board had already made “formal inquiries of KPMG” given a stream of departures after senior figures at the auditing firm were caught inappropriately using confidential client files to win contracts.

Private Equity

Private equity reshaping Irish accountancy as 21 deals struck in just over a year [Irish Independent]
The difference in the Irish accountancy practice of today is not just the disappearance of the ledger books and filing cabinets, long since replaced by software programmes on laptops – it’s the composition of the firms themselves. A slew of mom-and-pop firms have been bought by large conglomerates, mostly funded by private equity (PE).

India

Why a New Regulatory Framework Has Sparked One of the Biggest Battles in India’s Accounting Industry [Indian Masterminds]
India has set itself an ambitious goal of becoming a global economic powerhouse. It wants Indian companies to compete with multinational corporations, Indian professionals to lead international industries, and domestic institutions to shape global standards. Yet, amid these aspirations, one of the country’s oldest and most respected professions finds itself facing an uncomfortable question: can India truly build world-class accounting firms while its own regulatory framework continues to place domestic players at a structural disadvantage?

M&A

Doeren Mayhew Expands in Houston with Sowers & Company Acquisition [Doeren Mayhew]
DM announced two acquisitions this week:
Doeren Mayhew has acquired Houston CPA firm Sowers & Company, further building its local tax and outsourced accounting capabilities. All Sowers & Company employees joined Doeren Mayhew as of June 18, 2026, and have relocated to Doeren Mayhew’s Houston office.

Doeren Mayhew Expands Florida’s Gulf Coast Presence with Addition of McMillan, Whiteman & Associates PLLC [DM]
Doeren Mayhew, a national assurance, tax and advisory firm, has completed its acquisition of Florida-based McMillan, Whiteman & Associates PLLC (MWA), effective June 30, 2026. The MWA team now operates out of their Punta Gorda office under the Doeren Mayhew brand name. The acquisition strengthens Doeren Mayhew’s presence along Florida’s Gulf Coast, one of the state’s fastest-growing regions for privately held businesses and high-net-worth individuals.

The post Friday Footnotes: Regulators Turn Their Eye to Offshoring; Auditors Ask “Is It Incompetence or Is It Fraud?” | 7.24.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

They didn’t get punted to Tier 2 because of years and years of worsening audit quality, they got punted to Tier 2 so they could continue to focus on audit quality and demonstrate that they belong with the big boys. As part of that effort, GT ditched a whole bunch of clients (FRC called this “de-risking its audit portfolio”), 70% of whom fell into the Public Interest Entities (PIEs) category. And this downgrade, according to a fresh FT story which says GT wants back on the top tier, led to some confusion in the market:

Despite the lesser scrutiny, the demotion became a handicap for Grant Thornton when competing for large audit mandates, according to people familiar with the matter, because prospective clients mistakenly interpreted it as a sign that the regulator viewed the firm as a lesser audit provider.

“Being placed outside the FRC’s top tier was, in practice, misread by some prospective clients as a league table position rather than a supervisory classification, which did create confusion in the market,” said Wendy Russell, UK head of audit at Grant Thornton.

In a FRC podcast released last year (thanks FT for linking this!), then-Executive Director of Supervision Sarah Rapson talked about how the tier system ended up telegraphing a signal that puts top tier audit firms above everyone else which the FRC totally didn’t see coming when they came up with tiers. “One of the areas that there is consensus over is the unintended consequences of how we currently segment the market,” she said, “So we group firms in tier, so we’ll have tier one, tier two, tier three, and every so often we might talk about tier four, which is a proxy for firms that could come into the PIE market but haven’t quite yet chosen to do so. And this has become a bit of a league table externally. Some firms have told us this actually has impacted their ability to compete, and that was never our intention. And I think it is important that, you know, the FRC isn’t in the way of a competitive market.”

I mean, they do understand the meaning of the word ‘tier’ right? The only way it could be worse is if they used letters instead of numbers.

Grant Thornton got into bed with private equity in 2024 and in the time since, they’ve been adding PIE clients to build that practice back up. Now, says FT, they think they belong back on the top of the list:

Grant Thornton has been pressing the UK accounting regulator to restore it to the top tier of audit firms, subject to the greatest regulatory scrutiny, as it attempts to repair its reputation and reverse a years-long retreat from the high-risk work.

The funniest part about this story is that the FRC might be getting rid of tiers altogether. But we suppose it’s that much more important to crawl your way back to the list before the list disappears and you’ll forever be trapped on a demoted tier that no longer exists in the minds of prospective clients.

The post Grant Thornton Wants to Get Back on the Audit A Team appeared first on Going Concern.

At a little informative gathering held at KPMG’s NYC office today, Treasury officials wagged their large, disappointed fingers at certain aggressive planning strategies that are getting popular:

The strategies under scrutiny include so-called 351 conversions, box-spread exchange-traded funds, products that offset ordinary income, and funds that avoid dividend income by flipping between other ETFs. Speaking at a Wall Street Tax Association seminar, Kevin Salinger, deputy assistant secretary for tax policy at the Treasury, and Erika Nijenhuis, senior counsel, said the department has no wish to over-engineer rules, but it cannot ignore a market developing around transactions with results Congress did not appear to intend.

“We’re not here to be over-broad or disruptive, but we are also not prepared to turn the blind eye to aggressive planning,” Salinger said. “We do not want to act in a way that rewards taxpayers or promoters who have crossed lines that should not be crossed and disadvantages taxpayers who have stayed within the lines.”

It’s not the first time Treasury has expressed concern about these kinds of transactions.

Funny enough, Wall Street Journal just wrote about the strategy the other day: The Tax Strategy for People Suffering From Stock-Market Success.

A little piece of advice based on the ERC debacle: if aggressive salesmen pitching this start blowing up your phone like they’re trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty, beware.

The post Treasury Says Cool It on the 351 Conversions appeared first on Going Concern.

And that’s it for this Monday Morning News Brief. As always, dear reader is welcome and encouraged to reach out via email or text with any stories, tips, or general comments. Bye!

The post Monday Morning Accounting News Brief: Baker Tilly Looking at Debt Markets; PwC Partners to Take Home More Than a Mil | 7.20.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

CPA Exam

Washington DC’s CPA bill advances to mayor’s desk [CFO Dive]
The Council of the District of Columbia, in a unanimous vote Tuesday, advanced bill (26-494), which will establish an alternative path to becoming a certified public accountant that requires a bachelor’s degree, two years of experience and passing the CPA exam.

AI

Exclusive: OpenAI’s CFO pitches a new way to measure AI’s value [Axios]
OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar is proposing a new enterprise AI metric: “useful intelligence per dollar.” Instead of measuring AI spend by expenses or cost per token, she argues businesses should ask four questions: Is AI completing work that matters? What does each successful task cost? How often does it get the work right? Does each AI dollar produce more value as usage grows?

SEC

An SEC email address mix-up is causing confusion and threatening to disrupt its proposal to scrap quarterly reporting requirements [Fortune]
In May, the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed a new rule that would let publicly listed companies report their financial results twice a year instead of every quarter, as is currently required. The agency asked the public to weigh in and send its feedback to rule-comment@sec.gov. But the comment inbox that the SEC lists on its own instructions page—and has printed in almost every rule proposal it has issued since at least 2019—is rule-comments@sec.gov. With an “s.” The comment (or…comments) period on the semiannual reporting rule closed on July 6, but the email address confusion cropped up on Monday in a letter to the commission from nonprofit investor advocate Better Markets.

Paper Taper: Statement on Proposed Regulation E-Delivery [SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce]
Today, in a long-awaited move, the Commission proposed Regulation E-Delivery to make electronic delivery the default under the securities laws for issuers, investment advisers, investment companies, and broker-dealers. This rulemaking focuses on the default delivery method; not the content of disclosure or its format. I am happy to support what I expect will be the first step in rethinking, modernizing, and improving disclosure of information to investors. The proposal should benefit investors, issuers, and market intermediaries. By reducing printing and mailing, an e-delivery default should lower costs. A more important consequence of the shift to default e-delivery is facilitating the incorporation of technological advances to improve investor engagement with the information being delivered. I hope to see interactive and customized disclosures, something that is not possible with paper. This proposal is a great first step, but the SEC’s paper mentality is still alive and well.

Jobs

Resume orders for accounting professionals surge 800% as AI disrupts the industry, Resumeble data shows [National Law Review]
“AI” *eyeroll*
Resumeble, a professional resume writing and career services company serving job seekers across more than 80 industries, today released internal order data showing an 800% increase in resume requests from accounting professionals between January–June 2023 and the same period in 2026 — nearly ten times the growth rate of the company’s overall business.

Big 4

PwC fined $4.4M for auditing missteps in UK [CFO.com]
PwC faces a fine of about $4.4 million for alleged failings in its audit of British aerospace and defense firm Babcock International Group. That’s according to a news release and settlement document issued by the United Kingdom’s Financial Reporting Council on Thursday. In the release, the council said that PwC and audit engagement partner John Waters “admitted serious and numerous breaches” of auditing requirements related to cash pooling, financial arrangements for an overseas contract and assessment of goodwill impairment, among other matters.

Australia to boost scrutiny of Big Four accounting firms after wave of scandals [Reuters]
Australia on Thursday announced plans to increase its oversight of the Big Four accounting firms after ​a series of high-profile governance failures in the industry, ‌most recently by KPMG whose staff have been accused of misusing confidential information to win contracts. The government said it had directed the Australian Securities ​and Investments Commission (ASIC) to improve the regulation of accounting ​and auditing firms, “enhancing the accountability, transparency and oversight of ⁠the audit sector.”

Tax

Zero Paper Initiative Information Security [TIGTA (PDF)]
TIGTA issued an alert to the IRS after we identified concerns at two sites contractors are using to support the IRS’s Zero Paper Initiative (ZPI).

Top US tax lawyer forced out after White House clash over tax audits [Reuters]
The U.S. ​tax agency’s top attorney was forced from his role in recent days after refusing White House demands ‌to participate in tax audits, according to three people familiar with the matter. Ken Kies, the Internal Revenue Service’s acting chief counsel and Treasury Department assistant secretary for tax policy, told administration officials their requests would violate a law prohibiting the president, vice president and other ​White House officials from ordering the IRS to “conduct or terminate an audit or other investigation of any ​particular taxpayer,” said the people. They spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of ⁠professional reprisals.

IRS raises standard mileage rates for remainder of 2026 [Journal of Accountancy]
The revised standard mileage rates, effective July 1, are: 76 cents per mile for business, an increase from 72.5 cents, and 23.5 cents per mile for medical and moving purposes, up from 20.5 cents per mile for each. The mileage rate that applies to the deduction for charitable contributions is fixed under Sec. 170(i) of the Internal Revenue Code at 14 cents per mile.

Bellevue accountant sentenced to prison for filing false tax returns [KOMO News]
Thanjavur Manavalan, 65, owner and operator of Mano Accounting Services, was sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Seattle after a jury convicted him in March 2026 on three counts of aiding and assisting in the preparation and presentation of false tax returns, according to the U.S. Department of Justice for the Western District of Washington.

Audit

Public companies look to auditors on regulatory changes, AI disclosures [CFO Brew]
More public companies are getting proactive on regulatory changes that could impact capital markets and are more focused on AI-related risks, according to the Center for Audit Quality’s (CAQ) latest Audit Partner Pulse survey released on Wednesday. The spring survey, fielded in May, garnered 589 responses from audit partners. It found that nearly two in five (39%) respondents said their clients were “seeking guidance on expected regulatory changes,” compared with less than a quarter (23%) of respondents in the fall survey.

The post Friday Footnotes: OpenAI CFO Says Don’t Sweat Token Costs; Seems Everyone and Their Manager Is Polishing Up Resumes | 7.17.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

No bonuses for anyone, comp adjustments normally effective 8/1 will be effective 11/1, promotions not delayed but would basically be unpaid until 11/1

So promotions are still on but promotion pay is delayed until November. This tracks with what’s being said in two threads posted on r/accounting yesterday.

You’re free to discuss in the comments.

The post Bonus Watch ’26: No Bonuses at BDO? appeared first on Going Concern.

Oklahoma State Auditor & Inspector Cindy Byrd, CPA released a forensic audit report for the Town of Washington yesterday and for a town with 673 people they sure spent a lot. Well, her report alleges that more than $1 million of the approximately $3.3 million in expenditures from July 2020 to June 2024 was fraudulent. And boy did she bring receipts.

The report said it found that Susan Noel misappropriated $676,368 in Town funds. Town is capitalized in the report as in the town’s full government name Town of Washington so we’ll roll with that. There’s also the issue of people being paid more than they’re supposed to and as if that weren’t enough, from 2012 through 2019, Noel failed to submit payroll tax withholdings to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), resulting in unpaid payroll taxes, interest, and penalties totaling $176,887.

“This is the worst example of board oversight I have seen in my 29 years of government auditing experience,” Auditor Cindy Byrd said in a press release [PDF]. “The Town of Washington is a small community with limited resources. From FY2021 to FY2024, roughly one-third of the Town’s total expenditures were either fraudulently misappropriated or spent without Board authorization. The responsibility for the financial welfare of the Town ultimately rests with the Board, which failed to exercise oversight of Town finances as required by law.”

You can tell she’s annoyed with the Board based on these several paragraphs in the report:

The issues addressed in this report show that the Town suffered major financial losses at the hands of its former employees. Although these losses are the responsibility of the alleged perpetrators, the Board also bears responsibility for failing to provide the oversight needed to protect public funds.

Several trustees asserted they were unaware of the unlawful expenditures, improper employee compensation, and poor oversight of revenue collections. Even though several of the questionable transactions appeared to have been purposefully hidden from the oversight of the Board, timely review of bank statements, check registers, or monthly expenditure reports would have revealed many of the questionable transactions. If those documents and records were not routinely presented to the Board, the Board had a duty to demand them and hold employees accountable.

However, it is important to note that not all trustees responded in the same manner. Trustee Joel Siria and former Trustees Duane Branham and Kara Cook raised concerns about the Town’s financial practices and sought access to the financial documents and records of the Town. Noel and Aday resisted in providing those documents.

In a small town, the lack of limited staff can make it difficult to separate financial duties. That makes strong Board oversight even more important. Although some trustees attempted to strengthen oversight, the Board as a governing body failed to provide the level of oversight needed to protect Town assets and is ultimately responsible for safeguarding the Town’s finances. The Board bears responsibility for the financial welfare of the Town.

The Board responded on where else, Facebook:

We’ll embed the full forensic audit below but here are some highlights. First, the people involved were two longtime public servants who held the town purse:

The Town’s financial operations were primarily administered by the Town Clerk/Treasurer Susan Noel (Noel) and the Town Administrator Paul Aday (Aday). In their respective positions they exercised substantial control over the Town’s day-to-day operations. For most of the audit period, in addition to Noel and Aday, the Town employed a staff of four individuals: Noel’s daughter Kasey Lesher (K. Lesher) the utility billing clerk, Noel’s son-in-law T.R. Lesher the Town’s water operator and maintenance worker, and two police officers, Rubin Ruiz, Jr. and Larry Watts.

Bank records reflected that Noel and Aday were the sole signatories on the Town’s bank accounts from April 18, 2008, through July 18, 2024, the date Noel was terminated.

Noel served in her role as town clerk with financial oversight of the Town for approximately 17 years, from 2007 through July 2024, while Aday was employed by the Town for approximately 31 years, from 1993 through September 2024. The evidence established that Noel and Aday exercised extensive authority over Town finances.

The concentration of financial responsibilities among a small number of individuals, combined with extremely limited Board oversight created an environment in which unauthorized transactions and fraudulent expenditures occurred and remained undetected for an extended period.

And just like that, Town of Washington earned its place in a future Audit 101 textbook. The state auditor’s findings of poor internal controls are a given, it’s covered in depth around page 30-31 of the report.

Among the “Noel Expenditures” as they’re dubbed in the report are Bank of America credit card bills, almost $30,000 in Amazon purchases (which included a memory foam mattress, sectional sofa, coffee and espresso machine, a cordless vacuum cleaner, a vibration plate exercise machine, countertop ice maker, four-drawer file cabinet, and electric nail clippers for dogs), and $9,903 on the Town’s debit card for, among other things, a doodle puppy and puppy breeding rights.

Then there’s the $54,770 charged to the Town’s fuel fleet cards from January 2020 through July 2024 and $18,365 paid to local convenience store Sid’s Easy Shop from July 2020 to June 2024. Because the Town didn’t keep mileage logs or trip records, the state auditor was unable to determine the legitimacy of all these expenses. “Some fuel-related expenditures were problematic” due to their volume and frequency, the report said.

Full report is embedded below for your reading pleasure.

The post Congratulations to This Tiny 673-Person Town on Earning a Spot in Future Fraud Training Slides appeared first on Going Concern.

What Bloomberg wrote in their original story:

Several partners at PwC’s Hong Kong and mainland China affiliates say they are exploring strategies to safeguard personal assets, in case legal and regulatory challenges facing the firms ever spill over into any financial or legal burdens for themselves. One says he has even contemplated divorce as a means to shield wealth, while another is cutting education budgets for his children.

Yeah so that was a terrible idea. Talking about shielding wealth, I mean. Financial Times has some fresh scoop:

In a letter to individuals who were equity partners during the firm’s Evergrande audit from 2017 to 2020, the liquidators said that, while they expected “PwC will be able to meet in full any monetary judgment”, they warned that they would look to the partners “personally to recover any shortfall”.

The letter, which was sent on June 30 and seen by the FT, also warned partners against taking steps to “shield assets from execution of judgment, including by divorcing spouses or placing assets in the names of other family members” after reports of partners contemplating such steps.

Those Alvarez & Marsal folks sure don’t play.

The post Note to PwC Partners: Don’t Tell Reporters You Plan to Divorce Your Wife to Hide Assets After an Audit Scandal appeared first on Going Concern.

KPMG is preparing to cut hundreds of jobs and reduce partner pay by as much as 20 per cent, as the fallout from the audit leaks scandal hits the big four firm’s bottom line.

Senior leaders at the firm, which has about 9000 staff and 700 partners, are scrutinising client bookings to gauge the scale of the hit to its pipeline of work and are examining ways to offset this by cutting costs.

One of AFR’s sources said the total could reach or exceed 1,000 people. If we include partners in the calculation that’s more than 10% of their workforce.

As you likely know, KPMG is still reeling from a scandal that came to light in March in which the firm used confidential information to bid for audit contracts and dissed the whistleblower who tried to call it out. At the beginning of this month the Australian government released a 56-page paper that strongly suggests they’re looking for a comically oversized hammer with which to beat Big 4 firms into behaving. Safe to say the real punishment is yet to come, for now they are barred from bidding for government contracts through September.

KPMG Australia reported revenue of $2.315 billion AUD ($1.61 billion USD) for 2025, a 3% decline overall from prior year.

The post Layoff Watch ’26: Big Cuts Are Coming at KPMG Australia appeared first on Going Concern.

Irish Times got the scoop first:

A Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) adjudicator said senior associate, Jasch Asher was “the author of his own predicament” after finding that he intended to remain in India and wished to continue working remotely from there, despite a “clear contractual requirement” that he be based in Ireland.

Workplace Relations Commission cases are publicly available, we can find Jasch Asher’s case against PwC here (note: he originally asked to be anonymous, the WRC rejected the request as they didn’t see a reason why he needed to be). From that, we see that Asher was fired from PwC in December of 2024. His side of the story says he left Ireland for India on September 30, 2024 and continued to work as normal, with permission from his coach Mr. Des Crofton (according to LinkedIn, Crofton was a director in FS Risk and Regulatory at PwC Ireland during this period). The firm’s side of the story is that he dodged them for weeks and was eventually caught working from India without permission by his own IP address.

The case respondent, Ciara O’ Reilly in HR, outlined the firm’s “Together Anywhere” policy, which allows people to work out-of-country for up to 30 days a year with approval. Asher took one such trip in January of 2024.

On March 6 of that year, Asher’s team leader reached out to HR “seeking information regarding the Complainant’s ‘Together Anywhere’ requests and annual leave requests because the Team Leader had noticed discrepancies in the Respondent’s internal systems relating to annual leave records.”

On June 12, Asher asked for some time off to travel to India for medical appointments. Six days later, he was informed he would be put on a PIP “due to concerns regarding his performance.” According to HR, he objected to the PIP (who doesn’t) and asked to be assigned a new coach. From there the wheels start falling off:

Ms. O’Reilly [HR] states that she contacted the Complainant [Asher] on 20 June 2024 to discuss his concerns regarding the PIP. The Complainant informed her he was sick and unable to meet virtually. On 27 June 2024 she met virtually with the Complainant to discuss his concerns regarding the PIP and the development areas to be agreed. The Complainant agreed to discuss the performance objectives and PIP with Mr. Crofton and that the terms of the PIP were subsequently agreed.

