Friday Footnotes: Costly Audit Mistakes; No bonus for you! ; Accounting education lags behind | 19.03.21

Bonuses are targeted in UK crackdown on audit scandals [Bloomberg] Senior executives at companies hit by accounting scandals could lose their bonuses under UK proposals for stronger regulation after a wave of corporate collapses, including Carillion Plc and travel firm Thomas Cook Group Plc.

UK audit reform set to cost companies over £ 430million per year [Financial Times] Businesses face hundreds of millions of pounds in additional costs each year as part of planned reforms of the UK audit and corporate governance regime to tackle fraud and the ‘rewards for failure’ among the leaders. A Financial Times impact assessment analysis published alongside the White Paper consultation on the proposals found that more than £ 430million could be added to business costs under the options favored by the government .

Many college accounting programs need to update their programs to keep pace with an evolving profession: AICPA-NASBA report [AICPA] According to a new report from the American Institute of CPA (AICPA) and the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy, there are major gaps in college accounting education today, with less than half of all programs teaching emerging topics, such as IT governance and cybersecurity. (NASBA).

LinkedIn tips for accountants and finance professionals [Journal of Accountancy] Expertise and credibility are among the top reasons people do business with accountants, according to Ty Hendrickson, CPA, founder of The Sales Seed, an accountant training and consulting firm, based in Lexington, Ky.

Charge: A Kentucky man told the IRS he was a chartered accountant, but he was not. [Lexington Herald Leader] A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted Charles Marshall Stivers for putting false information in a document he submitted to the Internal Revenue Service. Stivers, of Manchester, obtained a CPA license in Kentucky in 1989, but in October 2015, the State Board of Accountancy permanently revoked his license, according to the indictment.

Lawmakers launch bill to ban SEC collection of audit trail data [Pensions & Investments] A group of House Republicans introduced a bill prohibiting the Securities and Exchange Commission from requiring personally identifiable information to be collected as part of the reporting requirements for its consolidated audit trail. The bill – Protecting Investors’ Personally Identifiable Information Act – “would require the SEC to obtain sensitive investor information from their stockbroker if the SEC needs that information instead of automatically storing sensitive personal data of each individual. investor in the database, ”said representative Barry Loudermilk. , R-Ga., The sponsor of the bill, in a press release Thursday. “This would protect investor privacy and significantly reduce cyber risk, while ensuring that the SEC can access the information it needs. “

EY faces questions over alleged idea to cancel KPMG’s Wirecard audit [Financial Times] EY denied on Friday that it ever suggested that a forensic audit of Wirecard’s Asian operations by rival KPMG should be terminated, as German lawmakers grilled the Big Four firm over its role in the accounting scandal.

Tax preparer accused of COVID-19 loan fraud [Department of Justice] According to the allegations in the news, Leonel Rivero, 35, of Miami, owned a tax preparation business and submitted around 118 fraudulent PPP loan applications on behalf of himself and his accomplices. Together, the 118 PPP loan applications requested more than $ 2.3 million in PPP loans. On every PPP loan application, Rivero allegedly falsified the applicant’s income and expenses from the previous year and submitted fraudulent tax forms to the IRS. Rivero and his accomplices are said to have received approximately $ 975,582 in PPP loans as a result of the fraud.

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