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E&Y 'merger'- it's a TS mystery
TS is a bit hazy as to whether or not Ernst & Young is actually merging its European firms.
There doesn't seem to be one profit pool, at least. The firm got a bit muddled as to whether there would be one profit pool, talking instead about having a 'common approach to performance evaluation and compensation.'
TS thinks the firms have always had a 'common approach' to compensation: partners get paid a lot, isn't that it? But then it is difficult to have one profit pool.
As one senior figure put it, 'I don't believe we would be able to in the current regulatory climate. ' The sage in question? Mark Otty, the boss of the new 'merged' E&Y firm.
One week TS is hearing about 'visual identity' tweaks which are of course in no way brand changes and now it looks like the profit pooling waters are a bit murky. Come on E&Y, all TS wants is a bit of clarity on the issue- is that too much to ask?
April 29, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
CODA Gives You Wings
The lovely people at software company CODA have organised a group of number crunchers to leap off the end of a 6m high runway at the Red Bull Flugtag.....
The Extreme Accounting website (co-sponsored by CIMA) gives details of some hardy (i.e. foolish) accounting souls who are taking part in the event, hosted on the banks of The Serpentine in London's Hyde Park – which involves flying a silly contraption off the end of a pier. The aim of the challenge is to glide across the Serpentine and avoid getting a soaking.
A crack team of binary boffins at the Distressed Accountants’ Flying Team are flying the 'Risk Calculator', apparently. TS wishes DAFT luck, and hopes that they don't catch pneumonia.
Many an FD has taken an Icarus-like launch into the unknown to try and improve their accounting data and systems – only to plummet back down to terra firma with their new IT system wings reaching meltdown, so TS has fairly low expectations.
Still, a lot of people will enjoy the prospect of a load of accountants taking a long walk off a short pier…
Register for the event at redbullflugtag.co.uk
April 24, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack
'Pole' tax stripped away
It brought a tear to TS' eye after a Texas judge struck a blow for good old fashioned common sense by declaring a $5-per-customer top-up fee on strip club patrons was unconstitutional.
Judge Scott Jenkins ruled that the charge, dubbed the 'pole tax' 'violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and is therefore invalid.'
Cultural aficionados across the Lone Star state will now be breathing a huge sigh of relief that the law has been overturned, mainly through the efforts of The Texas Entertainment Association.
The group of topless clubs fought against the law, calling it a 'sin tax' that unfairly targeted dancing clubs.
TS will now take on the heavy burden of making sure that the U-turn is being observed by personally visiting each and every one of the estimated 150 dancing emporiums in Texas.
Sometimes the interests of others have just got to be put before TS's …
April 17, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Mistress shifting
Mistress shifting
There are many reasons to dislike the government's attitude to husband and wife businesses, or so-called income shifting. Liberal Democrat MP John Thurso has come up with another one....
The chancellor graced a treasury committee hearing on the rules , which prevent husband and wife couples setting up complex arrangements to maximise their use of allowances which saw Thurso denouncing the rules as 'a tax break for adultery.'
'If I choose to have a mistress and I manage to keep quiet about it and I make her a director and she does absolutely nothing, there is nothing you can do about it. I can pay my mistress but not my wife,' he said.
That wily old dog Alistair Darling opted to sidestep any potential minefields by trotting out the government's official line. Better to be safe than sorry, eh Darling?
April 16, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Warburton beats Whiting et al
As if our recent table of the most quoted accountancy firms was not enough for you, TS has more. Oh yes....
This week we have a league table of the most quoted individual tax advisers!
We ran a search through the national newspapers, running from Budget Wednesday to the Sunday after, and counted the number of mentions each of TS' regular tax titans managed to tot up.
Was it Richard Mannion of S&W? No. He got just the one mention. John Whiting? A measly four. Chas Roy-Chowdhury, a man who practically lives in the national press, just one mention. Chris Sanger of E&Y did honourably, with nine, alongside Stephen Herring of BDO.
Bill Dodwell of Deloitte pipped both with ten separate references.
But our winner (drum roll please) was the ever-quotable Mike Warburton of Grant Thornton.
A round of applause, please, for his eleven, yes, eleven mentions.
Before he gets a big head, can we add that Alistair Darling's name came up 620 times in the same period. Some way to go yet, Mike.
April 14, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Rumours of PwC boss' death greatly exaggerated
Cruel wags at spoof website The Onion have aimed their electronic quills at PricewaterhouseCoopers Stateside chief Samuel DiPiazza, dealing him a mortal blow....
The Onion joked that Big Sam was in the habit of driving home from his Manhattan office once a day for a 15-minute power bath. 'During today's session I got on three conference calls and appointed a new global board member, all while grabbing a few quick suds,' reporters were apparently told by DiPiazza.