On 4 October 2024 the Complainant refused to work on a particular job with a senior manager. She referred to a note made by Mr. Crofton stating:

“He has said the SM treats him badly and is unprofessional and he won’t work with him. He has made similar insinuations about the SM and other members of the team in the past (including about me), and I have repeatedly pointed him to the firm’s policies and told him that he needs to make a formal complaint if he feels that he has been treated unfairly. I’ve been very clear and supportive in telling him that I absolutely want to deal with any grievance he has and have encouraged him to pursue them but as yet, he hasn’t done that.”

His coach tried to meet with him in person in November, unbeknownst to him at the time Asher had been in India since the end of September hence why Asher kept coming up with excuses why he couldn’t come into the office:

Following the concerns raised by the Complainant, a partner and senior manager met separately and jointly with the Complainant, and the Respondent understood the matter to have been resolved. The Complainant’s PIP concluded on 1 November 2024. On 6 November 2024 Mr. Crofton invited the Complainant to an in-person meeting on 8 November 2024 at the Respondent’s office in Dublin to discuss the outcome of the PIP. On 8 November 2024 the Complainant declined the meeting approximately ten minutes before it was due to begin, stating he was not in the office. Mr. Crofton rescheduled the meeting for later that same day to allow the Complainant time to attend the office, noting that the Complainant lived approximately five to ten minutes’ walk from the office. When no response was received, Mr. Crofton telephoned the Complainant, who stated he had a cold and could not come into the office. Mr. Crofton asked whether the Complainant had attended the office earlier in the week and the Complainant replied that he had. She says that during this call the Complainant made serious allegations against Mr. Crofton and accused him of bullying him over the previous two years. Mr. Crofton denied the allegations and suggested pausing the conversation and rescheduling for the following week. Mr. Crofton then contacted HR for guidance and mentioned that he had not actually seen the Complainant in the office for some time. Following this conversation, the Respondent commenced an informal review of the Complainant’s office attendance. His access card data and IP address location data showed that the Complainant had been working from India since 30 September 2024 without the Respondent’s knowledge and contrary to his contract and the Respondent’s policies.

So his IP address told on him. This was one of Asher’s beefs before the WRC, that he was not informed his IP address data “would be used against him.” Come on, my guy.

The WRC found there was no unfair dismissal, that Asher didn’t have permission to work from India and that the firm tried to resolve this using proper internal procedures. Additionally the adjudication officer wrote:

The Complainant’s refusal to return to Ireland was not temporary or contingent upon a specific event. Rather, the evidence establishes that he intended to remain in India indefinitely and wished to continue working remotely from there notwithstanding the clear contractual requirement that he be based in Ireland. In my view, this amounted to a fundamental repudiation of an essential term of the contract of employment.

The employment relationship depends upon mutual trust and confidence. The unauthorised relocation abroad, the failure to comply with contractual attendance requirements, the misrepresentation of the Complainant’s location, and the subsequent refusal to return to Ireland when directed to do so constituted a serious breach of the employment contract. The Respondent was entitled to regard the Complainant’s conduct as demonstrating that he no longer intended to be bound by the fundamental terms of his employment.

The best line from the decision is this:

Having considered all of the evidence, I find that the Complainant was the author of his own predicament.

The post Turns Out Firms Don’t Like It When You Offshore Yourself appeared first on Going Concern.

Now That’s What I Call Modern

Wanna see a snazzy consulting firm office in Tijuana? Architizer’s got you. There’s a whole bunch of pics.

Pretty sure I have that same metal and frosted glass partition in Sims Freeplay.

That’s it for this edition of the Monday Morning Accounting News Brief. If you have a tip or story email or text anytime, I’d love to see it. I left comments open if anyone needs to sound off about anything. OK bye.

The post Monday Morning Accounting News Brief: KPMG Lets the PCAOB Know They’re in Some Trouble; Accenture Experiences an “Isolated Matter” | 7.13.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

Layoff Watch

Exclusive: Big Four giant KPMG to cut more jobs [City AM]
Big Four giant KPMG is set to lay off around 10 per cent of staff in its UK group corporate services division, City AM understands. The division, which includes HR, corporate affairs, marketing, tech, and procurement, is understood to be cutting around 200 people. A KPMG UK spokesperson told City AM: “As we continue to integrate our UK and Swiss businesses to deliver on our group strategy and drive growth, we are looking at the shape of our operating model.”

Exclusive: PwC set to cut audit jobs amid market slowdown [City AM]
PwC is set to slash its headcount in its UK audit division, the latest in a series of redundancies at Big Four accountancy giants. City AM understands that those affected are senior associates and managers in the audit practice. It is understood this is due to low staff attrition in the firm’s audit practice, a result of aggressive post-pandemic hiring when audit and consulting services were booming, but the market has since plateaued, prompting firms to cut their workforce.

People

Hazleton area accountant writes book about his walk with God [Standard Speaker]
John Nonnemacher set aside 10 minutes a day to write a book. After 2½ years, he finished. “Everybody says they’re going to write a book and regrets that they didn’t. I did it,” Nonnemacher said.

Technology

MindBridge urges clearer PCAOB guidance on AI audits [IT Brief UK]
MindBridge, which develops AI tools for financial analysis in audit work, argues that the PCAOB should make AI-augmented procedures an explicit strategic priority. Its response focuses on how the regulator’s inspection, standard-setting and reporting programmes should adapt as automated analysis becomes more common in audit workflows. According to MindBridge, the audit profession still operates under standards built around sampling and manual review, while newer systems can assess entire transaction populations and assign risk scores across them. It argues that this shift has created uncertainty for firms that want to rely on technology-assisted work but are unsure how inspectors will judge the resulting evidence.

7 CFO risks from the high-stakes adoption of AI [CFO Dive] CFOs and technologists are prone to superlatives when describing the coming impact of artificial intelligence, labelling the technology more disruptive than — to name a few — the steam engine, telegraph and mainframe computer. “It’s become as big if not bigger than the dot-com internet boom,” Burt Chao, CFO of Nintex, a process automation provider, said in an interview, describing the pace of change as a “blur.”

AI adoption to adaptation: How a new change approach can build the human behaviors needed for AI [Deloitte]
While worker access to AI tools has expanded by 50% in a single year, according to Deloitte’s 2026 State of AI in the Enterprise report, fewer than 60% of workers with access actually use AI in their daily workflow, and 84% of organizations have not redesigned jobs or workflows around AI.1 “Too many organizations treat AI as an adoption problem without first asking how you can achieve the outcomes desired,” says Michael Ehret, chief people officer at Walmart International. “What’s really required is behavioral change.”

How leaders are rethinking tax: AI-driven transformation [EY]
Recently, Ernst & Young LLP hosted a roundtable with Fortune 500 heads of tax, including two Fortune 100 chief tax officers who are early adopters of AI. During the roundtable, these leaders shared their experiences and strategies that inspired their teams to move beyond routine compliance, unlocking new avenues for strategic impact and professional growth.

Big Four Firms Hone Crypto Advisory Services as Demand Swells [Bloomberg Tax]
Crypto? What year is it??
Deloitte, PwC, EY, and KPMG — known as the Big Four — say their client bases are expanding with crypto natives and traditional financial institutions intent on learning how to navigate the emerging regulations and evolving accounting rules surrounding the industry. “The pace of change in this space is different than anything else I’ve seen,” said Matthew Hatch, the fintech and financial services digital assets leader for EY Americas. “Every month or two, there’s new players, new capabilities, and you have to stay current when we’re investing heavily in that.”

Law & Order (and Regulation)

KPMG Ex-Manager Alleges Religion, Race Bias Over Easter Work [Bloomberg Law]
A former KPMG LLP manager is accusing the firm of religious and racial discrimination over having to work Easter weekend despite scheduling time off due to the holiday and childcare obligations. Frank Jones, who is Black, Christian and a single father with joint custody of two children, sued the Big Four accounting firm over the situation and ensuing events he said led to his firing from its Atlanta-based mergers and acquisitions services group, according to a complaint filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Australia regulator reviews audit conduct complaints at Big Four after KPMG scandal [Reuters]
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) said on Thursday it would examine internal ​and whistleblower complaints about audit conduct, including the misuse or sharing of confidential information, while continuing a separate investigation into specific allegations involving KPMG. “The allegations concerning KPMG are serious. ASIC will use ​the existing suite of limited powers available to us, while continuing to engage ​constructively with the government’s reform process,” ASIC Chair Sarah Court said.

Audit

PCAOB Announces Members of the Inspections Modernization Council [PCAOB]
They are: David J. Cohen, CPA, CFE, Forvis Mazars, LLP; Kyle D. Crockett, Ford Motor Company; Ashley “Ash” Dalnoot, CPA, Grant Thornton Advisors LLC; Alicia R. Damley, CFA, CPA, CA, Aarya Capital; Stacy Hammett, CPA, CA, Canadian Public Accountability Board; Angelo Poulikakos, PROTIVITI; Manuel J. Ramirez, CPA, MST, FABFA RJI International; Jen Sisson, International Corporate Governance Network; Dan G. Sunderland, Northeastern University; Huong Tran; Instacart; Brendan Whalen, CPA, S.R. Snodgrass, P.C.; Lucia M. Wind, CFE, Committee of Sponsoring Organizations.

NYC Investigation Department warns: Adams-era audit gaps raise fraud concerns within government [AMNY]
Of the 50 agencies and offices that responded to a Department of Investigation (DOI) questionnaire, 30% said they had no staff performing internal audit functions, 17 reported having fewer active audit staffers than budgeted, and 16 reported recruitment or retention challenges tied to auditing roles.

Comptroller Releases Independent Forensic Audit of Memphis Shelby County Schools [Tennessee Comptroller]
Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury Jason Mumpower has released the results of an independent evaluation of Memphis Shelby County Schools (MSCS) that identified widespread failures in governance, internal controls, procurement, financial oversight, and accountability that developed over multiple years and exposed taxpayers to unnecessary risks. The evaluation consists of four volumes prepared by CliftonLarsonAllen LLP (CLA): an Internal Controls Assessment and IT Cybersecurity Risk Assessment, a Forensic Audit, a Whitehaven High School Herbert STEM Center Investigation, and a TennCare Evaluation. “The failures identified in these reports are unacceptable,” said Comptroller Mumpower.

Audit: State Bar missed warning signs before 2025 exam fiasco [Cal Matters]
And you thought Prometric mishaps were bad!
A new state audit says poor planning by the State Bar of California led to the exam fiasco that aspiring lawyers faced in February 2025. In an effort to save money, the cash-strapped State Bar created a way to take the exam online at home, but for test takers , who routinely take months off of work and spend thousands of dollars studying for the exam, the remote version was a nightmare. Glitches, delays and malfunctions — including repeated software crashes — brought many to tears, according to a class-action lawsuit filed against the proctor, Meazure Learning.

Education

How AI and hybrid work are reshaping the accounting profession [University of Idaho]
As the profession evolves, accounting education must evolve alongside it. Preparing future auditors now requires more than teaching technical accounting concepts alone. Students must also learn how to work with AI tools, analyze complex datasets and communicate effectively in digital environments. Hands-on learning opportunities are becoming increasingly important in accounting and business education. Coursework should expose students to real-world datasets, visualization tools such as Tableau and Power BI, and emerging AI technologies that support decision-making and business analysis.

The post Friday Footnotes: PwC Lays Off in Audit, KPMG Makes Back Office Cuts; AI Company Wants Guidance From the PCAOB | 7.10.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

Two articles elsewhere — AI bills are baffling the C-suite after shift to usage-based pricing from The Register and Execs Confused and Horrified by the Huge AI Bills After Thinking They Could Replace Workers for Free on Futurism — say outright that the survey report shows leadership bugging out about big AI bills but we aren’t so sure.

Futurism wrote:

By now, it’s clear that the only way the tech industry can justify the cost of AI is if it replaces vast swaths of the human workforce with machines that run 24/7.

The bad news is that this situation has created a world-historic financial market that, by some metrics, is looking worse than the run-up to the Great Depression. The good news is that this future of an AI takeover is looking increasingly unlikely, at least at the industry’s current pace, a fact which is now dawning on some of the biggest rubes and dupes in the corporate world.

According to a new survey from “Big Four” accounting firm KPMG, a significant number of corporate executives are reeling from sticker shock over new usage-based AI pricing schemes. Though enterprises could once count on AI companies to subsidize the price of large language models via flat-rate contracts, that’s no longer a given, as the rising cost of computational power forces the entire tech sector into a defensive posture.

Nice touch there on the air quotes around Big Four. Bet you Futurism doesn’t even know why that’s funny.

Far be it from us to nitpick anyone else’s word choices but we’re not seeing leadership “reeling” in this 8-page report. Two bits from KPMG that do suggest reality is sinking in for them though:

Organizations are confronting an emerging challenge: understanding and managing the cost of operating AI at scale. While many companies have established foundational governance elements such as monitoring dashboards and approval processes, most still lack full, end-to-end visibility into AI related costs in real time.

This gap is becoming more critical as organizations shift from isolated AI use cases to coordinated, enterprise-wide agent deployments.

And:

AI has entered a new phase defined by the shift from scaling adoption to managing execution with greater discipline. Organizations realize that AI is integral to future business viability and growth: deployment is holding steady above 50%, and leaders plan to invest an average of $202 million over the next 12 months.

However, as scale increases a new challenge is emerging: Only 26% of organizations have real-time visibility into the cost of running AI. Disciplined execution is now a core constraint.

Yet, when we dig down toward the end of the survey we see the slide below. If leaders are so worried about costs and benefits, why the hell are so many of them considering toxen-maxxing? (Side note: We are horrified that “maxxing” lingo has made it so mainstream it’s now appearing in Big 4 reports after a brief stop on The New York Times. Please no.)

KPMG itself knows all about encouraging AI usage. In May we spoke to a KPMGer about how they and their colleagues are meeting arbitrary AI use requirements at the firm: “Many, including me, would just type random questions into the prompt to hit the once a day quota,” they told us.

Said KPMG in the survey report:

Employee concerns about working with AI agents are shifting with many increasingly feeling the strain of added complexity and workload. At the same time, some organizations are testing incentive models to accelerate adoption, but not all approaches are proving effective. Efforts that prioritize usage metrics over meaningful outcomes risk reinforcing the wrong behaviors.

Like asking Copilot to summarize a two sentence email because mandatory AI usage is now part of your performance rating, eh guys?

Alright, let’s cover one more item and call it a day. Funny how sustainability slipped all the way to the bottom like that. Was nice to know you, ESG.

We’ll be sure to keep an eye out for next quarter’s survey, we have a feeling the numbers will be quite different as AI companies keep turning the vice and start charging for the stuff like it’s AOL circa 1994.

The post Big 4 Firm With AI Quotas Unironically Explains Why AI Quotas Are Such a Terrible Idea in Latest Survey appeared first on Going Concern.

It says:

Reference Equity, a shareholder of CBIZ, Inc., today released a letter and accompanying presentation delivered to the Company’s Board of Directors and management, calling on CBIZ to suspend share repurchases and restart its acquisition program.

Reference Equity has strong conviction in CBIZ’s business model, culture, and management, and its proposal is designed to reinforce and extend the Company’s core strengths. M&A is a central pillar of CBIZ’s long-term strategy: acquisitions strengthen the franchise by adding scale and capabilities, create growth and advancement opportunities for employees, and drive margin expansion through corporate synergies.

“CBIZ has the corporate development capability and demonstrated integration playbook to lead consolidation in its industry. Today, however, CBIZ is constrained by its capital structure. We are asking the Board to suspend buybacks and raise equity capital to protect CBIZ’s competitive position and seed the next decade of growth,” said Ryan Bunn, Reference Equity portfolio manager.

Now for part two of Reference Equity’s efforts to cattleprod CBIZ into doing acquisitions: they built a whole website. This is from cbizflywheel.com (and also appears in the press release but this is more visually appealing):

If that’s not enough, there’s also a 24-page slide deck with plenty of bullets and numbers.

Bloomberg ran a story about this yesterday and spoke to RF:

Reference Equity’s Bunn said the firm is publicly disclosing its campaign now “out of love for the business.” CBIZ will be weaker if it continues to do buybacks as the rest of the accounting industry moves to invest in and consolidate around artificial intelligence, he said.

“Philosophically, it’s a crucial moment,” Bunn said. “They need to support their long-term business model, instead of just pursuing the highest mathematical return today.”

Well if you’re into mathematics definitely check out that slide deck, there’s all kinds of it in there. It also has Reference Equity’s June 15, 2026 letter to CBIZ CEO Jerry Grisko and Chairman Rick L. Burdick.

Thoughts or feelings may be expressed in the comment section or via the tipline if you have additional insight to add to this situation that’s best shared behind the scenes.

The post Activist Investor Tells CBIZ They Need More Acquisitions in Their Life appeared first on Going Concern.

TLDR is this: OP applied for a remote accounting job on LinkedIn, the business name checked out and the account that posted it looked legit. During the initial interview process they were sent what they thought was a meeting link that ended up being malware (yes, she realizes this is where she f’d up). From there, the scammers attempted to use their access to OP’s computer to do all kinds of naughty stuff with her and her husband’s bank accounts, Zelle, and Gmail. Those attempts were thankfully thwarted.

The craziest part is that this wasn’t some wholly made-up company, the scammers co-opted an established brand that had closed just enough to make it look like they were one in the same. Business impersonation scams have been going on for a while now but this one is pretty elaborate compared to your usual “Hello this is the government kindly send $5000 in Google Play cards immediately” scam.

The post:

This is a long story that I’m still processing but wanted to post a warning to others. I’m sure some people will think I’m stupid but I’m generally very cautious. Sorry for it being disorganized.

I got hacked by a job, to the point where they got into my husband’s and my bank accounts. It was an accounting job on LinkedIn. It was a promoted job, posted by a paid account with followers etc. It’s a legitimate business in my state and I googled them and looked them up on the secretary of state website. This is a small business so there’s no careers page. I know that’s advice a lot of people give to avoid scams but small businesses don’t usually have them.

This person/company have posted accounting jobs 4 weeks in a row, all open remotely, with different titles and salaries. For what it’s worth I’m a CPA and I saw them post bookkeeper, staff accountant, controller and CPA roles.

Anyway, later after applying I received an email from the operations manager telling me thanks for applying, they’re reviewing resumes, and here’s the website link. The link was the one I found before when searching.

Then the poster emailed me saying they wanted to set up an interview and laid out the process. 1) Schedule via their calendly link, then 2) I’d be invited to a private slack channel for final details etc. This actually matched a legitimate process I’d seen before so I didn’t see any red flags.

They sent me the link in the Slack interview to join the call. I shouldn’t have clicked on it but it didn’t feel like a suspicious link because it was from someone I had communicated with, and was expecting a link.

It downloaded something that said Zoo Google Meet [Ed. note: OP later clarified it was called Zoho Google Meet, not Zoo]. After it downloaded, my paid Malware Bytes said it was malware but it was too late. I uninstalled it but didn’t realize it had installed other crazy things that allowed it to access my computer.

I use 1password for password manager but I had a handful of passwords in Google password manager that must have been added accidentally but I think this is where they got access to two of our accounts.

They spammed me and my husband on separate days with texts (to hopefully hide the text from the bank saying that something had been changed). The MFA phone number on those two banks had been changed. I assume they were able to override it due to having access to my computer. For my husband’s account, they added a Zelle recipient. For me, they set up a bank rule in my Gmail sending all notifications from the bank to my trash.

They didn’t transfer money and my current understanding is that it often gets flagged as fraud if they do it the same day, so they try to prevent you from noticing things were changed and then go in later.

After the fact, I realized the real business had recently closed and their website no longer existed. These people had registered a new domain one month ago that showed up first in search engines when you googled them. It had an extra s in the name, let’s say XYZ constructionS.com instead of construction. But since it matched that first Google result, I wasn’t suspicious. It also was the URL in the company page on LinkedIn.

I reported the job and poster to linked in many times and they did nothing and said there was nothing suspicious but I finally got a human to review who said there was suspicious activity and removed it.

I had to spend six hours on with an IT person getting rid of the malware.

Anyway, there are obviously mistakes I made, the biggest one was clicking on the link. But again it wasn’t a “suspicious link” in the way people say – it was an expected link.

Things I learned:

Def no Google/browser password manager

Google the actual domain – copy and paste it to see when it was registered.

Check your trash email regularly.

Don’t be complacent about using unique passwords and MFA though it can be overridden.

Look up the fraud line specifically for your financial institutions and put them in your phone because it’s stressful to think of when you were already hacked.

Just because someone has a legit LinkedIn account and paid posting doesn’t mean it’s legitimate.

Even if you’re expecting a link, right click on it and run it through a URL tester (I actually did this after and it said it was safe so maybe only works on better known schemes)

Make everything as difficult to login to as possible. Don’t save login lessons even on trusted devices. It’s annoying but could protect you.

I’m sure there’s more – I’m still dealing with it two weeks later. Just wanted to share so it helps even one person learn from my mistakes. I think they’re targeting accountants hoping we have access to more logins.

Feel free to ask me anything because I know this was chaotic

ETA: They had also changed the LinkedIn company’s URL on the LinkedIn page, had a branded Calendly, and hosted email signatures.

Be careful out there, everyone. And maybe use a clean or virtual PC when job hunting just to be extra safe.

The post Beware This Hot New Scam: LinkedIn Job Hunt Takes a Sharp Detour Into Attempted Bank Emptying appeared first on Going Concern.

Alright well that was plenty for a post-holiday Monday. Email or text if you have a story or tip and stay cool, everyone!

The post Monday Morning Accounting News Brief: Cool It on the Scandals, Students Are Watching; Quarterly Reporting Proposal Overwhelmingly Opposed | 7.6.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

You know who’s not aware of this? Investors. That’s according to a recent Motley Fool survey that tapped the brains of 2,000 investors. Check out these stats:

Nearly half (44%) of retail investors have never heard about the SEC’s semiannual reporting proposal before taking The Motley Fool’s survey. Among those investors who had formed an opinion, support tracks almost perfectly with how much they had already heard about it.

• Only 18% of retail investors had heard a lot about the proposal, and 38% had heard a little. A plurality (44%) had never heard of the proposal before the survey.
• Among retail investors who regularly read quarterly earnings reports — who would be most impacted by the proposal — 34% had never heard of it. Among retail investors who never read earnings reports, 79% had not heard of the SEC’s semiannual reporting proposal.
• Baby boomer investors are the least aware of the proposal — 64% of baby boomer investors had never heard of it, while 81% of Gen Z investors had heard of it at least a little.

A little chart they made dives deeper into the survey data, showing that even more than a third of respondents who review earnings every quarter hadn’t heard of the SEC’s proposal. We expect the “never reviews” category to be quite out of the loop, what’s surprising is that the regular reviewers are too:

With days left on the open comment period, you better get on it if you have something to say. You can submit a comment on S7-2026-15 here. There are, as of publication time, 77 pages of public comments already submitted. Boy are we going to have fun slogging through that.

The post The SEC’s Quarterly Reporting Proposal Is Catnip for Comment Letter Writers, Investors Not So Much appeared first on Going Concern.

Paul used to work at EY but is now out on bail after he and 25-year-old Phillip Issa allegedly accessed the private banking data of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Paul was seconded to Commonwealth Bank “as part of a contingent of consultants advising on the lender’s mortgage system,” said AFR. So they sent him to the bank to work on the mortgage program and he did…that. Allegedly.

Although this latest incident is definitely not going to help with Big 4’s current, ongoing battle with the Australian government, it’s worth noting that EY took action right away and sent Paul packing.

There were actually two EY employees rooting around in the PM’s banking info — and apparently they accessed the data of an EY senior partner as well — but only Paul has been named and it doesn’t appear the other ex-employee has been charged while Paul and Phillip were charged on May 6, the same day they allegedly accessed the data. So at least we know the post-incident mechanisms are working as they should.

Along with a charge from Australian Federal Police for viewing the private banking data of a parliamentarian (excellent word), Paul has also been hit with a charge for “using a carriage service to make available, publish or otherwise distribute information that is personal data, of one or more individuals, and engaged in that conduct in a way that reasonable persons would regard, in all the circumstances, as menacing or harassing towards those individuals.”

The reporting on this story is a bit thin, leaving us to wonder how a 21-year-old chucklehead consultant with two months on the job was able to waltz past security measures and pull up the PM’s bank account. We’re also wondering what exactly was done from there to lead to that second charge.

Was it worth it, bro?

The post EY Consultant Discovers One Weird Trick to Never Work in Banking Again, Or Big 4 For That Matter appeared first on Going Concern.

No, they need you to do this now and not later because no one over there wants to be stuffing demand letters in envelopes after the deadline passes. Stuffing envelopes? In 2026!? We’re not doing that.

They posted the following plea on Xitter earlier today:

2010: slapping this symbol on everything even though we later discovered that the mysterious tree symbol and the disclaimer that usually came with it were actually bad for the environment in their own way

2026: paper cuts bad

According to the Board, 14% of North Carolina CPAs still needed to complete their 2026–2027 license renewals as of yesterday. Maybe this post will grab an eyeball or two and get you laggards cracking.

Contact them directly with any questions, a bunch of contact info is here.

The post North Carolina Board of Certified Public Accountant Examiners Makes a Persuasive Argument Against Paper appeared first on Going Concern.

Financial Review has been doing an amazing job staying on top of the happenings with the KPMG audit leaks as they’re happening, just as they did with the PwC tax thing. AFR is where we first saw the paper we’re about to share with you, so hot off the presses that it’s dated tomorrow July 1 even though it’s still only June here.

The Guardian did a good explainer on the sitch that’ll get you caught up if you haven’t been staying abreast of

KPMG staff leaked confidential Lendlease and Optus information to colleagues who were applying for lucrative audit contracts at Westpac, Dexus and Telstra. At least three partners were involved.

The whistleblower raised alarm at colleagues’ behaviour in an email on 30 May 2024 to Julian McPherson, then the head of audit. The email alleged KPMG partners were pursuing “revenue growth at all costs”, alongside other workplace complaints, a parliamentary inquiry heard on Friday.

KPMG’s website says: “Acting with integrity is at the heart of our values and we all need to make the right decision by speaking up!!!”

The whistleblower told the inquiry that KPMG denied him a pay rise, withdrew his client work, then threatened to sack him.

Note it’s not just KPMG’s website that says that, it’s KPMG’s whistleblower landing page that says that, three exclamation points and all:

For some reason though it appears that specific reference is on KPMG Nigeria’s website. Let’s not drag them into this.

There’s obviously more to what’s going down in Australia but you get the gist. Things have gotten so bad that KPMG Australia CEO Andrew Yates resigned in May. Reminder that this was him in 2023 when the PwC tax scandal was all everyone was talking about: Finally Having Something to Roast Them About, KPMG CEO Takes This Opportunity to Talk Sh*t About PwC

The 56-page paper released by Treasury today does not mince words. It “sets out options to enhance the regulation and trust in the system and to ensure that the audit sector is accountable and that markets can continue to rely on it,” according to the intro which further reads:

In recent years, we have seen behaviour from large accounting, auditing, and consulting firms in Australia that is not fair and honest. This behaviour has had real consequences. It has undermined trust in the firms themselves and raised broader questions about the resilience of the frameworks meant to uphold market integrity.

This paper should not be confused with a similar but different paper released in 2024: Response to PwC – regulation of accounting, auditing and consulting firms in Australia. You can see why the government is getting a little irritated with Big 4 firms at this point, those long-ass tedious papers aren’t easy to write and we’re sure the government has better things to do than micromanage supposed trusted institutions.

We’ll try not to bore you with too many highlights from this July 2026 paper. There’s a discussion about partnership liability (and a shout-out to ‘Murica in it, nice):

There are no firm-level obligations imposed on audit partnerships

An unincorporated partnership does not have separate legal personality from its partners. In general partnerships, partners are jointly and severally liable for the partnership’s operations. Despite this, under the Corporations Act, an ‘audit firm’ that is a partnership (rather than the lead auditor) is often appointed as auditor by reporting entities.

Partnership law is a matter for states and territories. Under current regulatory arrangements, partnerships cannot be meaningfully sanctioned for decisions that affect audit quality. Only the lead auditor in a personal capacity is subject to the risk of deregistration and criminal penalties. As a result, legal accountability does not extend to key decision makers within a firm who influence firm-wide quality and independence decisions (see Table 2).

This approach differs from overseas jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US), which allocate responsibility to the audit partnership as the ‘auditor’ for the purposes of compliance with certain auditing standards (including quality management and ethical standards).

And discussion about quality control standards (with another shout-out to us, lookit that):

Quality management standards are not well aligned to Australia’s legislative framework

The Corporations Act requires audits to be conducted in accordance with auditing standards,11 but does not impose requirements on the general conduct of the registered company auditor (RCA) or audit firm.

As such, ASIC is limited in its ability to enforce ASQM 1 regarding firm-level management decisions affecting audit quality (for example, resourcing, training, and remuneration policies).

Despite ASQM 1 being internationally developed and representing a comprehensive standard for firm-level quality management, many of its requirements are principles-based and broadly worded, which may make it difficult for courts to determine non compliance or impose penalties.

In summary, challenges associated with the current regulatory framework include:

• a focus on conduct during individual audits, which limits the ability to address broader firm-level decisions on the systems that support audit quality or more systemic misconduct occurring outside specific audit engagements
• the key standard (ASQM 1) being drafted broadly, making it difficult to enforce, and limitations in the penalties framework resulting in a lack of alternative civil or administrative regulatory responses (see Section 5 for further detail on penalties).

By contrast, quality control standards in the US cover expectations on audit firms that are similar to ASQM 1, but contain more direct obligations, and are often used as a basis for enforcement activity (often imposing significant penalties) against audit firms by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB).

What this says to us is that the Australian government is looking for a larger hammer with which to bonk naughty firms when they step out of line.

The whole paper is below if you would like to give it a read.

The post KPMG May Have Gotten Big 4 Into Big, Big Trouble in Australia appeared first on Going Concern.

EY’s AI Avatar Gets Glazed

Forbes discusses Coach Eve, EY’s AI avatar that’s supposed to level the hiring playing field. Let’s get the intro out of the way:

EY has a numbers problem. Nearly 400,000 recent college graduates apply for jobs at the global consulting giant every year. 30,000 are selected for personal interviews. Only 5,000-8,000 are hired.

It’s a large cut. And EY knows they are missing people who could be superb employees. But how do you give that many candidates a fair chance when there is no human-scale way to evaluate each and every one?

For a long time, the honest answer was that you couldn’t. Applicants from the Ivy League and other elite schools showed up at interviews bearing impressive academic resumes. They knew how to run case studies, a critical part of the EY vetting process. And they had inside knowledge that only a well-connected alumni network can offer.

Are we seriously pretending like Big 4 recruits primarily from elite schools? Moving on, we’re here to talk about “the digital face of EY’s recruiting efforts.”

Just a few years ago, a college graduate applying for a job at EY might have received a printed booklet or been directed to a web page that tried to anticipate their questions about EY’s culture and working environment. But those materials would have been incomplete and not at all responsive.

In contrast, Coach Eve is made for interaction. Grounded in EY’s custom knowledge base, Eve leads candidates through practice questions, simulated case studies, and even addresses their concerns about dress code or what EY looks for in a new hire.

In one early test, an intern spent ten minutes asking Coach Eve about the difference between EY’s pension and 401(k). That’s the kind of practical and detailed question a nervous applicant might never ask in an interview. But the answer might also be what convinces a talented person to accept an offer—or apply in the first place. “The psychological safety piece is so important to us,” said [EY Americas Chief Talent and Culture Officer Ginnie] Carlier. “When a student or candidate comes in having had that live interaction [with Coach Eve] the conversation is much more elevated.”

We last mentioned the AI avatar in a November 2024 Monday Morning News Brief when Business Insider did a story on it.

Is it eVe or Eve? Meh who cares.

OK that’s it for this news brief. Email or text if you have a story or tip, we’re here. Have a good one!

The post Monday Morning Accounting News Brief: EY Insists Candidates Enjoy Their AI Avatar; Guy at Deloitte’s Grandma Has Something She Can Put on the Fridge | 6.29.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

Private Equity

Behind the Buyouts: Houlihan’s Hughes on Accounting Firm M&A [The Deal]
On the latest episode of Behind the Buyouts, Patrick Hughes, head of accounting services at Houlihan Lokey Inc., discussed the state of accounting M&A in 2026 and the industry’s evolution from a largely untapped market to one where more than half of the top 100 accounting firms have private equity backing. Strong PE demand, long portfolio hold periods and improving macroeconomic conditions will support a significant wave of deal activity through 2027, Hughes added.

Stephano Slack Announces Strategic Growth Investment from Madison Dearborn Partners [Business Wire]
Stephano Slack, a premier accounting and advisory firm, announced a strategic growth investment from funds managed by Madison Dearborn Partners (“MDP”), a leading private equity investment firm based in Chicago, with additional participation from co-investor Norlantic Capital.

Municipal Madness

Riverhead official admitted to fabricating ‘independent’ accounting report, hearing officer finds [RiverheadLOCAL (New York)]
Riverhead’s longtime parks and recreation superintendent fabricated an “independent forensic accounting review” and falsely attributed it to an outside accounting firm in an attempt to persuade Town Board members not to eliminate his $8,000 annual stipend, according to a hearing officer’s findings obtained by RiverheadLOCAL under the Freedom of Information Law. Hearing officer Robert E. Draffin found that Coyne authored the accounting report himself, with the assistance of artificial intelligence tools, while representing it as an independent review prepared by Anthony J. Mancini, CPA, CFF, of Mancini Forensic Accounting & Advisory Group, PLLC.

Practice Management

AICPA Top Issues Survey: Firms’ focus on technology rises [Journal of Accountancy]
Change management related to technology, including the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), ranked as CPA firms’ leading issue by expected impact in the next five years, according to the latest CPA Firm Top Issues Survey.

Big 4

KPMG’s self-destruction puts Big Four on notice [Reuters]
Writes Antony Currie:
It’s so often the cover-up that gets you. Or in KPMG Australia’s case, such a botched attempt to deal with serious allegations from ​a company whistleblower that it came close to a cover-up. It’s only three months since accusations came to light that staff at the Big Four ‌accounting firm used confidential information to win business. KPMG has now lost much of its senior management Down Under, including, this week, chair of both Australia and Asia-Pacific, opens new tab Martin Sheppard. Coming so soon after a PwC scandal, it ought to prompt an urgent overhaul of the industry.

PwC board moves to keep CEO Kevin Burrowes in charge until 2028 [Financial Review]
Burrowes, who was brought in by PwC Global to take control of the scandal-hit Australian firm in 2023, was due to be replaced later this year by a local leader. “[We] have told partners that the board believes continuity of leadership is in the best interests of the firm in this environment,” said PwC’s independent chairman, John Green.

Audit

Audit firm to Gupta metals empire fined and banned for ‘egregious’ failures [The Guardian]
King & King and its managing partner Milankumar Patel have been fined a total of £378,184, received a “severe reprimand”, and hit with serious restrictions on audit work after a four-year investigation by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC). King & King, whose main office is based above a row of shops in London’s Regent Street, relied heavily on fees from GFG Alliance companies, which made up nearly 41% of its revenues in 2021.

From Compliance to Competitiveness: Why audit chairs must lead integrated governance [Deloitte]
“The Audit Chair does not run the tower and should not try to. The contribution is a trained eye for crossing flight paths, and the standing to put them on the agenda before they become incidents.”

AI

‘Strictly Business’ at Cannes Lions: Deloitte, AWS and Sony Pictures Entertainment Execs on Getting Your ‘Hands Dirty’ With New Tech Like AI: ‘Start Tackling Hard Problems’ [Variety]
Thoughts from Deloitte’s Michelle McGuire, whose title is Chief Data & AI Officer (CDAIO) for the Deloitte US Olympic and Paralympic Partnership:
“I would say don’t be scared of AI and the technology, right?” said McGuire. “Start to upskill your folks so they engage with it, they understand it, they’re getting their hands dirty and using it.” Her advice is for companies to “start tackling hard problems” — so they can not only see the benefits of optimizing existing processes, but start to apply AI to do things that weren’t possible before.

CFOs lag in AI readiness as ROI pressures rise: EY [CFO Dive]
Seventy-one percent of CFOs say traditional metrics are not sufficient to evaluate initiatives that combine people and technology, highlighting a growing mismatch between how organizations create value and how it is measured, according to the EY report.

AI cost challenges mount as agent use gets more complex: KPMG [CFO Dive]
Deployments of coordinated artificial intelligence agents are growing, a shift that raises new cost visibility challenges for organizations, according to KPMG’s latest AI Quarterly Pulse Survey. While the share of organizations deploying AI agents remained largely steady from the prior survey period (53% compared to 55%), companies are increasingly managing more complex deployments that span teams, systems and decision points, KPMG found.

Deloitte adds unified agentic AI layer to Omnia audit platform [International Accounting Bulletin]
Deloitte has introduced a new agentic intelligence network within Deloitte Omnia, its global audit and assurance platform. These agents are intended to operate collectively to carry out full audit and assurance workflows rather than working as stand-alone tools.

Tax

Gavin Newsom urges a national ‘billionaires’ tax’ while fighting one in California [The Guardian]
Newsom argued that a state-level billionaire tax would be easily dodged by wealthy people who are able to move their assets to other states. Already, several billionaires, including Google co-founder Larry Page, have either threatened to leave California or made efforts to cut ties with the state. “You may not be able to pick up and move to Texas or Florida to shelter your income from taxation, but I promise you that billionaires can, and do,” Newsom wrote. “Wealth is movable, and it shops for the state with the lowest taxes. The fight belongs at the federal level, where this broken system was created in the first place.”

Trump threatens 100% tariff on any country that imposes digital services tax [Reuters]
“Numerous European Countries have ​been discussing the imminent implementation of a Digital Services Tax on American Companies,” Trump ⁠said in a social media post. “Some of these Countries are close to actually doing this. Please let this ​statement serve to represent that any Country that imposes such a Tax will immediately be met with a ​100% TARIFF on any and all Goods sent to the United States of America.”

DOJ Civil Tax to Hire Attorneys After Losing a Third of Staff [Bloomberg Tax]
The civil tax branch of the Justice Department is hiring again after losing more than a third of its staff amid the Trump administration’s effort to downsize the federal government and revamp the department. The Tax Litigation Branch of the Civil Division now has 189 full-time employees, said Joshua Wu, deputy assistant attorney general overseeing civil tax, during a Friday panel at the New York University Tax Controversy Forum in New York.

The post Friday Footnotes: Amateur Forensic Accounting Not Appreciated By Local Parks Department; KPMG Getting Dogged | 6.26.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

It’s a fairly decent document full of warnings and specific Circular 230 citations, like this one:

3. § 10.35 – Competence: “A practitioner must possess the necessary competence to engage in practice before the Internal Revenue Service. Competent practice requires the appropriate level of knowledge, skill, thoroughness, and preparation necessary for the matter for which the practitioner is engaged.”

Practitioners must understand both the law and the technology used in their representation of clients before the IRS, including AI systems’ operational mechanics, limitations, and risks.

They must understand how AI develops content, recognize the potential for bias or errors, and be able to evaluate whether AI outputs are suitable for use in IRS matters. Lack of technological competence could lead to improper advice or flawed filings.

In other words, they’re telling you straight up that “I didn’t think the AI would lie” is not an appropriate defense should AI lead you astray.

But let’s talk about this section. You’ll notice they use GAI to mean “generative artificial intelligence,” an acronym we really hope doesn’t catch on.

Real-World Consequences of Improper AI Use

Courts have increasingly sanctioned lawyers for improper use of GAI, mainly due to fake citations or other hallucinations contained in legal filings. Typical penalties imposed in these cases have included financial sanctions—often amounting to several thousand dollars; public censure; required completion of legal ethics or professional responsibility courses; default judgments entered against the responsible party; removal from representation of a party to the matter; and disciplinary referrals to state bar authorities.

These sanctions stem from violations of duties of candor and competence, and they often entail reputational harm as attorneys must notify clients and affected judges about the court-ordered sanctions. The consequences emphasize the need for tax practitioners to act with care and precision when using AI tools, reinforcing the importance of diligent human oversight.

While the legal profession has seen the most public court sanctions, they serve as a warning for other tax professionals. Cases imposing sanctions against other types of tax professionals are slowly emerging. For example, the Australian government published a 230-plus page report on its website in July 2025 that Deloitte Australia had prepared for it. The report contained invented quotes attributable to a judge, references to non-existent reports, and books ascribed to the wrong author, all produced apparently by GAI. Deloitte Australia reportedly resolved the matter directly with the Australian government by agreeing to partially refund a portion of the fee it received from the government.

“A partial refund looks like a partial apology for substandard work,” said Labor senator Deborah O’Neill to AFR in October. “Deloitte has a human intelligence problem,” she said, sharpening her tongue on Deloitte’s incompetence. “This would be laughable if it wasn’t so lamentable … too often, as our parliamentary inquiries have shown, these consulting firms win contracts by promising their expertise, and then when the deal is signed, they give you whatever [staff] costs them the least.”

Anyway, go read the bulletin and then do some homework on how LLMs work if you need to.

The post In New AI Guidelines, IRS Politely Suggests You Not Make Up Sources Like Deloitte Did appeared first on Going Concern.

Accounting firm Eide Bailly agreed to sell a stake to Reverence Capital Partners, a move to implement artificial intelligence at a faster pace for itself and its clients.

Reverence and co-investors will collectively take a majority stake in the Minneapolis-based firm, in a deal valuing it at about $1.8 billion, people familiar with the matter said.

Eide Bailly and Reverence said they expect the deal to close in the third quarter.

Andy Spillum, Eide Bailly’s chief operating officer, said he expects the firm’s revenue to double in the next three or four years as it expands its capabilities and operations. The firm said it reported about $840 million in revenue for the year ended in April, up from $780 million a year earlier.

Meanwhile, let’s check in with the man on the street and see what he has to say about this development:

Skepticism and cynicism, as expected.

When do the sales start in earnest? Private equity is still buying but when do they start selling?

The post Top 20 Firm Eide Bailly Gets on the Private Equity Train appeared first on Going Concern.

We saw this article “The great power shift inside accounting firms” on Canadian Accountant but it was first published here by Queens University in Ontario. The relevant bit:

We tend to view changes in corporate culture through the lens of leadership or organizational behaviour. But, often, shifts in the labour market, societal shocks or disruptive technology can play an even greater role in shaping the rules and quirks of a workplace.

The accounting profession provides an excellent case study. Big accounting firms — like Deloitte, PwC, EY or KPMG in Canada — have long been considered finishing schools that don’t just employ people but fundamentally reshape them into a particular type of professional. Sure, the hours are intense, the hierarchy is structured and the culture carries high expectations of performance. In return, though, you earn a pathway to partnership and a credential that opens doors.

But the conditions that enable this system are eroding, says Bertrand Malsch, PWC/Tom O’Neill Professor of Accounting at Smith School of Business. “Accounting firms are increasingly seen less as elite, all-consuming career destinations, and more as comparable to other large organizations — offering solid opportunities but without the same expectation of personal sacrifice,” he says.

There is a lot in the 24-page paper “Losing Control: The Erosion of Disciplinary and Pastoral Power in Accounting Firms” authored by Malsch, Oriane Couchoux, and Laurence Daoust. We know you guys barely have the patience to slog through 700 words so we’ll pull just two juicy sections. First, this one on how auditors effectively brainwash themselves and each other:

The literature to date has clearly established that becoming an auditor, and more specifically, entering the professional environment of large accounting firms, is not simply a career choice for individuals but also involves a profound transformation of the self. This transformation has been conceptualized through the Foucauldian lens as a disciplinary process exerted on auditors through various technologies of power, such as performance measures, norms of conduct, and hierarchical judgments. Together, these disciplinary mechanisms shape the professional auditor early in their career, fostering a commitment to prioritizing professional goals over personal life (Covaleski et al. 1998).

Auditors internalize overwork as the norm as a result of socialization and repeated exposure to excessive workloads, which solidifies the belief that long hours and unwavering commitment are essential for professional success (Coffey 1994; Anderson-Gough et al. 2001; Lupu and Empson 2015). First, the collective nature of audit work means that individual time is not entirely personal—it is a shared resource dedicated to serving the team and the firm (Lupu and Rokka 2022).

Deserting one’s colleagues during critical periods is perceived as a serious breach of professional ethics. This perception reinforces a culture in which auditors practice self-abnegation in service to the organization and accept long, grueling hours as an unavoidable norm (Beau and Jerman 2022). Second, auditors are expected to maintain constant visibility, both in the workplace and at firm-sponsored social events. This presenteeism imperative means that leisure and personal time are severely compressed, as auditors are expected not only to work excessive hours but also to actively participate in firm-organized gatherings (Anderson-Gough et al. 2001). The blurring of professional and personal boundaries further entrenches the overwork culture, making resistance or disengagement by auditors both professionally and socially risky.

What is remarkable about this transformative disciplinary process is that it is not explicitly articulated through rules or regulations as formal obligations. Instead, the above behavioral standards are implicitly communicated to auditors through a variety of discourses, practices, and reward mechanisms (Dirsmith et al. 2015). These mechanisms include time management tools (Coffey 1994), billing arrangements (Anderson-Gough et al. 2001; Ladva and Andrew 2014), and promotion systems (Beau 2018; Kornberger et al. 2011). Firms’ disciplinary power is thus not explicitly, coercively imposed on individuals but is instead adopted by auditors, who apply themselves to meet moral and social obligations that align with firms’ professional expectations (McPhail 1999). Notably, this process can begin while auditors are still students, before they are even formally employed by the firms (Daoust 2020; Gebreiter 2020).

Perhaps sending 60-70% of the audit offshore is part of the reason why this system of peer pressure and personal responsibility is crumbling? Or maybe it’s the rescinding perks you swore would be forever and constant rounds of layoffs? Expecting manager-level performance out of college kids the minute they walk through the door?

Alright, second and last section. This one discusses recruiting. Keep in mind they submitted this paper back in 2023, right as attrition started to climb due to the job market and people started sticking around longer because they couldn’t or didn’t want to jump:

First, a dominant theme in our interviews is the apparent shift in the balance of power within recruitment processes. While firms traditionally had the advantage of carefully selecting individuals from a large pool of candidates (Daoust 2020; Gebreiter 2020), they now struggle to attract and filter top talent.

One partner described this shift as follows:

You used to have 300 applications, you’d pick 60. Now you probably have 100 applications, and you need 60. And sometimes you can go to a university where you really want to have about eight people and you have nine applications. The demand isn’t there anymore, so by default there’s definitely a lot less skimming. (Partner 7)

With fewer candidates to choose from, the traditional process of “skimming” for top recruits is disappearing, forcing firms to hire nearly all applicants just to meet their staffing needs, regardless of how these candidates were evaluated and ranked during the recruitment process: “Before, it was like you had to have this, this, and this [on your resume]—you had to meet all the criteria and check all the boxes. But now … judging by the staff we’re getting, it seems like we’ve removed three or four boxes to hire more people” (Staff 12). By eliminating some of these required “boxes,” the auditors entering firms today are, from the outset, less aligned with the traditional ideal candidate profile.

This shift in recruitment dynamics appears to be a recent development. While historically, Big 4 firms were considered
employers of choice, the prestige associated with a Big 4 job seems to have faded:

We’re so short on people that it seems like anyone can join [the firm]. … It’s not as glamorous as it used to be … so they hire anybody, so there’s less of a barrier to entry, so you feel less special being here. (Manager 1)

The Big 4, when I was going through recruiting my first year, it seemed like people wanted to go there. Now on campus it seems like they’re having a hard time recruiting, they’re making offers to more people. And pay-wise there’s clearly a gap with any other job in any field. So, it definitely builds up a bad rep[utation]. (Staff 3)

The above quotes collectively illustrate how the default auditor emerges as a consequence of declining selectivity and shifting perceptions of Big 4 employment. These trends not only alter the composition of the workforce but also affect how auditors perceive their own professional identity, seeing themselves less as members of an elite institution and more as employees in a firm that is struggling to attract talent.

Beyond the recruitment challenges faced by accounting firms, retaining auditors has also become increasingly difficult. While high turnover rates in the profession are well documented (Nouri and Parker 2020), our participants emphasized that the situation has worsened: “People leave even faster than they were leaving before” (Manager 6). As a consequence, P&Ms are struggling to maintain the carefully structured pyramid that underpins the firm’s business model. With accelerated departures, the once solid pyramid now resembles “a sick Christmas tree” (Partner 6)—a metaphor that captures the thinning of key talent at various levels and the growing imbalance in workforce distribution.

If you made it this far, I’m so proud of you. If you want to keep going, check out “Losing Control: The Erosion of Disciplinary and Pastoral Power in Accounting Firms” here.

The post The Big 4 Model Might Be Cooked appeared first on Going Concern.

And that’s it for this news brief, I know you have work to get to. Email or text if you have a tip or story for us and at least try to enjoy your week OK?

The post Monday Morning Accounting News Brief: PwC Gave Us a Reason to Mention GTA 6; The Bad KPMG Anecdotes Are Adding Up | 6.22.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

Big 4

KPMG accessed rival audit bids, contradicting firm’s defence [Financial Review]
A KPMG partner accessed confidential Lendlease board papers evaluating audit pitches by rivals EY and PwC, contradicting claims that the data was not sensitive and did not help it win any new business. The content of the documents may have given KPMG insight into its competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, as well as the mindset of the Lendlease board.

Deloitte UK to Shed Up To 175 Auditors in Voluntary Job Cuts [Bloomberg Tax]
Deloitte UK is planning voluntary job cuts across its audit business as the firm has grappled with low levels of attrition and stagnant revenue. The firm is offering voluntary redundancy packages to a number of staffers in a response to low levels of staff attrition in its audit practice, a spokesperson for Deloitte said in an emailed statement.

PwC UK boss Marco Amitrano wins bigger role in international shake-up [Financial Times]
PwC’s UK boss Marco Amitrano has won a larger role inside the Big Four consultancy’s global network, after a clearout of international executives designed to centralise decision-making across the 364,000-person firm. The changes, due to go into effect on July 1, include axing the global role historically held by the head of PwC’s German member firm and replacing some international executives with partners from the UK and the US businesses.

AI

Private equity bosses warn of AI threat to bets on law and accountancy [Financial Times]
Law and accountancy are among the businesses most vulnerable to AI disruption, top private capital executives have warned, adding to the worries of buyout groups that have invested heavily in professional services. “Apologies to the lawyers, accountants, consultants in the room,” Apollo Global Management executive Scott Kleinman told SuperReturn delegates. “You’re going to see a lot of pressure.”

Hesitancy over AI still affecting accounting firms [CFO Brew]
Said HubSync CEO John McGowan to CFO Brew when asked “With private equity, is it more of a push or a pull toward AI? Do firms want to partner with PE so they can invest in AI, or are PE backers investing in AI for the firms they’ve bought into?”:
I think it’s mutual…There’s definitely a push coming from PE, but I do think the reasons why, at least the firms we’ve talked to, are doing this is, number one, obviously the capital to grow and scale…And there’s also been this desire for a long time, especially at the upper end of the market, [to] start to compete against the Big Four…

AI is eroding trust. Accounting and finance professionals can rebuild it [CFO.com]
Writes Mike DePrisco, president and CEO at The Institute of Management Accountants:
AI and advanced technologies are a growing concern for accounting and finance professionals — and are changing the role they must play in their organizations.

SMBs are acting on financial advice from AI chatbots — before talking to their accountant, as experts warn ‘that pressure is only going to grow’ [TechRadar]
Nearly three-quarters (70%) of UK SMEs say they often or always act on AI-generated financial, tax or business advice before they consult their accountant, according to a new report of 500 UK SMEs commissioned by Ravical. Conversely, only 5% rarely or never do this, highlighting just how widespread AI adoption is when it comes to seeking advice. Answering tax questions, responding to financial planning queries, serving up business strategies and triaging day-to-day accounting issues are among the most common use cases, with accountants instead being used to validate AI-generated advice as a secondary layer.

EY Hanyoung and UBC Embark on Joint Development of Humanoid Robots [The Asia Business Daily]
Global accounting and consulting firm EY Hanyoung has embarked on the development of humanoid robots in collaboration with an artificial intelligence transformation (AX) company. On June 16, EY Hanyoung announced that it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with UBC, a company specializing in digital twin-based manufacturing AX solutions, to jointly develop autonomous manufacturing technology for humanoid robots using physical artificial intelligence (AI) based on NVIDIA Omniverse.

Careers

Entry-level work didn’t disappear, PwC finds with ‘seniorization.’ It just morphed into something young workers can’t get [Fortune]
In the most AI-exposed occupations, 52% of new skills appearing in entry-level job postings were skills traditionally associated with experienced workers. In the least AI-exposed occupations, that figure was 7%. PwC calls this “seniorization,” and the numbers around it are stark. Job openings for these redrawn entry-level roles—the ones that now ask a 22-year-old to demonstrate capabilities a 35-year-old would have—have grown 35% since 2019. Traditional entry-level openings, in the same period, shrank 10%.

Tax

Advisory panel urges sustained IRS funding, expanded AI, tax simplification [Journal of Accountancy]
The IRS’s outside technology advisory panel called on Congress to provide stable, multiyear funding; expand the use of artificial intelligence; and simplify tax administration. It also warned that resource constraints and complexity risk undermining recent modernization gains. In its 2026 Annual Report to Congress issued Wednesday, the Electronic Tax Administration Advisory Committee outlined a broad set of recommendations aimed at modernizing the tax system, improving compliance, and strengthening taxpayer service. Central to the report is a warning that sustained funding is critical to maintaining progress on technology upgrades and meeting growing demands on the agency.

Coca-Cola, IRS Face Off in Tax Appeal With Huge Stakes for Both [Bloomberg Tax]
A lot is on the line in Coca-Cola Co.’s big court battle against the IRS. For the company: as much as $20 billion. For the IRS: how much leeway it will have in pursuing multinational companies. The beverage giant and the government will square off in oral arguments next week before the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Miami. Coca-Cola is appealing US Tax Court rulings that side with the IRS over the company’s transfer pricing—how it priced transactions with its own foreign affiliates. “We’re talking about truly massive dollars, almost unprecedented in the transfer pricing context,” Chad Martin, a principal at Eide Bailly, said. The case is “the Super Bowl of transfer pricing controversy.”

IRS live chat apps have room for improvement, watchdog finds [FedScoop]
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found that the IRS hasn’t analyzed its chat apps, nor does it have reliable metrics around their use. The agency piloted live chat functionality in 2017 and launched automated chatbots in 2021. In conducting its audit, TIGTA reviewed statistical reports that didn’t add up. One showed a live assistor handling up to 603 live chats simultaneously — a stat the IRS admitted was incorrect due to an internal cap for the number of concurrent chats set at three.

Tax Controversy Lawyer Is in Line for Top Counsel Job at IRS [Bloomberg Law]
Private-sector lawyer Jim Gadwood is being vetted to become IRS Chief Counsel, according to a person familiar with the process. If confirmed, he would be the fourth person in the role since President Donald Trump took office. His nomination could be sent to the Senate next week, the person said. Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) said in an interview Thursday he was aware of Gadwood’s nomination, but did not know him personally.

Audit

CT secretary of the state’s office failed to withhold employee’s Social Security taxes, audit finds [CT Insider]
The Office of the Secretary of the State failed to withhold more than $12,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes for one employee, a new state audit found. “It appears a clerical error led to this employee being placed in a FICA-exempt status upon hire,” auditors wrote in the report. The Secretary of the State’s Office was also criticized for not keeping track of inventory, improperly handling purchase card transactions and not fully documenting sales of various publications.

Audit finds VA automation glitch ruined 98% of veteran survivors’ benefits claims [WHQR]
“VA OIG, the Office of Inspector General, included a review of 8,100 cases of these automated DIC decisions and found that in 8,000 of them there were errors. So, this is essentially every case,” said Claire Hillan Sosa, a Senior Disability Attorney with Deuterman Law Group, which has offices in Greenville. She said the mishandled DIC cases contained legal or procedural errors, causing a wave of incorrect notification letters, missing evidence summaries, and millions in improper financial distributions. “I think technically some of them are AI, some of them are not,” Hillan Sosa explained.

Here’s how much financial aid ‘ghost students’ stole from Utah’s public colleges and universities, auditors found [The Salt Lake Tribune]
So-called “ghost students” stole about $500,000 in financial aid from Utah’s public colleges and universities over the last academic year, according to a state audit released Tuesday. That’s only counting the confirmed losses. Schools reported another roughly $334,000 in “potential” losses that are still being assessed, plus more that might remain “undetected,” landing the total somewhere near a potential $1 million that’s irrecoverable.

Firm tapped for audit of Mecklenburg school system finances [Mecklenburg Sun (Virginia)]
The Mecklenburg County School Board has tapped a Raleigh-based accounting firm to conduct a forensic audit of the school division’s books in the wake of a financial scandal that led to the ouster of two top administrators. At its monthly meeting Monday in Boydton, trustees approved a contract with Keiter CPAs of Raleigh, N.C. to conduct the deep-dive review of the division’s finances. The board’s decision comes on the heels of allegations that former assistant superintendent Christy Peffer and former finance director Amber Barbour used school funds to make unauthorized personal purchases.

Florida CFO flags ‘troubling irregularities’ involving Kissimmee mayor, refers case to FDLE [Spectrum News 13]
Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia and his office shared that their office has raised concerns involving Kissimmee Mayor Jackie Espinosa and a grant program. “The CFO’s office regularly conducts various audits. Recently, the auditing team found some troubling irregularities concerning the Kissimmee mayor and a grant program that we’ve now referred to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Public Corruption Unit and the appropriate state and local ethics authorities,” Communications Director Sydney Booker from the Office of Chief Financial Officer Ingoglia said. “Our office will work with them to ensure they receive all necessary support during an investigation.”

The post Friday Footnotes: Deloitte UK Asks Nearly 200 Auditors to Please F Off; AI Chatbots Favored Over Actual Accountants | 6.19.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

Pretty brutal to get let go before you’ve even found your footing at the firm. OP theorizes, as they should, that it’s not AI that’ll be picking up their work:

Elsewhere:

According to EY’s 2025 audit quality report, they had 13,804 people total in audit in fiscal 2025; that’s 1,443 partners and managing directors, 3,357 senior managers and managers, and 9,004 seniors and staff. They say they hired 2,350 audit professionals from college and university campuses in fiscal 2025.

Meanwhile, the firm just announced the opening of a 40,000 square feet AI center at EY GDS in Bengaluru, India. They’re calling it the “ey.ai Center for Reimagination.”

Anyone affected is welcome to reach out via email or text to vent.

The post Layoff Watch ’26: EY Trims Some Newbies in Audit appeared first on Going Concern.

Seriously, go watch this movie, it’s terrible in the best way. Jeremy Irons is in it.

Anyway. If you like the idea of a human-like computerized entity guiding you through information like a librarian you’re going to love what Deloitte has set up at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club for the U.S. Open Championship.

I’m sorry but is this terrifying to anyone else? A seven-foot man trapped into a box whose only purpose is answering golf questions?

Deloitte had this to say about their little project with the United States Golf Association (USGA):

The USGA’s Rules team and Deloitte identified and advanced an opportunity to use AI to create a scalable way for the organization to convey the official rules of golf to the tens of millions who play the game. As the organizations discussed potential solutions, it became clear they could leverage each other’s highly specialized knowledge and unique assets. Beyond having a firm understanding of the AI market edge, Deloitte brought to the project advanced tech capabilities that could render the organizations’ shared vision into a tangible reality. The USGA had a team of subject-matter experts with an unparalleled understanding of the rules of golf, coupled with a proprietary database of years and years of past rules inquiries from golfers across the country.

USGA Rules team members realized almost immediately that while off-the-shelf AI engines might be able to provide a response to golfers’ questions, they couldn’t answer those questions with a level of accuracy equal to or greater than their own rules experts. Together, the USGA and Deloitte created a Rules AI tool, a bespoke query-and-response tool for users to ask a rules question and have confidence they were receiving the correct answer because it was based only on trusted, timely and verified USGA data.

Honestly seems like a good use of AI. Not the seven-foot guy, he can go. But the tool seems cool.

The post Deloitte Made the Creepy Digital Librarian From The Time Machine But For Golf appeared first on Going Concern.

Then Georgia Senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff along with Representative Henry C. “Hank” Johnson, Jr. wrote a strongly worded letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and IRS CEO Frank Bisignano asking them to address this matter expediently and allow IRS staff from the affected office to telework in the meantime. Not a huge ask really, I think we all agree working among rodents is an unacceptable working condition.

The good news is the IRS listened. The bad news, according to the most recent information from NTEU, is that the new facility also sucks. Fun.

IRS’s solution? Move some employees from one rat-infested office to another—plus, the facility is also known for water leaks, mold, roaches and water bugs.

Are roaches and water bugs not the same thing? Nevermind, immaterial.

WSB2 is on it again:

President Trump issued an ironclad return-to-office mandate for federal employees in January of 2025. As far as we know, the IRS still allows for temporary 90-day telework arrangements in cases of significant hardship if approved by their overlords of human capital. To be clear, the IRS’s idea of significant hardship is escaping domestic violence or recovering from an organ transplant (that’s not hyperbole, those are actual examples they gave).

BTW what happened with that hantavirus outbreak? Should we be paying attention to that?

The post The IRS Moves Atlanta Employees to an Office That Makes the Rat-Infested Office Look Pretty Good appeared first on Going Concern.

The headline of their blog post mentions only Okta Verify as the “required” MFA platform they want you to use from now on but drilling down into the details we see they’re also allowing Google Authenticator. What they aren’t allowing anymore are one-time passcodes (OTP) via SMS or phone call. NASBA states they’re making this change because these are “more secure authentication methods.”

There are links to setup either Okta Verify or Google Authenticator on your devices over on NASBA’s blog and you are encouraged to do this as soon as possible. The extra cybersecure among you may elect to do your own research on the tool before blindly slapping it on your phone just to be safe, as you should do with anything you put on your devices.

Happy MFAing!

The post As of Tomorrow NASBA Will No Longer Text One-Time Passcodes appeared first on Going Concern.

Here’s the gist of their latest research:

This investigation analyzes a KPMG report from October 2025 on customer experience and agentic AI. The report, titled Total Experience: Redefining Excellence in the Age of Agentic AI, summarizes the results of an annual study on consumer experience around the world. Of the 45 citations in the report, only five accurately point to real sources. Another 28 citations provide paraphrased titles and/or fake components for a real source. The final 12 are too vague or flawed to accurately determine if a source exists. Additionally, around half of the claims evidenced by the 45 citations appear to be fake or misattributed — likely the result of an AI research tool over-complying with a request to find examples of “agentic AI” in the wild.

This is where it gets a little tricky. Whereas the EY report had clearly fake sources pulled out of AI’s virtual ass, this one is a tad more complicated. Explains GPTZero:

Consulting firms use a condensed citation style that makes source matching difficult. In line with industry norms, the citations in Total Experience are formatted as endnotes and generally provide a title, container (publisher or website name), and a year. Many of the citations also include an author, but the given author overlaps so frequently with the container or title that it is usually redundant. Because the citations are incomplete (lacking “real” authors, URLs, and other identifiers), finding the “real” matching can involve extensive detective work and require certain assumptions about the report’s authors.

The task of citation verification is made even more challenging by citation titles: 40 of 45 are fake. In most cases, the titles seem to be paraphrases that loosely match real sources (as corroborated by context and other citation components). However, between the paraphrased titles, garbled authors, and missing URLs, 12 citations are too ambiguous for either our tool or in-house expert to determine a confident source match.

They then proceed to list all 45 citations. We’ll grab the first 10 of them to give you an example:

#	Citation Text	Verdict	Justification	Potential Match
1	Salesforce. C-suite AI Priorities in 2025: YouGov Research. Salesforce, February 2025.	Hallucination	Title is wrong. Report was produced by YouGov for Salesforce.	Salesforce x YouGov ANZ AI C-suite Research_Report_ANZ_Final (February 2025).pptx
2	Intellihub. Zelora: Home Electrification Made Accessible with Smart Technology. Intellihub, September 2024.	Hallucination	Title and date are wrong.	Intellihub and Bunnings Launch Zelora: A Game-Changer for Home Electrification in Australia
3	AUSTRIACARD. GaiaB Agentic AI Platform Press Release. February 2025.	Unsure	Title is wrong.	New Agentic AI Platform from AUSTRIACARD HOLDINGS
4	RBI. Digital Services Overview: ELBA Business Hub. RBI, 2024.	Unable to determine	This citation doesn’t provide enough detail.	Funktionen und Vorteile von Mein ELBA
5	Verbund. Qurrent: AI-driven Renewable Energy Systems. Verbund, July 2025.	Unsure	Title is wrong.	VERBUND X Ventures invests in AI start-up Qurrent for energy solutions
6	Česká Spořitelna. George Internet Banking. 2025.	Unable to determine	This citation doesn’t provide enough detail.	Internet banking | Česká spořitelna
7	Škoda Auto. Laura: In-Car Experience with ChatGPT. Škoda Storyboard, 2025.	Hallucination	Title and date are wrong.	Škoda’s voice assistant Laura now enhanced with ChatGPT capabilities
8	Alza.cz. AI-enhanced Retail Logistics. 2025.	Unable to determine	This citation doesn’t provide enough detail.	Alza
9	BNP Paribas. AI Integration: Transforming Financial Journeys. The Banking Scene, 2025.	Hallucination	Wrong author and wrong title.	BNP Paribas Accelerates AI Integration: What This Means in Practice
10	Doctolib. Enhancing Healthcare Navigation Through AI. Doctolib, 2025.	Hallucination	Wrong title and year.	How Doctolib uses AI to empower healthcare practitioners

GPTZero goes on to explain how all of this is a big problem because the report gets laundered through the wider web and then ingested by LLMs, thus perpetuating the cycle of made-up or sketchy sources:

Publications by prestigious consulting firms that are hosted on high-traffic websites rank highly in search algorithms and AI research queries. It’s therefore no surprise that the claims and statistics included in KPMG’s Total Experience are seeping across the internet and surfacing in news reports, blog posts, and conversations with LLMs. Since publication, the report has been covered by industry publications like CXM, CX Dive, and Mi3, as well as a major Czech newspaper. In these stories, claims, including the 55% statistic mentioned above, have been repeated and recycled.

KPMG’s report is also being cited by LLMs, which can strip claims of context and make them more difficult to corroborate.

KPMG ended up pulling the report after Financial Times wrote this up a few days ago. They told FT that KPMG International “takes the accuracy and integrity of its published content seriously” and that they’ll investigate how this got published in the first place. “We expect all our people to follow our guidelines on the responsible use of AI, including human oversight to validate content and verify independent sources,” said a spokesperson.

OK so guess that confirms that there’s something to these accusations.

GPTZero gives their best guess as to what exactly happened:

The problems caused by these vibe citations are compounded by a relentless series of fake or misattributed claims. It seems likely that an LLM research tool was prompted to find suitable case studies of companies using agentic AI in different markets. This tool seems to have conflated sources, exaggerated claims, and injected references to agentic AI that were copied into the final report without verification. We suspect no human at KPMG double-checked the citations, the claims, or the sources before Total Experience was published.

If Big 4 firms want a piece of the AI consulting market they really need to step up their game.

The post KPMG Redefines Excellence in the Age of AI By Using AI to Pump Out Dubious Citations in This Now-Removed Report appeared first on Going Concern.

Here’s a heckuva headline to start things off: IRS employees protest rat infestation at Chamblee campus; agency announces telework option: “We looked at each other. It screamed, I screamed.”

Several employees at the Internal Revenue Service’s Atlanta campus in Chamblee say they are frustrated with what they describe as ongoing rodent infestations and deteriorating working conditions inside the facility.

Current and former employees, along with union representatives, gathered outside the campus Thursday afternoon to protest the conditions and call for expanded remote work options.

Some current employees told CBS News Atlanta they did not attend the demonstration because they feared retaliation from management.

Thank you, NTEU Chapter 284 for speaking out about the unsafe working conditions at the IRS Atlanta Campus. IRS has now announced they will allow some employees to telework, but we'll keep making our voices heard until ALL employees have a safe workplace: https://t.co/tk3813Hr45 pic.twitter.com/DSH5XEjMyJ

— NTEU News (@NTEUNews) June 12, 2026

Hey that rat looks familiar…

The IRS Phone Bank Pays HOW Much!?

In other IRS news, the inspector general has issued an unsurprising report that says skilled employees were slumming it on low level work while still pulling their skilled salaries:

Still other employees were “involuntarily detailed” to other jobs within the agency, including supervisors and high-skilled techs who make $100,000 or more, but were pressed into duty answering the phones — a job that can pay as little as $35,000.

They’re still getting paid their full salary and benefits, however, the inspector general said.

“Positions at these grade levels often include senior, supervisory, and highly specialized technical employees. However, the positions to which they are detailed are at lower GS grade levels,” the report said.

Can we talk about how they’re paying $35,000 to answer phones or nah?

Getting Divorced Over an Audit Failure

As you may have heard, PwC is going to have to pay a pound of flesh for Evergrande. And some partners are taking drastic measures to protect their wealth:

The liquidation of China Evergrande Group, the collapsed property developer, is raising concerns among some partners at its former auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers China about the potential impact on their own finances.

Several partners at PwC’s Hong Kong and mainland China affiliates say they are exploring strategies to safeguard personal assets, in case legal and regulatory challenges facing the firms ever spill over into any financial or legal burdens for themselves. One says he has even contemplated divorce as a means to shield wealth, while another is cutting education budgets for his children.

For Those Who Like Tax Policy

ICYMI: Deloitte published their 2026 Global Tax Policy Survey, a survey of 1,010 tax and finance leaders across 28 jurisdictions. A takeaway:

A majority of respondents (85%) now expect AI-based tax compliance software to deliver positive impacts ranging from improved accuracy to reduced compliance costs, while 15% remain more negative, expecting the main impact to be increased implementation costs.

When it comes to the question “What is the biggest challenge for tax leaders in 2026?” Deloitte says:

The biggest challenge comes from the rising tide of complexity in the tax system. While some of it can be attributed to sources such as Pillar Two and the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, a lot of complexity also comes from inconsistent domestic implementation of international regimes. The volume of public tax transparency disclosures stemming from a combination of regulatory requirements and voluntary disclosures, adds further pressure and is expected to increase in coming years.

EY Doesn’t Want Companies to Focus Solely on AI Cost-Cutting

A Business Insider article that sounds like a pitch for EY’s AI services more than anything: EY’s AI leader says companies are too focused on AI cost-cutting

Wall Street tends to reward CEOs who slash jobs in the name of efficiency.

However, those companies are leaning into an area with the “smallest level of return,” Dan Diasio, EY’s global consulting AI leader, told Business Insider.

“There’s a very clear limit to the amount of value you can create by just focusing on productivity and cost reduction,” said Diasio, who also serves as EY’s Americas consulting CTO.

He said AI may be able to shrink the time spent on a task, but it doesn’t necessarily eliminate the job around it. If cost reduction is the main strategy, those companies are effectively asking AI to pay for itself by reducing headcount.

Meanwhile, AFR published this: How AI threatens the giants of consulting

God Forbid We Train Anyone Anymore

Over at PwC, they analyzed global job ads and found employers want senior-level skills even in newbies:

Employers in AI-exposed fields are increasingly looking for entry-level workers to have the skills that they previously expected from senior workers, including emotional intelligence, judgment, and leadership.

The findings come from PwC’s 2026 AI jobs barometer, released on June 15th, which analyzed over 1 billion job advertisements globally.

Analysis of 2.4 million entry-level roles in the US found that AI-exposed roles are seven times more likely to list “traditionally senior” skills than they were in 2019.

The skills now expected of less experienced staff include motivational leadership, team building, people and stakeholder management, process management, mentorship, and data-driven decision-making.

PwC themselves lists some of these qualities as desirable in candidates:

The post Monday Morning Accounting News Brief: Oh Rats! The IRS Is Infested; PwC Partners Will Divorce If It Spares Their Cash | 6.15.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

Rumor of a partner RIF at RSM across all lines. This comes weeks after the audit RIF.

The audit RIF went down the first week of May, The Times later reported it was about 300 assurance professionals let go in that round.

Another tipster who’s been super reliable in the past tells us they’re hearing it’s about 60 partners across all lines; RSM US had 1,182 partners and principals as of FY25 so that’d be an approximately 5% reduction if accurate. They add:

The firm has been very hush hush about it.

From where we’re sitting it sounds like this approach is only encouraging speculation and buzz amongst the proles.

We’re told the firm’s biennial partner meeting is this week in Las Vegas and that US professionals have been invited to listen in on the opening session, perhaps they’re holding off on saying anything official until the meeting. Odds they were going to mention partner separations during that session are slight but not nil, said one of our tipsters.

If you have info you’d like to share with the class reach out via email or text the tipline, anonymously and bathed in our gratitude. As always, we’ll update if and when we hear more.

The post Rumor Has It RSM Asked Some Partners to Dip Out appeared first on Going Concern.

Big 4

Chartered Accountants to probe big four over data leaks [Financial Review]
Chartered Accountants ANZ has launched an investigation into how big audit firms handle confidential information, widening the potential fallout from a mishandled whistleblower complaint at KPMG Australia. The “quality practice review”, ordered by the industry body’s chief executive Ainslie van Onselen, will also examine ethical practices at KPMG, Deloitte, EY, PwC and four other large firms.

AI

EY GDS launches AI centre in Bengaluru [New Indian Express]
EY Global Delivery Services (GDS) has launched the ey.ai Centre for Reimagination in Bengaluru to help organisations explore the use of artificial intelligence and other technologies in business operations and decision-making. The facility, spread across 40,000 sq ft at the EY GDS campus in Bengaluru, was launched on June 11. According to the company, the centre is intended to bring together AI, sector expertise and design capabilities to help enterprises move from experimentation to implementation.

Accounting firms’ AI investments moving beyond ‘just clerical tasks’ [Accountants Daily]
Read these results carefully. “The accounting profession expects…”
The Access Group’s State of AI in Accounting Report 2026, conducted by Agile Market Intelligence, surveyed 434 accountants, bookkeepers, and other accounting professionals between mid-September and mid-November last year across Australia, about their experiences of AI in their practices, including their near-, medium-, and long-term AI integration trajectories. The report found that, by the end of this year and onwards, accounting firms across the board anticipate the successful implementation of AI in higher-stakes use cases. Agile Market Intelligence director Michael Johnson said that, by late 2026, the accounting profession expects AI to take on more work that impacts critical outcomes, “not just clerical tasks”.

Pentagon turns to AI in push for clean financial audit by 2028 [Stars and Stripes]
The Pentagon has awarded a nearly $49 million contract for an artificial intelligence platform designed to help agencies prepare for annual financial audits as the department works toward a congressionally mandated clean audit by 2028. Army Contracting Command on Monday awarded the contract to Groundswell Corp. for its Agentic Auditor platform, according to contract documents. The contract is in effect until June 8, 2031.

Audit

Majority of Brokerage Audits Flagged for Faults, Watchdog Says [Bloomberg Tax]
Two-thirds of audits of brokerage firms picked by the industry’s watchdog for inspection failed to meet US standards, according to results released Thursday. Staff with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board found faults with 66% of brokerage firm audits selected for inspection in 2025, the annual report showed. That is down from the more than 75% of audits found to have deficiencies in 2024.

Tax

AICPA recommends improvements to CP53E notice process [Journal of Accountancy]
Your dues money hard at work (that is not a sarcastic statement)
The IRS should provide additional guidance on CP53E notices, the AICPA said, after the agency sent the notices to 3 million taxpayers, seeking bank account information and prompting widespread concern. “Implementing our recommendations and increasing public outreach will help to reduce confusion and protect taxpayers who are exempt from the electronic fund requirement,” the AICPA said in a June 9 letter to Ken Corbin, the IRS chief of Taxpayer Services.

Private Equity

One of Philly’s last independent accounting firms was just acquired amid ‘unprecedented’ spree of deals [The Philadelphia Inquirer]
Every week for the last five or six years, Scott Isdaner got another call: Are you ready to sell? As managing partner of one of the last remaining larger independent public accounting firms in the Philadelphia region, Isdaner, 67, had watched many of his competitors — “our brethren” — get acquired by national companies, in many cases because they needed to do so to survive. Last week, Isdaner finally joined their ranks — but from a position of strength, he says. Bala Cynwyd-based Isdaner & Co., one of the 20 biggest accounting firms in the region, announced it had been acquired by Atlanta’s Aprio, one of the 25 biggest accounting firms in the country with $485 million in net revenue last year. “We felt that we were in a position as a firm that if we chose to remain independent and continue down that path, that we would be able to succeed and do so,” said Isdaner, whose firm counts 70 employees, including 10 partners.

Accounting Firm Crowe to Sell Stake to KKR in Nearly $3 Billion Deal [Wall Street Journal]
Accounting firm Crowe agreed to sell a stake to KKR, the latest in a wave of private-equity investments across the industry as firms seek capital to speed up their AI adoption and expansion efforts. KKR and co-investors will collectively take a majority stake in the Chicago-based firm, with Crowe partners retaining a minority stake, in a deal valued at nearly $3 billion, people familiar with the matter said. Crowe and KKR said they expect the deal to close in the third quarter, but declined to comment on the valuation and stake size.

Smith + Howard Announces Significant Investment from TPG [TPG]
Smith + Howard, a nationally recognized assurance, tax, advisory and wealth management firm, today announced that TPG, a leading global alternative asset management firm, has signed a definitive agreement to make a significant investment in Smith + Howard. TPG will invest in Smith + Howard through TPG Growth, the firm’s middle market and growth equity platform. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Municipal Madness

Fall River CFO says $218K ‘isn’t missing’ as accountant explains audit [The Herald News (Massachusetts)]
A 69-page audit by an outside accounting firm includes $218,000 that’s unaccounted for
The city’s chief financial officer said a $218,000 discrepancy found in an audit of the city’s fiscal 2025 books does not mean that cash is gone. It means the city’s financial ledgers are not yet balanced, said city CFO Emily Arpke. “It’s not material enough to say that the financial statements were materially misstated,” said Roselli, Clark & Associates partner Terenzio Volpicelli. “Otherwise we would’ve had to book an adjustment. But it was just significant enough that I needed to report it to this organization.”

Kronenwetter audit finds control weaknesses, but village avoids modified opinion [Wausau Pilot & Review (Wisconsin)]
Representatives from CliftonLarsonAllen LLP presented the audit during the June 8 Village Board meeting. The audit covered the year that ended Dec. 31, 2024, and came before the board nearly 18 months after the close of that year. The delay, auditors said, was tied in part to additional work needed before they could issue an unmodified opinion. An unmodified opinion means the financial statements fairly present the village’s financial position and are not materially misleading.

Milton CFO is out as questions swirl around annual audit findings [Pensacola News Journal (Florida)]
One thing is certain, longtime Milton employee Curtis Krebs is out as the city’s chief financial officer. It’s whether he’s permanently out or temporarily out while an investigation into his work keeping the city’s books is conducted that has been left open to speculation.

Audits reveal $1.2B in questionable Maryland state spending [The Baltimore Sun]
Maryland’s state government is hemorrhaging taxpayer money, with recent audits uncovering more than $1.2 billion in questionable spending, improper payments and financial irregularities. That figure, detailed across multiple state agencies, has ignited a debate in the state capital over a systemic inability to fix long-standing financial failures. As the same problems appear in audit report after audit report, lawmakers and taxpayer advocates are now demanding to know whether the state is capable of doing more than just identifying the problems.

Law & Order

Man accused of stealing $7K from accounting firm in Brooklyn: NYPD [PIX11]
According to authorities, around 1:58 p.m., an unidentified individual entered Idris and Sons Accounting and Business Taxation, removed approximately $7,000 in cash from a 64-year-old male victim’s unattended desk, and left.

People

Alphabet taps company veteran for principal accounting post [CFO Dive]
Marsida Saraci, 47, has worked for Google’s parent for about 15 years, most recently serving as vice president, finance – deputy controller. Prior to joining the company in 2011 she worked at Big Four firm KPMG for more than eight years.

The post Friday Footnotes: Great, KPMG Got the Whole Big 4 in Trouble; Pentagon Brings in Agentic AI to Address Their Audit Problems | 6.12.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

We received a tip this morning:

Crowe just got a firmwide email from the chairmen of the board and CEO that Crowe is “in explorative stages” of outside investment. WSJ is expected to post something in the coming days

“In the coming days” ended up being 13 minutes after the firm-wide communication was sent and this is the article: The Accounting Firm Weighing Private-Equity Ownership After Years of Ignoring Calls

Kinda funny how WSJ made it sound like Crowe has been beating off private equity with a stick for a long time when this private equity thing didn’t even start until 2021, a mere four years ago. Technically correct, we suppose, but still a funny way to frame it.

Here’s what Crowe CEO Steven Strammello told WSJ:

Crowe held to its view that it didn’t need to sell to private equity as many of its peers struck deals. That position has now changed in that the firm is now open to it. Outside investment could help speed up Crowe’s efforts to adopt artificial intelligence across its business lines and market the expansion of its services, Strammello said.

“Our capital structure hasn’t materially changed in 80-plus years,” Strammello said. “There’s just been more of an open-mindedness to really step back and reflect and re-evaluate that.”

Crowe is in the early stages of evaluating whether it would sell a minority or majority stake to one or multiple private-equity investors, or do nothing at all, Strammello said. The firm isn’t interested in a merger of equals or being acquired by a larger firm due to concerns it would have to sacrifice its brand or strategy, he said.

Call us skeptical but it seems strange to go straight to Wall Street Journal and inform all your people about something that may or may not actually happen. Sort of like announcing a pregnancy when you’re only three weeks along. Perhaps they’ve done it to fire up some kind of bidding war and court big private equity suitors, who even knows anymore.

Chicago-based Crowe is currently #12 on the INSIDE Public Accounting Top 100 with approximately $1.28 billion in revenue.

Update: Oh hey we forgot about this being in the works. Eight months later it’s official: Accounting Firm Crowe to Sell Stake to KKR in Nearly $3 Billion Deal

The post Crowe Told Its People Private Equity Might Be Coming So They Didn’t Have to Find Out Through a WSJ Article (UPDATE) appeared first on Going Concern.

The Internal Revenue Service today [Ed. note: June 4] announced a series of hiring events to take place across the country through July. The events are aimed at recruiting talented individuals for key seasonal roles, including customer service representatives and tax examining technicians.

“These hiring events are an important step in strengthening our workforce and improving the taxpayer experience,” said IRS Chief Executive Officer Frank J. Bisignano. “We are looking for individuals who want to make a meaningful impact while building a rewarding career in public service.”

These hiring events support the IRS’s ongoing efforts to ensure the efficient processing of tax returns and compliance activities. The agency is seeking candidates who are committed to public service, detail-oriented, and ready to assist taxpayers with professionalism and integrity.

Here are the roles they’re looking to fill. The IRS notes that these are entry-level positions and do not require prior tax experience:

• Customer service representatives: Research multiple computer-based programs and resources to provide tax-related assistance to taxpayers over the phone.
• Tax examining technicians: Analyze and resolve tax processing problems, adjust taxpayer accounts, and respond to taxpayer inquiries regarding preparation of a variety of tax returns and related schedules.

Evidently they’re also hiring for clerks but didn’t include that in this particular news release.

So it sounds like they’ll be shuffling IT people who were on the front lines for Filing Season ’26 back to the server rooms and quiet cubicles where they belong. Good.

They strongly recommend that anyone interested apply via USAJOBS before attending events as they’ll be making “on-the-spot job offers” to those who pre-qualified.

We’re a bit late on this as the Jacksonville, FL event happened today. But there are a few more:

Covington, KY | June 16 & 17
Contact Representatives
Tax Examiners

Ogden, UT | June 22 & 23
Clerks
Tax Examiners

Austin, TX | June 25 & 26
Clerks
Tax Examiners

Kansas City | July 14 & 15
Clerks
Tax Examiners

The post The IRS Is Holding a Few In-Person Hiring Events appeared first on Going Concern.

In Madison County, Iowa (yes, as in The Bridges of fame), they’ve been dealing with a tumultuous couple of years and were having some trouble getting their 2023 and 2024 audits done. To be fair, it wasn’t 100% their fault. As of last year it was in the state auditor’s hands but the state auditor had been unable to get the audits done in a timely fashion. Let’s find out why, shall we? This is local news WHO13 on December 10, 2025:

Auditor Rob Sand’s office previously said the delays are due, in part, to the complexity created by recent government turmoil in the county. The former county treasurer is scheduled to go on trial next week on criminal charges, including misconduct in office, fraud, tampering with records, and theft, while the county has also had multiple Auditors cycle through over the past couple of years, including one who reportedly stopped coming into work.

Yeah, that’ll do it.

Then there’s the issue of who will do the 2025, 2026, and 2027 audits. The Board of Supervisors had to decide if they wanted to leave it up to the state auditor or bring in an outside firm. They chose the outside firm route and only one firm answered the call: Mauldin & Jenkins Certified Public Accountants of Atlanta (#59 on the IPA Top 100 with $120,643,461 in revenue).

The WHO13 article explains why the county supervisors picked an outside firm:

“The pricing was the biggest factor for me,” said supervisor Heather Stancil during the meeting’s discussion on the issue. “And, the fact they’ll have a bigger team working on this, based on what they quoted versus what the State Auditor quoted.”

Supervisor Diane Fitch’s opposition was rooted in the fact that she believes the state had an advantage with its understanding of the county’s current complex challenges.

“I am not comfortable with this,” she said. “I think the state might be slow, but they are in the weeds with us right now. They know what mess we’re in, and I think we should stay with them.”

Mauldin & Jenkins quoted Madison County $70,000 for the 2025 audit, $72,000 for 2026, and $75,000 for 2027 while the state auditor estimated $102,150 for 2025, $107,250 for 2026, and $112,350 for 2027. I mean, who doesn’t want a bargain right?

Last week, State Auditor Rob Sand hit the news conference podium to discuss the release of Madison County’s 2023 and 2024 audits (finally!) and, as you can imagine based solely on the fact that there was a fucking news conference about it, it wasn’t great. He emphasized to those who may not know the parlance that a qualified opinion from his office is both rare and bad.

In a completely predictable turn of events, Mauldin & Jenkins has yoinked their engagement letter. In a very nice letter addressed to county auditor Michelle Brant the firm says that their quote was based on what they knew from the 2022 audit, which did not have a giant qualified opinion slapped on it.

After careful consideration, we have concluded that it would not be in the best interests of either the County or our firm for Mauldin & Jenkins to proceed as the independent auditor for the fiscal year 2025 financial statement audit. Accordingly, we are withdrawing from the engagement pursuant to the client acceptance provisions contained in our Engagement Letter.

This decision was not made lightly. We recognize the importance of a stable audit relationship and appreciate the confidence the County placed in our firm. However, we believe it is important to be transparent regarding our professional assessment of the current circumstances and our ability to effectively serve the County under the assumptions upon which our proposal was originally based.

Given the extensive involvement of the Iowa Auditor of State’s Office in the fiscal year 2023 and 2024 audits, we believe the County should strongly consider continuing with the Iowa Auditor of State for the fiscal year 2025 audit. Their team has already developed substantial institutional knowledge regarding the County’s financial reporting processes, internal control environment, and outstanding findings. As a result, they are uniquely positioned to provide continuity and efficiency in addressing the matters identified during the prior audits and evaluating the County’s progress toward remediation.

Bet Diane Fitch is feeling awfully smug right now. As she should.

The best part of their letter is this pitch:

Although we will not be serving as the County’s independent auditor, we remain interested in assisting the County in a consulting capacity. Specifically, we believe the County could benefit from professional assistance in developing and implementing corrective action plans, strengthening internal controls, improving financial reporting processes, preparing audit-ready schedules and supporting documentation, and addressing the findings identified during the recent audits. Such assistance could help position the County for a more efficient and successful audit process in future years.

“We want nothing to do with auditing that dumpster fire you’ve got over there but we’ll help you clean it up if you pay us enough!” Get that bag, Mauldin.

Props to WHO13 for their diligent reporting on this. It’s boring stuff to most people but it affects everyone in the county.

The post The One Firm Willing to Audit Madison County’s Books Just Said “On Second Thought, Hell Nah” appeared first on Going Concern.

Baker Tilly announced this morning that they’re acquiring Anchin, Block & Anchin LLP. Seeing as Anchin is “only” in the top 50 with a mere $150,733,000 in revenue this is sort of a minor happening…except it’s not.

From the press release:

The agreement brings together two firms known for deep industry specialization, long-standing client relationships and a shared commitment to serving middle-market clients with high-quality advisory, tax and assurance services. Reflecting the growing importance of New York to its clients and business strategy, Baker Tilly will establish New York City as the firm’s headquarters.

“New York is one of the most important markets for our clients and for the future of our firm,” said Eric Miles, chief executive officer of Baker Tilly. “Anchin strengthens our presence in a market that is central to many of the industries, entrepreneurs and businesses we serve. Establishing New York as our headquarters reflects our long-term commitment to this market and our continued investment in the talent, expertise and capabilities our clients need to succeed.”

Well fuck you, Chicago. The acquisition itself feels secondary to the decision to move into the newly conquered lands, doesn’t it?

Anchin managing partner Russell Shinsky, who will be movin’ on up to Baker Tilly’s New York managing principal after the transaction closes, had this to say about the acquisition: “Over the last several years, we had many conversations with firms and investors exploring different paths forward for Anchin. We were fortunate to be in a position of strength and could be selective about what would best serve our clients and our people for the long term. Baker Tilly stood out because of its commitment to the middle market, its investment in innovation and talent, and the respect it showed for the culture, leadership and reputation we have built over the last 103 years. We believe this combination allows us to build on what has made Anchin successful while creating new opportunities for our clients and team members.”

Let’s head to the water cooler to see what the plebs have to say about the merger:

Alrighty then. Gotta say, “PE will push AI harder than Peter Thiel at a robot sex convention” is an excellent use of the English language.

And probably not wrong.

The post It Appears Baker Tilly Bought a 103-Year-Old Firm Just to Get a Better Address appeared first on Going Concern.

We haven’t written about WH Smith here at GC except for a few fleeting mentions of happenings in our Monday or Friday newswraps so let’s get a little quick and dirty backstory down here.

Last August, the retail company’s shares fell 42% after they announced an accounting error, discovered when they were preparing their year-end, that caused North America profits to be overstated by a modest £30 million ($40 million USD). The Guardian explained that error thus:

The mistake relates to arrangements it has with suppliers, which offer rebates if the retailer hits sales targets on certain items and payments for marketing and promotions. It is understood, however, that income should have been logged in accounts for the next financial year rather than for the 12 months to 31 August.

PwC audited WH Smith since 2015. Funny enough, they didn’t flag the overstatement until after the company had already disclosed it.

A few months later, Deloitte came in to do an independent review of fiscal years 2023-2025 [PDF] and found the following:

• the accounting treatment for supplier income adopted by the North America division was not consistent with the Group’s stated accounting policy and consequently was not consistent with the requirements of the relevant accounting standards;
• supplier income recognition has been overstated in North America. As a result of this finding, the Company expects prior year adjustments to be recorded;
• the overstatement of supplier income identified in the North America division is substantially a timing rather than an existence issue, and relates to the application of accounting standards; and
• the methodology and conclusion of the Internal Audit review of supplier income for FY25 across the UK and ROW Travel divisions is appropriate and supplier income has been appropriately recognised in these divisions.

Additionally, Deloitte said that the North America supplier income issue had “arisen against a backdrop of a target-driven
performance culture and decentralised divisional structure combined with a limited level of Group oversight of the finance processes in North America” as well as “weaknesses in the composition of the finance team” and “insufficient systems, controls and review procedures for supplier income across commercial and finance functions.”

Should be an easy one for the FRC, the homework is half done already.

The post FRC To Determine Whether Missing a £30 Million Overstatement Was, In Fact, Bad Auditing appeared first on Going Concern.

Hey Knicks Fans, Know Your KPMG History

Jarrett Kalish and Nicholas Combs of Kalish Law LLC discuss the skybox at Madison Square Garden and how Peat Marwick Main & Co fought for its tax treatment in Bloomberg Tax:

As the New York Knicks prepare to square off at home for Game 3 of the NBA Finals, quietly standing in the background is another one of the city’s most enduring institutions: the commercial rent tax, or CRT.

Following the Knicks’ last championship victory in 1973, accounting firm Peat Marwick Main & Co.—a predecessor to what is now KPMG—entered into a series of agreements with Madison Square Garden that entitled the firm to use a luxury skybox suite for all ticketed events held at the arena.

The New York City Department of Finance in 1987 determined that the firm owed the city’s CRT on the payments that it made to MSG to use the suite. Peat Marwick challenged the city’s application of the tax and won [PDF], allowing firms today to host events at MSG without the need to file a tax return.

What appeared to be a straightforward agreement to entertain clients ultimately produced one of the most important CRT decisions ever issued. The case serves as a reminder that tax outcomes often turn not simply on the activities engaged in, but on how those activities are characterized under the law.

AI Compute Taxes: The Hot New Debate

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) argues the case against taxing AI compute in “Taxing AI Compute Would Be a Mistake“

The article’s four main points:

• First, a compute tax would slow the productivity gains AI can deliver.
• Second, a compute tax would push investment and innovation abroad, weakening U.S. AI leadership.
• Third, a compute tax would do little to preserve the tax base.
• Fourth and finally, a compute tax would not help solve a mass unemployment problem AI is unlikely to create.

WSJ wrote a pretty in-depth piece about AI compute taxes and why the idea is gaining popularity in some circles on May 6:

Advocates support an AI tax to make up for potentially massive job loss and to slow AI’s extreme growth rate.
“We’re at a point now where we need to try and preserve jobs,” says Andrew Yang, a former presidential candidate and a co-chair of the Forward Party. “AI is going to gut white-collar employment and then by the way, it’s going to proceed to truck driving and a lot of other very common jobs.” Yang has long supported a so-called universal basic income.

“If you look at the taxes that are being paid by the biggest AI companies, they’re nowhere near commensurate to the value that AI is going to end up both generating and soaking up,” he adds.

Volunteer Tax Prep Loses a Real One

The local news profiled a wonderful woman in Mahomet, Illinois who spent almost three decades as a volunteer tax preparer:

Brenda Farney is as comfortable with numbers as fish are with water.

So much so, that every job she ever worked always calculated numbers, and when she saw a newspaper ad seeking a volunteer tax worker, she jumped at the chance — but she is venturing into different bluer waters having retired from being an AARP tax volunteer local coordinator for the last 28 years at the Mahomet Public Library.

“I enjoy numbers, that’s the bottom line,” she said.

“I always seem to gravitate toward things that involve numbers.”

That CPA Pathways Thing Really Took Off Didn’t It

Vermont, Missouri and Louisiana are close to having new CPA pathways, soon to join the more than 40 states that have already passed legislation.

MNCPA’s map, last updated a few days ago:

One of Us, One of Us

ICYMI: PCAOB chairman Jim Logothetis delivered some remarks at the USC SEC Financial Reporting Conference on Thursday. He started things out by repping the CPA squad:

I am proud to serve as the first permanent Chairman of the PCAOB who has public company audit experience, and I place a great deal of importance in the CPA designation. In fact, two-thirds of the professional staff in my office are CPAs.

Under this Board, the PCAOB will value and consider the experience of the professionals who intimately understand this work and the responsibility because they have lived it.

I spent more than four decades in the audit profession. I dedicated my entire career to it. So, I understand the pressures, the judgment calls, the complexity, and the stakes. The work of leading the PCAOB requires someone who can challenge the status quo while also respecting those in the profession who appropriately view their role as aligned with our own—protecting investors.

I bring that balance to this role, and that is why I believe the PCAOB is ready for its next chapter.

Can we trust this brings an end to the PCAOB fining European firms for sharing answers on internal training when there are surely better things to do?

This is For the Two of You in the Audience Who Care About This Stuff

Treasury and the IRS have issued a notice regarding tax-exempt organization executive compensation:

The Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service today issued Notice 2026-36 [PDF] announcing intent to issue proposed regulations addressing the tax on excessive compensation and excess parachute payments to employees of tax-exempt organizations under the One, Big, Beautiful Bill.

“The new law strengthens the accountability of tax-exempt organizations by expanding tax compliance requirements for certain organizations paying excessive compensation and excess parachute payments to their executives,” said IRS Chief Executive Officer Frank J. Bisignano. “It broadens the scope of tax from a limited group of executives to potentially any highly compensated employee.”

Guy Forces Himself to Be Retired From Tax Prep in the Worst Way Possible

In Accountants Behaving Badly news, we have one guy who’ll never work in this town again:

A veteran Southern California accountant has admitted to running a massive, years-long tax fraud scheme that fabricated thousands of business losses, charitable donations, and green energy credits to land illegal refunds for his clients.

Oladapo Olagbemi, 72, pleaded guilty in federal court to four counts of aiding and assisting in the preparation of false tax returns. As the owner and manager of San Diego-based D.A.O. Accounting, Consulting, and Taxation, Olagbemi manufactured more than $5 million in improper deductions and credits between the 2019 and 2023 tax years, according to prosecutors.

The longtime certified public accountant signed his plea agreement shortly before Tax Day, on April 15, 2026. He now faces a permanent ban from the tax profession and a looming prison sentence.

He evidently was a big fan of Form 2106.

K that’s the end of that. Should you have a story or tip for us, please email or text anytime. Tipsters are anonymous (and appreciated), always. Go forth and account.

The post Monday Morning Accounting News Brief: What’s KPMG Got to Do With the NBA Finals; PCAOB Chairman Is Just One of the Guys | 6.8.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

Note that there is also a dedicated thread for USI this year, where India colleagues share their numbers separately.

GPS — that is, Government & Public Services — seems to be coming in lowest at a quick glance which is not too much of a surprise given Deloitte’s government practice was slaughtered by DOGE last year. Some figures:

GPS

Consultant: 1.0% raise, 1.3% bonus (AIP in Deloitte-speak); 3% raise, 5% bonus; 2% raise, 2.8% bonus; 2% raise, 2.1% bonus

Consultant -> Senior Consultant: 14.3% raise, 13.5% bonus

Manager 1 -> Manager 2: 4.8% raise, 18.3% bonus

Other numbers from across service lines:

Audit

A2 -> S1: 20.7% raise; 14.7% raise, 0% bonus

Staff -> Senior: ⁠13.7% raise, 0% bonus

S1 -> S2: 15.15% raise, 5.5% bonus; 4.4% bonus, 1.6% raise

Senior Manager 3 -> Senior Manager 4: 5.6% raise, $40,000 AIP

Tax

Senior 1 -> Senior 2: 13% raise, 8.6% bonus

M1 > M2: 21% raise, 17.8% bonus

SC-> SC: 12.6% raise, 13.4% bonus

Note for April 2025 to April 2026, Consumer Price Index inflation was up 3.81 percent while energy rose 17.87 percent.

While you’re thinking about it, be sure to share updated numbers with Big4Transparency so they can update their database with the most recent salary data.

And remember, if your raise and/or bonus sucks they probably want you to quit.

The post Compensation Watch ’26: Deloitte Salary Numbers Are Out and Some People Are Salty appeared first on Going Concern.

Big 4

Big Four stronger than ever as UK audit clampdown eases [Financial Times Opinion]
Regulation is in retreat on both sides of the Atlantic. Long-promised legislation to beef up the UK audit regulator and dilute the oligopoly of the Big Four accounting firms — Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC — has been abandoned after almost a decade of lobbying. Meanwhile, the regulator, the Financial Reporting Council, is trumpeting an “evolved” approach that will mean less direct scrutiny of individual audits, in favour of a greater focus on firms’ systems. This easing of pressure has left some at the Big Four sounding gleeful. It’s great to “get rid of some of this stupid regulation”, says one partner.

KPMG UK Scraps Covid-Era Policy Letting Staff Leave Early [Bloomberg]
KPMG’s UK arm has told staff that they can no longer finish early on Fridays over the summer, in a reversal of a Covid-era policy, according to a spokesperson. “Every year we review our summer ‘jump start’ program to make sure we are considering market conditions and business needs,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement, referring to the policy.

PwC cuts partner payouts in China Evergrande fallout [Financial Times]
Proceeds from the 2022 sale of a business unit, which were due to be distributed to people who were members of the partnership at the time, will instead be kept for the “operations and investments” of the firm, PwC told retired partners in an email seen by the FT.

Deloitte to Debut Primary Livery with Arrow McLaren at World Wide Technology Raceway [McLaren]
McLaren Racing has partnered with Deloitte since 2017 and is the Official Transformation Partner of McLaren Racing across the organization’s racing portfolio.

AI

This Common ‘Negative Perception’ Is Holding Back New Graduates, Says a Top Deloitte Executive [Entrepreneur]
Deloitte Asia-Pacific CEO Rob Hillard says many colleges are falling short in preparing students for an AI-driven workplace because they are teaching graduates to see AI as cheating rather than a useful tool. In a Bloomberg interview this week, Hillard said many recent graduates enter the workforce with a “negative perception” of AI because they were taught in college to see it as a form of cheating. “We have to change that,” he said.

AI cited as top reason for US job cuts for third straight month [CFO Dive]
For the year, employers have cited AI in 87,714 planned layoffs, representing 22% of all announced job cuts in 2026. The total has already surpassed the 54,836 AI-related cuts recorded during all of 2025.

AI’s Billion Dollar Tax Breaks: Data Center Incentives Fuel Backlash [Bloomberg Tax]
The AI boom has kicked data center construction into overdrive, pitting states against each other in a competition for jobs and economic growth. Across the country, states have forgone billions of dollars in tax revenue to attract companies like Meta, Amazon, Microsoft and Google. Now, lawmakers in several states are beginning to reconsider whether those tax breaks still make sense.

Accountants ‘don’t want to be left behind’ in the age of AI [Accountants Daily]
Recently, on an episode of Under The Hood, Michael DePrisco, president and chief executive of the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA), discussed how accounting and finance professions can begin adopting AI.

Tax

IRS Audits, Extra Tax Collected Dipped After Workforce Shakeup [Bloomberg Tax]
The IRS closed fewer tax return audits and collected billions of dollars less in additional taxes following the fallout of workforce losses last year. In 2025, the IRS closed 497,621 tax return audits which resulted in $26.8 billion in recommended additional tax, according to the agency’s data book released Friday. It’s a drop from 2024 when the IRS closed 505,514 tax return audits, resulting in over $29 billion.

Audit

Texas now requires cities to do an audit before raising property taxes. Some small towns can’t afford it. [Texas Tribune]
Some cities have seen staffing churn and difficulty courting qualified finance staff to move to a small town to replace them. In a small town, it can be difficult to find a replacement if a key executive like a city manager or finance director leaves, officials said. Alpine, a West Texas town about 25 miles east of Marfa, was two years behind on its audits when Henry Arredondo became city manager in January, he said. Alpine’s last city manager had previously been the finance director, so when they left last year, they took their know-how of the city’s books with them, Arredondo said. Arredondo saw something similar when he worked as Dilley’s city manager. That city advertised for a finance director for four years but could never hire one, he said.

Firm Watch

Armanino names Anthony Sciarra as head of tax practice [Consulting.us]
Based in New York, Sciarra brings more than 20 years of tax leadership experience, with expertise in tax strategy, organizational transformation, and client service.

Aprio Acquires Boston’s Waldron H. Rand & Co., Adding a Century of Client Service to Its Greater Boston Presence [PR Newswire]
Aprio, the 20th largest business advisory and accounting firm in the U.S., announces its acquisition of Waldron H. Rand & Company, P.C. (Waldron Rand), a Dedham, Massachusetts firm with more than 110 years of history serving New England’s businesses and families.

The post Friday Footnotes: Big 4 Partner Thinks Regulation Is Stupid; KPMGers No Longer Get to Go Home Early on Summer Fridays | 6.5.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

Well they’ve announced the winners of the esteemed Elijah Watt Sells Award for 2025 and of the more than 87,000 people who sat for the CPA exam last year, only these six have earned bragging rights as top scorers. SIX. I remember when it was like 70.

To get the award, a candidate must score at least 95.50 across the four sections of the Uniform CPA Examination, pass on the first try, and, in the case of this particular award, have finished testing in 2025.

Something really interesting about the 2025 results, small number of winners aside, is how only one of them works for a Big 4 firm. Used to be I’d waste a good hour of my time physically writing out ticks on a piece of paper counting up the awards scattered across firms to declare a winner of winners, like in 2020 when Deloitte and EY tied at 14 each.

Anyway, your 2025 Elijah Watt Sells Award winners, in alphabetical order:

• William Baker (Kansas), a graduate of The University of Kansas with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and Business Analytics, is employed with Wendling Noe Nelson & Johnson LLC in Topeka, Kan.
• Lauren Dever (North Carolina), a graduate of Dickinson College with a Bachelor of Arts in International Business and Management and a Master of Accounting from UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, is employed with HealthEdge in Boston.
• Stephanie Guei (Texas), a graduate of the University of Houston with a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology and a Master of Science in Accountancy, is employed with Weaver and Tidwell, LLP in Houston.
• Allison Hinaman (Texas), a graduate of the University of Florida with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and a Master of Accounting, is employed with the Financial Accounting Standards Board in Norwalk, Conn.
• Sophie Kapler (Michigan), a graduate of Oakland University with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting, is employed with Ally in Detroit.
• Xin Jie Yu (California), a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in accounting, is employed with KPMG in Santa Clara, Calif.

Obligatory quotes: “The Elijah Watt Sells Award represents one of the highest honors in the CPA profession, and this year’s recipients have demonstrated extraordinary commitment, intellect and discipline,” said Susan Coffey, CPA, CGMA, CEO of public accounting at the AICPA. “These individuals exemplify the highest standards of achievement and are well positioned to help shape the future of the profession with integrity, innovation and a strong sense of purpose.”

“The Elijah Watt Sells Award recognizes not only technical excellence but also a deep commitment to the accounting profession’s highest standards,” said NASBA President and CEO Daniel J. Dustin, CPA. “On behalf of NASBA and our member Boards of Accountancy, we congratulate this year’s recipients on their outstanding accomplishment. Their performance on the CPA Exam places them among the top candidates nationwide and reflects both their dedication to personal achievement and their future contributions to the profession.”

Fun fact: Up until 2011 the award was capped at 10 people per year, sometimes a few more in the case of a tie. The Powers That Be then decided to “standardize the score at an extremely high level (95.50)” so that it wasn’t so dependent on how other people performed in a given year and the number of winners per year naturally increased. So much so that in 2013, I asked “when tf did we get so many Elijah Watt Sells Award winners?” and the AICPA responded with a very informative email answering my semi-rhetorical question.

Does this small number of winners say something about the exam? About the caliber of candidate? Hard to say for sure. All we know for sure is that these six people should feel proud.

The post Everything is Shrinkflating These Days, Even the Number of Elijah Watt Sells Award Winners appeared first on Going Concern.

The exchange, for your reading pleasure:

“You are the acting IRS commissioner, correct?” Cortez Masto asked at the hearing on the Treasury Department budget.

“That is incorrect,” Bessent replied.

When Cortez Masto asked what his position was with the IRS, Bessent said, “My term expired,” but added that the IRS is a bureau within Treasury and that “when there is no commissioner, those duties flow up to me.”

Cortez Masto pushed back, asking whether that meant there was no commissioner and Bessent was acting commissioner.

“No, that’s incorrect,” Bessent said.

Asked again to clarify his role “for the purposes of public and transparency,” Bessent said: “I am performing the duties of the commissioner.”

Timestamped below:

In a publication dated March 13, the IRS offered this update on the IRS Commissioner position:

Consistent with applicable law and longstanding practice, the Secretary of the Treasury oversees the operations of all Treasury offices and bureaus, including the Internal Revenue Service. Secretary Scott Bessent’s service as Acting Commissioner of the IRS under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act has expired, and he has not served in that capacity since that time.

In accordance with the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, the Secretary retains the authority and responsibility to perform the functions and duties of vacant Treasury offices that are not filled on an acting basis. The IRS continues to operate without interruption, with Chief Executive Officer Frank J. Bisignano successfully leading day-to-day operations and reporting directly to the Secretary.

For the record, that CEO position doesn’t sit right with a certain group of senators who called it a “a fake job that Congress has never authorized.”

In the meantime, most tax practitioners on the ground couldn’t care less and just want someone helpful to pick up the practitioner hotline. Who do we need to speak to about that?

The post So Do We Or Don’t We Have an IRS Commissioner? appeared first on Going Concern.

The other day — and by the other day we mean like more than a week ago — we received a text on the tipline that read “KPMG US to get rid of the federal audit practice by not renewing their clients contracts.”

That is pretty big news so we tried to substantiate it with something, anything other than just the tip (believe it or not that’s a thing we do), a quest which left us empty-handed. Well now we can write it up because Financial Times was able to confirm it and dig up more info:

KPMG is shutting its federal government audit business and shifting more than 450 US staff to other roles after losing a $60mn-a-year contract with the Pentagon.

The Big Four firm had audited the US Army for almost a decade but the defence department plans to use a new accounting firm to oversee a larger proportion of the military’s accounts, as political pressure mounts to get a grip on its chaotic finances.

Current federal audit clients at KPMG include the Departments of Justice, Labor, Transportation, and Energy as well as the Treasury. All will be wound down by the time the last contract expires in 2030. Said KPMG in a statement to FT: “Over the past few years, KPMG has prioritised advisory services for the federal government, We are transitioning out of federal audit roles through an orderly, multiyear process, meeting all client and regulatory obligations. As demand continues to grow across both audit and advisory, we will be redeploying our talented federal audit professionals across the firm to meet client needs.”

Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a Department of War video posted on YouTube yesterday that “the era of excuses is over” and promised a clean audit opinion by 2028. Show don’t tell, bro.

Do we think they’ll go over to EY since EY was the firm that was able to give the Marines something no other military branch had ever gotten before (that is to say, a clean audit opinion)?

And do we think Deloitte is busy schmoozing it up in Washington to get back some of the federal money they lost when they got DOGE’d hard last year?

While we’re at it, do we think anyone else with a decent federal practice is going to try to slide in there and get a piece of this?

And the most important question of all: do we think the Pentagon can actually get a clean opinion?

Related: Report: Pentagon will likely fail audits through 2028

Update: Well that’s one way to find out KPMG’s federal audit practice is being shuttered. OP says their internship was set for 2027:

The post The Department of War Broke Up with KPMG, KPMG Gives Up Federal Audits Altogether (UPDATED) appeared first on Going Concern.

The post Much Like You, The SEC’s Top Accountant Never Really Wanted to Be an Accountant Either appeared first on Going Concern.

“NASBA Sucks!”

A friend of mine reminded me last night via text message that I need to write up the stuff that’s happening with Blake Oliver and NASBA. If you’re not in the loop, check out his blog post: NASBA Told Me to Stop Criticizing Them. So I’m Writing This Blog Post.

See, this is why we’ve always liked him.

Blake thinks “the traditional model of CPE course development is backward” and has said as much, specifically at the AICPA Learning and Development Symposium. NASBA took issue with this and threatened to pull Earmark’s CPE sponsorship via snippy demand letter.

He writes:

NASBA’s director of compliance pointed to a clause in the sponsor agreement requiring sponsors to act in a manner that is “professional, appropriate,” and “reflects favorably on NASBA.”

On that basis, they’re asking me to “immediately cease making any unfavorable, unprofessional, or inappropriate comments” about them — or lose Earmark’s sponsorship.

NASBA hasn’t defined any of those terms. In practice, that means NASBA gets to decide which speech from CPE sponsors is acceptable.

Here’s the discussion on The Accounting Podcast, timestamped:

My friend’s 2 cents:

Comments are closed on the news brief by default but if you have comments about this you can email or text.

And that’s that for this news brief. As always, email or text if you have a tip or story, comment or complaint. Now go out there and have a lovely week, you.

The post Monday Morning Accounting News Brief: Five State Societies Merge Into One Regional; What’s NASBA’s Beef? | 6.1.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

Audit

PCAOB works to form Inspections Modernization Council [Journal of Accountancy]
The PCAOB is seeking public accounting firm practitioners to join a new advisory group focused on the board’s future approach to inspections. The Inspections Modernization Council, according to a news release, will work to help “modernize PCAOB inspections so they remain relevant and resilient.”

BDO fined £2mn for ‘pervasive breaches’ in audit of collapsed NMCN [Financial Times]
The accountancy regulator has fined BDO £2mn for “pervasive breaches” in its audit of the collapsed construction company NMCN. The Financial Reporting Council said on Thursday that mistakes in NMCN’s 2019 audit — the company’s final set of accounts before it filed for administration — were “significant and serious”, and highlighted “numerous and pervasive breaches that were fundamental to BDO’s audit work”.

Former Audit Regulator Helps Set Up Accounting Firm Targeting 80% Automation [Wall Street Journal]
Christina Ho, a dissenting voice on the U.S. audit regulator’s board in recent years, is helping form a new venture-backed accounting firm. Ho, who left the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board in January, recently joined Oath, a new firm that aims to automate 80% of its work by 2030 as it integrates artificial-intelligence tools. She serves as chief assurance officer at the firm, which will provide auditing and advisory services, but not tax services. “The audit approach is still built around human limitation and so in order to truly realize the benefit of technology, you have to build an audit methodology that is not human-centric but machine-centric,” Ho said.

AI

Uber’s finance team overtaken by engineering in AI use [CFO Dive]
The engineering team at Uber Technologies has overtaken finance as the company’s leading adopter of artificial intelligence, a senior finance executive said Thursday, amid reports the ride-hailing company is grappling with high costs from AI tools used to automate software coding.

KPMG scouts Silicon Valley start-ups in bid to head off AI disruption [Financial Times]
KPMG’s US bosses are touring Silicon Valley in search of AI start-ups that the Big Four firm can work with before they become large enough to threaten its business. KPMG could sign partnerships or take equity stakes in the start-ups to seal access to their technology, US chief executive Tim Walsh told the FT in an interview.

AI can mass-produce finance research papers indistinguishable from human work, reports study [Phys.org]
Artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models (LLMs) tools are capable of mass-producing academic finance papers that are nearly indistinguishable from human-authored research, according to a new study published in the Journal of Economic Literature.

Amazon says it shut down a token leaderboard: ‘Don’t use AI just to use AI’ [Business Insider]
Amazon is looking to minimize “tokenmaxxing.” The company is shutting down an employee-made leaderboard that tracked AI token use because it encouraged some staff to perform tasks that didn’t necessarily solve problems, just so they could climb the ranks. “Please don’t use AI just for the sake of using AI,” Dave Treadwell, an Amazon senior vice president, told staff earlier this week. “Use AI to help you solve customer problems, to help you solve business problems, to innovate.” [Related: KPMGers Are Maliciously Complying With The Firm’s AI Usage Requirements By Generating Fluff]

Big 4

KPMG CEO quits as audit leaks scandal spreads to Telstra, Optus [Financial Review]
A sprawling KPMG Australia leaks scandal has forced the resignation of its chief executive, as Telstra and Optus were added to the list of major Australian companies whose confidential data was allegedly misused by the firm. The accounting giant’s Andrew Yates had spent weeks downplaying whistleblower claims that personnel misused confidential client data to win work, but in a dramatic escalation on Friday he and audit head Julian McPherson resigned.

The big accounting firms don’t walk the walk [The West Australian Opinion] KPMG’s last annual report insisted the firm was committed to “acting transparently, with accountability and integrity” as Australia’s consulting and audit industry digested the reputational fallout from rival PwC’s tax leaks scandal. “Our role in restoring, preserving and maintaining trust goes hand in hand with being able to demonstrate responsible business practices and how we act lawfully, ethically and in the public interest,” it pontificated. Turns out KPMG should have been getting its own house in order.

Deloitte UK promotes over 6,000 people and increases equity partners to a record high [Deloitte]
Deloitte in the UK will promote over 6,000 of its people on 1 June 2026, including 48 new partners, as it continues to invest in its future leadership. Alongside these 6,000 promotions (up from approximately 5,600 in 2025), as part of the firm’s commitment to competitively reward skills and experience, average salaries in-grade will rise by an average of 4.2% (up from 2.9% in 2025). In addition, following a very strong financial performance in FY26 the bonus pool will increase by 14% across the business.

Tax

IRS cleared potentially ineligible providers for e-file program [FedScoop]
In reviewing a sample of the 116,000 e-file provider applications submitted to the IRS from January 2022 to March 2025, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration discovered “programming errors, procedural updates, and unaddressed suitability issues” that led to the approval of applicants that may have been ineligible for the program.

IRS to Revamp Consolidated Return Rules for Insurance Companies [Bloomberg Tax]
The IRS is planning a revamp of regulations related to how an affiliated group of companies can file consolidated tax returns that include both life and non-life insurance businesses. The change likely will come out later this year, said Ken Kies, assistant Treasury secretary for tax policy, during a Thursday speech at the Federal Bar Association’s Insurance Tax Seminar in Washington, DC.

Trump Clears Way for Corporate Tax Dodge Hidden in the Fine Print [New York Times]
A New York Times review of securities filings from nearly 500 companies showed that they avoided taxes by attributing hundreds of billions of dollars in earnings to low- or no-tax foreign locales like Cyprus, Bermuda, Switzerland and the Cayman Islands. Often, corporations funneled the profits through subsidiaries in places where they had no employees, offices or customers.

Sport Clips Challenges IRS Tax Bill Over Insurance Premiums [Bloomberg Tax]
The men’s barber chain Sport Clips Inc. sued the IRS over a nearly $260,000 tax bill because it says the agency shouldn’t have disallowed deductions for insurance premiums. The Texas-based firm filed a petition with the US Tax Court May 26 to negate this bill, which includes penalties and interest. Sport Clips said the agency erroneously found that its premiums didn’t have “economic substance” and, as a result, the company’s income in 2020 was inappropriate inflated by over $1 million.

Practice Management

‘Survive and Thrive’ and Other Lessons from Accounting Growth Conference [INSIDE Public Accounting]
At the Association for Accounting Marketing’s (AAM) 2026 Summit in Palm Springs, Calif., firm marketers, business developers, and growth leaders repeatedly returned to the same message: Firms that thrive in the years ahead will be those willing to embrace change today, by building deeper client relationships, adopting more disciplined growth strategies, and adapting quickly to the accelerating influence of AI and private equity.

CFOs

Mid-market CFOs confront growing execution strain [CFO.com]
Mid-market CFOs entered 2026 focused heavily on artificial intelligence implementation and long-term transformation planning. By the second quarter, finance leaders were increasingly focused on execution pressure and whether their organizations could realistically keep pace with continuous operational change.

The post Friday Footnotes: Fresh Scandal Forces KPMG CEO to Quit; Deloitte UK is Doing OK | 5.29.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

But we’re here to talk about KPMG’s AI dashboard. More specifically, how the firm is requiring AI usage. Let’s start with an excerpt from the Business Insider article:

The firm said it hopes the dashboard, which came online late last year, encourages more “frequent and sophisticated” AI use among the division’s 10,000 workers.

“Our data shows regular AI users produce higher-quality work, feel less stressed, and spend more time on strategic work,” Russ Grote, a spokesperson for the firm, told Business Insider. “These benefits help people progress faster in their careers. They can also better serve our clients who are going through their own transformation programs.”

KPMG says more than 90% of its US employees use AI weekly.

So, about that. Because public accountants do best when you give them actual instructions rather than setting them loose and hoping for the best, the firm is requiring its people to use AI in their day-to-day. Specifically, according to multiple tipsters we’ve spoken to and the BI article itself, they’re expected to have at least one prompt in the firm’s AI tools 75% of working days.

The dashboard tracks some of these tools, as well as external tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot. Many employees are expected to hit a 75% usage target — meaning they’ve used AI on three-quarters of the business days.

One tipster explained to us how they and many of their colleagues are hitting that metric:

Many, including me, would just type random questions into the prompt to hit the once a day quota.

We were also sent a couple posts from Fishbowl where KPMGers react to the rule and explain their own tactics to hit this metric which, as we understand it, is loosely tracked so for all intents and purposes, asking the AI a stupid question or having it go through the motions of summarizing an email you already read is compliance.

Always a good sign when your staff think a rule is a meme.

Funny enough, some staff were already happily using AI and love the stuff but even they find the required metrics silly:

Regardless how you feel about AI and integrating it into your work, I think we can all agree mandatory usage like this is quite silly and a waste of compute.

The post KPMGers Are Maliciously Complying With The Firm’s AI Usage Requirements By Generating Fluff appeared first on Going Concern.

Gahhhh we got a tip about this last week and didn’t get around to publishing a story, now CFO Dive has beaten us to the punch. Ah well, so it goes in the fast-paced world of accounting news and an editorial staff riddled with ADHD.

The details:

PricewaterhouseCoopers is doubling to $10,000 the “CPA bonus” it gives entry-level hires who complete all four parts of the certified public accountant exam before joining or within their first year at the Big Four firm, according to a company spokesperson. The change is effective June 1.

We especially liked this part from the article:

The bonus comes amid an accounting industry push to remove or provide alternatives to the 150 college credit hour requirement that was seen by many as a costly and time-consuming barrier to getting a CPA license. Since early last year dozens of states have changed rules governing accounting licensure to enable candidates to substitute an extra year of professional experience for a fifth year of college.

The initiative was driven by a push to address an accounting labor shortage that now appears to be easing. [emphasis ours]

Huh. Weird how that accountant shortage thing just kinda went away so suddenly isn’t it? Weeeeeeird. I guess we’ll never know (yes we do).

EY announced in March they’d be doubling their CPA exam bonus, that change is also effective for those coming in after June 1 and requires new hires to complete all four parts within a year. Resident GC comment section curmudgeon Big4Veteran wasn’t having it:

In 2019, PwC stopped requiring its auditors to be CPA licensed before promotion to senior though they still encouraged hungry associates to chase it anyway if so inclined. We assume this bump in bonus is somewhat related to EY doing it but also related to a pile-up of unlicensed seniors. Turns out when you don’t make associates do something they just…don’t do it.

Will Deloitte and KPMG follow suit? Will B4V also complain about this? Stay tuned.

The post CPA Exam Bonuses Get Bigger at PwC appeared first on Going Concern.

In “AI killing offshore accounting? Nope…Citrin Cooperman just tripled India hiring,” Executive Managing Director of Citrin Cooperman India Vishal Agarwal writes confidently:

India is one of the top two priorities for our Board. (And I’m seeing the same trend across the industry.)

Then explains how, in his view, the model is changing:

Earlier, the focus was largely on getting the low-hanging fruit done in India. Today, we’re not just preparing.

• We’re reviewing.
• We’re signing off on deliverables.
• We’re communicating with clients.

In many cases, work is being completed end-to-end in India without needing US intervention.
And we’re building much deeper industry specialisation—financial services, automotive, and more.

Then he explains the plan, as he sees it:

AI is already automating parts of what junior professionals do today.

Say a task needs five people today. AI brings that down to two. The other three aren’t redundant; they’re available. So we pull more work from the U.S. into India.

That frees up the U.S. team to focus on what drives real revenue: client work, advisory, and growth.

Every rung moves up…if they’re willing to.

Sorry for the obnoxious LinkedIn Lunatic spacing on those quotes, we kept it to how it’s formatted on the original post.

For the second article, we have “Offshore US CPA Firms’ new AI reality: No panic firing, but no lazy hiring” which taps Armanino Managing Director Shrenik Shah, PKF O’ Connor Davies India Tax Practice Leader Ishita Doshi, and Vishal the Citrin Cooperman guy from the first article for quotes. We’ll get the quote with him first:

Not a single Indian leader we spoke to believes AI will wipe out the offshore accounting model.

And no! It’s not because they are being optimistic…But because it’s structurally impossible.

As Vishal Agarwal, Executive MD at Citrin Cooperman India ($985Mn in revenue in 2025), puts it:

“If everything gets done by AI, then not only India, but even the U.S. firms would be wiped out. Clients would go straight to AI.”

Then they explain that AI is already doing quite a bit:

The ‘repetitive layer of offshore work’ is being automated faster than expected.

As Ishita Doshi, India Tax Practice Leader at PKF O’ Connor Davies, explains: “Earlier, we handled a large volume of individual tax returns. Now, all of them are automated. Even junior-level professionals are now expected to think critically.”

Vishal sees the same shift in data work. AI is reducing manual effort in mapping, transformation, and tax research.

Shrenik is blunt: “If today there are five people involved in one project, there may be three in three years.”

Ishita’s team already lives this reality. K-1 data entry, historically an hours-long seasonal nightmare, now takes minutes.

The whole article is worth a read honestly because it’s pretty blunt about what’s happening over there from their perspective. For example:

In tax specifically, Ishita notes a clear shift: “As automation removes preparer-level work, firms are hiring seniors, supervisors, and managers who can review work, interpret regulations, and support US partners directly.

And:

As Ishita puts it: “There wouldn’t be any difference between the onshore and offshore teams in the near future.” Shrenik and Vishal echo the same view.

India doesn’t become irrelevant…India becomes the team.

You are free to discuss in the comments as always.

The post AI Won’t Wipe Out Offshore Talent, Say Firm Leaders in India appeared first on Going Concern.

AI in Big 4 May Be Bigger Than It Appears

There was a thread on r/Big4 over the weekend that I found really interesting. OP set it up to roast Big 4 about their AI naivete but it ended up being a bunch of people across the industry talking about how they’re actually using AI right now.

Post text:

Would you agree that Big4 pretends to be using AI internally but instead are far behind in terms of usage ?

Doing little prompt for emails and getting comments on a slide deck is most of what people do.

Almost no one is using Claude Cowork or anything, but they still pretend to be using it and leveraging it.

I don’t think anyone actually believes Big 4 is on the cutting edge of AI, that’s sort of besides the point. But here’s one specific example of someone getting utility out of these tools:

And another, with a bonus dig at Reddit’s strongly anti-AI attitude:

Just make sure you’re checking and double-checking those outputs, y’all.

And here’s a related post that went up yesterday: Claude is already doing all of everyone’s work, how much longer will a consultant be needed in the loop?. Like the first post, the opinions on that vary from “lmao” to “Anyone who thinks this won’t majorly affect the big 4 model has got their head in the sand.”

The conversation would be very different if the Big 4 model hadn’t already been disrupted by offshoring years ago.

KPMG Making an Exit?

KPMG may be leaving Bangladesh, Egypt, and Pakistan. I say “may” because this picture of a screen posted to r/ACCA is a bit sketchy.

There’s a news article too, though admittedly I am not a longtime subscriber to Financial Express so can’t speak to its reliability:

Big Four accounting firm KPMG is set to exit Bangladesh after nearly 60 years of operations in the country.

The firm has also decided to withdraw from Egypt and Pakistan as part of a broader global restructuring of its operations.

In Bangladesh, KPMG has long operated through its local affiliate, Rahman Rahman Huq (RRH).

The KPMG Global Board has already approved the separation process, which is expected to be completed by September 30, sources say.

Guess we’ll have to see if FT picks it up to know for sure. Or just wait until September. KPMG will probably have to make an announcement soon to quell any buzz, clients hate rumors flying around.

That’s enough news for this holiday Monday. If you have a tip or story for us, email or text anytime, I’d love to see it. Text is best, my inbox is a trash fire of shitty press releases (many of which aren’t even remotely related to what we cover). Now be sure to get outside some this week OK? Bye.

The post Monday Morning Accounting News Brief: Is AI in Big 4 a Big Deal?; Consulting Isn’t For Everyone, Or Most People Really | 5.25.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

Audit

It’s almost June. When will the PCAOB publish another Canadian audit inspection report? [Canadian Accountant]
The last inspection reports of Canadian accounting firms published by the US audit agency were released in November 2025. The PCAOB published inspection reports for PricewaterhouseCoopers and Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton for audits that occurred in 2024. Significantly, under the stewardship of former PCAOB Chair Erica Y. Williams, the PCAOB had improved its processes to the point that it was publishing reports less than one year after audit inspections has completed.

Dozens of school districts are missing financial audits. Some are years late [Daily Journal (Mississippi)]
State education leaders have said the factors driving missing audits include school administrative turnover, too few district business managers, auditor staffing shortages and the burdensome federal funding portion of the audits. Some districts are having problems finding accounting firms that have the capacity or ability to complete these audits.

Meanwhile, in India

AI isn’t killing offshore accounting…This CPA firm just tripled hiring in India [The Finance Story]
Writes Vishal Agarwal, Executive Managing Director of Citrin Cooperman India:
Citrin Cooperman established its first-ever India office in 2016. It operated largely out of Ahmedabad. For the next eight years, the growth was modest. Then, in late 2024, the firm opened its second India office in Hyderabad. At that time, we had around 300 employees…Today, we’re over 1,000 people strong. Our fully remote workforce is expanding. Citrin Cooperman U.S. hit $985 million in revenue in 2025. Needless to say, Citrin Cooperman India was a significant contributor to that growth.

Fake call centres duping US citizens by impersonating a prominent American accounting firm busted in Bengaluru by Cyber Command Centre officials two arrested [Country and Politics]
It was actually QuickBooks they were impersonating, not a firm. Tons of pics of the operation at that link.
Investigations revealed that the accused had allegedly floated a company named “Circle Square LLC”and used multiple shell companies to siphon off large sums of money obtained from U.S. citizens. According to Pranob Mohanty,the accused were running the scam through a registered firm named Reckoning Service Private Limited. Though the company claimed to offer IT-related solutions, the accused allegedly impersonated employees of US-based tax consulting firm QuickBooks and cheated American citizens by offering fake tax consultation services.

Firm Watch

Baker Tilly admits 52 new principals [Business Wire]
“This year’s principal class reflects the strength we are building as one firm,” said Baker Tilly CEO Eric Miles. “They bring together diverse perspectives and expertise that are already helping us operate in a more connected way — delivering greater insight for our clients and creating more opportunity for our people.”

Deloitte announces bigger bonuses and more promotions after beating targets [Financial Times]
Deloitte boss Richard Houston said on Tuesday that the firm’s bonus pool would increase by 14 per cent, in an email to staff seen by the FT. Salaries will rise by an average of 4.2 per cent, up from a 2.9 per cent increase last year, while a larger proportion of staff will receive promotions.

AI

EY and Microsoft to invest over $1bn in enterprise AI transformation [International Accounting Bulletin]
The programme will see Microsoft’s Forward Deployed Engineers (FDE) and EY’s industry teams working together. In a statement, EY said that the move is an “important milestone” in the long-standing EY-Microsoft alliance across tax, assurance, consulting and EY-Parthenon.

KPMG integrates Claude across its core business and workforce of more than 276,000 in strategic alliance [Anthropic]
As part of this alliance, KPMG is embedding Claude inside Digital Gateway, the software KPMG’s people and clients use to do the actual work—starting with new tools for tax and legal clients. And every one of KPMG’s 276,000+ employees globally will gain access to Claude. Anthropic is also naming KPMG a preferred partner for private equity, and the two companies will build new Claude-powered products together for PE portfolio companies.

Intuit to lay off over 3,000 employees to refocus on AI [TechCrunch]
In its fiscal second quarter ended January, Intuit reported revenue of $4.65 billion, a 17% increase, and net profit of $693 million, a 48% improvement compared to a year earlier. (Related and funny: Intuit Suffers Worst Plunge Since 2003 After Announcing Job Cuts)

Executive Assistants Making $100,000 a Year Are Losing Jobs to AI [Bloomberg]
Executive assistants at professional-services firms manage partners’ diaries, handle expenses and book travel in one of the few remaining white-collar roles that doesn’t require elite credentials. They can earn more than $100,000 a year for their trouble, with incentives and bonuses for the highest-ranking. That career path is disappearing as firms like PwC and McKinsey & Co. cut or relocate thousands of support roles to save money and make way for artificial intelligence to take on more work. Slowing demand for some professional services, a drive to increase profitability and the rise of AI are fueling cuts, although some former staff at various firms said they believed protecting partner pay was also a factor.

Tax

Tax world gawks at Trump audit agreement: ‘Never seen anything like this’ [POLITICO]
Astonishment is rippling through tax world at a settlement that goes far beyond the specifics of Trump’s suit — he sought billions of dollars as compensation for some of his tax records being leaked to the news media — to instead provide him, his family and his businesses sweeping protections against government scrutiny of his taxes. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Steve Rosenthal, a former longtime senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank.

People

IBM’s global CFO: ‘There I was, top of my class. And I had no job’ [Irish Times]
The 1987 stock market crash was swift and brutal, hitting not only US stock markets but global ones, with an estimated impact of $1.7 trillion. In the US, it wiped $500 million off the markets, caused the Dow Jones to fall by 22.6 per cent – a record for a single day’s trading. Despite fears of an economic impact to rival the Great Depression of the 1920s, the effect of Black Monday was limited – for the stock markets at least. For Kavanaugh, it had wider repercussions. “Within 48 hours, my offers were rescinded,” he says. “There I was, top of my class. And I had no job.” Looking back, he says the setback was another opportunity. He landed a job at National Cash Register, working in accounts receivable. It was a low-level, low-paying job, he says, but it taught him some tough lessons.

The post Friday Footnotes: Supposedly AI Isn’t Killing Offshore Hiring Yet; KPMG Cozies Up to Claude | 5.22.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

In an exclusive published yesterday, Reuters says that Starbucks is scrapping its automated inventory count tool — which they so appropriately named Automated Counting — after a nine-month deployment in its North American stores.

The tool was part of CEO Brian Niccol’s efforts to fix the coffee chain’s persistent product shortages that he has blamed for hurting sales. The app – designed to improve Starbucks’ visibility into shortages at stores – frequently miscounted and mislabeled items, such as confusing similar milk types or ​missing them altogether, Reuters reported in February.

In that February story, Reuters wrote that the AI app’s provider NomadGo claimed 99% accuracy. “What NomadGo set out to do is modernize inventory counting to make it faster and less burdensome while providing timely, actionable data on product availability,” the company told Reuters in a statement.

Here’s NomadGO CEO David Greschler and Strategy Manager of Inventory AI at Starbucks (that’s a mouthful) Kevin Summers discussing it at FSTEC 2025 in a September 2025 YouTube video:

Preservetube link to that video in case it gets yoinked. After doing this for 17 years we’ve learned that you have to archive this stuff. It appears Starbucks has already deleted the app’s announcement off its blog as this link is dead though not yet fallen off from Google search.

Back to current day:

“Starting today, Automated Counting will be retired,” read an internal company newsletter dated Monday that Reuters reviewed and verified ​with two employees. “Beverage components and milk will now be counted the same way you count other inventory categories in your coffeehouse.”

Starbucks shared some employee feedback with Reuters that included one employee saying “Thanks for discontinuing Automatic Counting! The thought behind it was great, but the execution was proving difficult.”

You can also find employees celebrating the end of Automated Counting in their subreddit. This comment gives us a look into why it may have failed, which is that this stuff only works if you give it excellent data (but you’re all smart professionals, you knew that):

We joke about looming automation threats and acknowledge they are indeed real as the tech is advancing quickly but I think we can safely say that plenty of you will still be doing manual inventory counts come December. And probably the next December. And the December after that one…

The post Starbucks Kills Off Its Automated Counting AI Tool After Just 9 Months Because It Sucked at Counting Beans appeared first on Going Concern.

CBIZ suspends employee stock purchase program

Thanks, tipster. We followed up to get more details but haven’t heard back. That’s fine.

CBIZ stock is down 36.89% year-to-date. Because they’re a public company, we’ll resist the urge to speculate wildly about why they ended the program and wait for further information.

CBIZ is one of those huge firms we don’t hear much about. That usually means either people are generally happy about working there (relatively speaking that is, it’s still public accounting) or there aren’t really any happenings worthy of the accounting industry gossip pages. CBIZ peeps past or present are always welcome to reach out via email or text with any petty grievances or even praises of their home firm. Believe it or not we like hearing the good stuff too.

The post CBIZ Ends Its Employee Stock Purchase Program appeared first on Going Concern.

Seeing several posts about layoffs at Deloitte, specifically in audit. Among the newly laid off this week are senior managers which, genuinely, wtf?

A&A Bloodbath
by u/im-gonna-lose-my-job in deloitte

A comment:

I was one of the people hit by this today. Received the invite last night at 9:30 pm. Luckily I didn’t see it until this morning. I am a Senior Manager. I have 2 weeks transition time, but one of those I was already scheduled for PTO so I’m basically done at the end of the week.

getting 9 weeks severance, and they did say they would pay out AIP bonus.

Honestly, I was getting the feeling that leadership wanted to slim down or even possibly eliminate my team. It still hurts a little and I was a bit surprised as I am the SME on my team on certain projects and they’ll likely lose some steam and abilities with me gone, but I can’t help that.

The annoying thing about all this is how impersonal it felt. My manager was clearly reading from a script on her screen, didn’t even say anything personal to me, say sorry, none of that. Knowing they had a lot of these meetings to do today makes that part make sense, they just have to churn through them.

Is it possible that layoffs are random though? Or does each team/each leader get a quota to hit and then they have the decision of who to layoff?

Imagine if layoffs were random. With the way these firms have been cutting and replacing people with offshore staff these past few years we might get there.

The lesson here is don’t do any of that shit because they’ll let you go anyway for the crime of pulling a higher salary than someone thousands of miles away.

More threads here, here, and here. Let’s throw in a comment from that last thread:

Bonuses are supposed to be paid out at the end of this month, they should still be getting those no?

Condolences to everyone swept up in this. Reach out via email or text if you wanna talk about it.

The post Layoff Watch ’26: Deloitte Auditors Got Bad News This Week appeared first on Going Concern.

If you’re a long-time GC reader you know that this is the kind of stuff we used to run all the time. Stupid, tedious, and most importantly harmless gripes like this are hilarious. It seems obvious to me as an OG of the internet that by tagging Deloitte, this person doesn’t actually expect them to track down the offender and write them up, it’s just a funny vent. Right? Right??

Evidently that’s not how it went down in the wes’s replies, which were quickly turned off.

Guys please I beg you, stop taking everything so serious. Now, can we talk about how lame it is to wear company branded gear to the gym? And how unsurprising it is that it’s Deloitte gear specifically?

The post Someone at Deloitte’s Atlanta Office Doesn’t Rerack the Gym Equipment appeared first on Going Concern.

In 2024, the China Securities Regulatory Commission fined PwC China 325 million yuan ($45.8 million USD at the time). But it was the China Ministry of Finance that really hit them hard: 116 million yuan ($16.35 million USD) in fines and a six month ban. Against 2022 revenue of about $1.1 billion, the fines alone ate up 5.6% of revenue. At the time, PwC Global Chair Mohamed Kande said that “the work performed by PwC Zhong Tian’s Hengda audit team fell well below our high expectations and was completely unacceptable” and that it is “not representative of what we stand for as a network and there is no room for this at PwC.”

Cue the late great Billy Mays here: “BUT THAT’S NOT ALL!”

As reported by Reuters yesterday and briefly covered in the Monday Morning Accounting News Brief, Evergrande Group liquidators want 57 billion yuan ($8.4 billion). PwC International maintains that it wasn’t their client and therefore they shouldn’t even be dragged into this:

The total claim by liquidators, Edward Middleton ⁠and Tiffany Wong of Alvarez & Marsal, was made against PwC International, PwC HK and PwC’s China arm, while ​the maximum amount that PwC International could be liable for is 38 billion yuan ($5.8 billion USD).

Monday’s hearing was focused on how ​much responsibility PwC International should bear.

Richard Handyside, a lawyer representing PwC International, argued that the firm should not be a party to the case as the Big Four company consists of several firms and the Hong Kong and China entities were not ​its subsidiaries.

There were no communications between PwC International and Evergrande, and it did not have a “duty of care” ​with respect to the developer’s financial audits, he argued.

But a lawyer for the liquidators, Adrian Beltrami, argued that PwC International sits ‌at the ⁠top of the group and is responsible for maintaining the standards of member firms.

A judgment is expected in a few months. Pretty dangerous precedent if the global bodies start getting dragged into lawsuits every time one of the locals screws up.

Earlier:

The post Evergrande Liquidators Want to Take an Extra Grande Bite Out of PwC’s Whole Pocket appeared first on Going Concern.

My Thoughts on the Entry Level Job Market

r/accounting has been on fire all weekend, I think more than a few people got into the mind-opening chemicals this weekend. First, someone realizes that the accountant shortage was bullshit and then you have this:

I have been sitting with this thought for a while and I need to put it somewhere.

AI is doing the transactional work now. Bank recs, invoice matching, journal entry coding, cash reconciliations, basic variance analysis. Tools are handling all of it faster and cheaper than any of us ever could. Offshoring took the first wave and AI is just finishing the job

That “low value” transactional work wasn’t just busywork. It was how we learned. You did the recs, you lived in the numbers, you started noticing things that didn’t add up. That’s how junior accountants built the intuition that eventually made them good at the hard stuff. Technical accounting, SOX, complex close work, none of that makes sense if you’ve never actually gotten your hands dirty at the foundation.

People always bring up how the profession survived before. Spreadsheets were supposed to wipe out bookkeepers. They didn’t, bookkeepers just evolved. ERPs were supposed to make controllers obsolete. Also didn’t happen, controllers just moved up the value chain. Every time, accounting adapted and found its footing.

Tbh tho, AI is not giving junior accountants a chance to evolve into something new. It’s just removing the floor entirely.

So yeah, accounting will probably survive. But I keep thinking about who is going to be doing the senior work in 10 years, and how exactly they learned it, if the bottom of the ladder just doesn’t exist anymore.

You also have someone asking about bathroom breaks at Big 4 as if you can’t just get up and use the bathroom when you need to so, you know, they can’t all be bangers.

K we’re done here. Want to give a shout-out to our tipsters last week who filled our inbox with all sorts of good stuff, you guys are the best. If you have a story or tip, send it over! Reach us via email or text anytime, tipsters are always anonymous and greatly appreciated.

The post Monday Morning Accounting News Brief: How About That Entry Level Job Market!; The Failed Client That Could Cost PwC $8 Billion | 5.18.26 appeared first on Going Concern.

Audit

US audit regulator weighs deep staff cuts to unit overseeing accounting firms [Financial Times]
The US audit regulator is considering deep cuts to the number of staff inspecting accounting firms, in a downsizing of the Enron-era watchdog designed to align it with Trump administration priorities. The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board is also examining cuts to its enforcement division and other restructuring options as it takes a less confrontational approach to its dealings with audit firms, according to people familiar with the matter.

Crunching the Numbers: The Impact of GenAI and Agentic AI in Auditing [Bipartisan Policy Center]
Use of generative and agentic artificial intelligence is spreading rapidly through the economy, impacting many office-based jobs. An example of this transformation can be seen with financial auditors, a role once defined by painstaking manual review that is now at the frontier of an AI-driven transformation. The Bipartisan Policy Center examines the role of public company auditors and their use of AI to understand how it might shape their roles and work. We are grateful to the Center for Audit Quality (CAQ), which represents the public company audit profession, for input and assistance.

Two ex-Carillion finance directors fined by accountancy regulator [Financial Times]
The Financial Reporting Council fined Richard Adam and Zafar Khan a combined £282,000 for acting “recklessly” in preparing the construction group’s accounts, eight years after it collapsed.

DoD faces mounting pressure to pass clean audit for the first time [Military Times]
House lawmakers and government watchdogs expressed skepticism Wednesday about the Defense Department’s ability to produce a clean financial audit by a Dec. 31, 2028, statutory deadline. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing on the DoD years-long struggle to produce a clean financial audit despite claiming around half of the government’s discretionary spending.

Tax

Taxpayers advised they can ignore CP53E notice — after verifying error [Journal of Accountancy]
Taxpayers who aren’t due a refund but received a CP53E notice anyway can ignore the notice after they confirm its validity online, the Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS) said. Most IRS notices are sent automatically, meaning a processing error or an adjustment to a taxpayer’s return could have caused a taxpayer to receive the notice, according to a TAS news release.

Firm Watch

Forvis Mazars adds Chinese and Japanese desks to support US MNEs [International Accounting Bulletin]
In a statement, the professional services company said the new desks will provide a single point of contact and strengthen coordination between Forvis Mazars’ US teams and professionals based in China and Japan.

Fraud, Alleged or Otherwise

Billionaire Gautam Adani and nephew agree to pay $18 million in SEC settlement over fraud allegations [CNBC]
The Securities and Exchange Commission had alleged that the two men misled investors as part of a bribery and fraud scheme tied to solar contracts in India. Under the settlement, Gautam Adani will pay a $6 million penalty, while Sagar Adani will pay $12 million. Both men have consented to “entry of the final judgment without admitting or denying the allegations made in the civil complaint,” and payment of penalties, Indian renewable energy firm Adani Green said in a filing to the Indian stock exchanges.

Big 4

KPMG admits partner used confidential Lendlease files in Westpac pitch [Financial Review]
KPMG Australia has admitted a senior audit partner improperly accessed and displayed confidential board documents from longtime client Lendlease when the firm was pitching for a major Westpac contract. The admission followed claims, aired in parliament by Labor senator Deborah O’Neill in March, that senior executives misused confidential client information and leveraged conflicted contacts to secure work.

Why Deloitte Cut Benefits For Some Workers But Not Others [Forbes]
When Deloitte announced cuts to family leave and fertility-related benefits for some of its U.S. employees, critics framed the move as anti-women, short-sighted and damaging to retention. Those criticisms may be valid. But they miss the larger signal. The word “some” is doing a lot of work in that announcement. The cuts do not apply to Deloitte’s entire U.S. workforce of roughly 181,000 people. They apply specifically to employees classified under what the firm calls its “Center” talent model, a segment that broadly covers internal support functions such as administration, IT support and finance. These cuts are not really about paid parental leave policy. They are about the future of work in an AI economy.

Anthropic and PwC Expand Alliance, Driving Impact Across Client Work and the Firm [PwC]
PwC will roll out Claude Code and Cowork starting with U.S. teams and expanding toward a global workforce of hundreds of thousands of professionals, establish a joint Center of Excellence, and train and certify 30,000 PwC professionals on Claude.

The post Friday Footnotes: PCAOB Plans to Take It Easy; Just Ignore Those CP53E Notices, Probably | 5.15.26 appeared first on Going Concern.