'No time to waste. I come home, draw up a quick bubble B, do a little videocon with the Japan people, slap on some brown-sugar-and-fig body butter, whip out the BlackBerry, and exfoliate the sh*t out of myself, and bam: totally refreshed and rejuved.'
The Onion then goes on to say that DiPiazza was so relaxed after his whistlestop immersion that he was involved in a head-on collision while driving back to work later that day and unfortunately kicked the bucket.
TS knew immediately that this story was a complete fabrication, because everyone knows that you have to be one of the undead and therefore unable to be killed to make it all the way to the top of the food chain in a Big Four firm.
April 9, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
PwC joust with E&Y
Peter Wyman and Gerald Russell were deep in discussion when TS bumped into them at a dinner. TS floated the plan to split up PwC into two, always an entertaining topic of conversation when Wyman weighs into the debate.....
He responded in typically bolshy manner: 'Split us into four and we'd still be a match for E&Y, eh, Gerald?'
'That's presuming you are a match for us already,' came Russell's lightning-quick rejoinder.
Unless the duo had been charging towards each other on two war horses while dressed in full medieval garb, TS couldn't have imagined a more perfect example of jousting between two knights of the accountancy round table.
Sir Adrian Cadbury had the best line of the night, though. He received honorary membership of the ICAEW, an award he said would irritate his daughter. 'She has spent years training to be an accountant, said Sir Adrian. I just had to come to dinner.'
April 9, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Who's the most-quoted tax adviser of them all?
That's the question all the top advisers had on their minds while eyeing themselves up in their mirrors after the Budget....
Actually it was more likely the Daily Mirror and all the other national newspapers that had the tax titans' undivided atttention. In line with lengthy tradition, TS has counted the coverage achieved by the top 6 firms in the national newspapers' Budget coverage.
The winner this year, again, is Grant Thornton, which got a stonking 37 mentions in the national press from Wednesday to Sunday.
We count only national press mentions, and we are scrupulous about double counting. E&Y came second with 33 mentions, Deloitte got 21, KPMG 16, PwC 13 and BDO 10.
No doubt you will all quarrel with TS' figures, and claim that broadcast mentions are more important anyway.
If anyone wants to discuss the methodology, TS will entertain all offers - as long as they include lunch.
April 8, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
ASBehave!
The Financial Reporting Council likes to feign shock when folks hint that it may be doing too much, and regulating everything in sight. 'What part of the FRC could we cut, exactly, and still offer the same service?' it moans. TS has an idea.....
How about the Accounting Standards Board? The ASB has no known function any longer to TS' mind. The IASB is in charge of everything important, and anything else is, by definition, probably over-regulation.
Two recent press releases brought this home: one implementing a change to share-based payments, following an IASB move. Another merely 'welcomed' the IASB's moves on pensions accounting.
So it looks like the ASB is a public body whose function is to issue bland statements 'welcoming' another body's standards. Is it any wonder some bleat about there being too many regulators?
April 8, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Firms' footy clash takes no prisoners
The latest bloodthirsty round of the London Accountants Football League took place at the weekend and what a humdinger it was.....
The plucky heroes of E&Y took on league heavyweight Deloitte in the cup final.
The nailbiting match ended 3-3 after extra time, before E&Y held its nerve to win the penalty shoot out.
E&Y's team has risen through the lower leagues to be snapping at the heels of Division leaders 1 Deloitte, which should inspire any minnows wanting to follow in their footsteps.
Those that say the Big Four has got a stranglehold on the accountancy profession will be heartened to learn that the upper echelons of this particular league is a bit more open to new blood.
Deloittte Tristars top the table followed by E&Y International. Grant Thornton has bulldozed its way into third place (Coach Cleary will be happy) while PwC Wanderers are in fourth.
Perhaps the PwC team could call on the firm's contacts and find a foreign billionaire to sponsor them...
April 3, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Blarney vicar tangles with the taxman
It turns out that justice- and the taxman -is blind, even in the case of God's children...
Fr Tadhg O'Donovan a catholic priest from Cork was fined more than €6,000 after failing to disclose income he received from the rental of at least 11 properties over a five-year period.
It could have been a lot worse for Father O'Donovan, but he used the gift of the gab to hammer out a settlement with Revenue Commissioners for €213,222, including a tax liability of €81,265, a civil penalty of €81,265 together with interest payment on his liabilities and a penalty of €50,692.
TS isn't surprised that Father Donovan managed to convince the taxman to cut a deal with the taxman. It turns out that the priest is the curate of Whitechurch which happens to be very near Blarney, the spiritual home of Irish eloquence. You couldn't make it up, could you?
April 3, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Finance Bill guide- more 'War and Peace' than 'Potter'
When people said that Alistair Darling had a plenty of explaining to do, they weren't joking.....
Last week, as the chancellor released the 2008 Finance Bill, he also hit advisers with a mammoth 1148 pages of Explanatory Notes!
The Treasury warned anyone who dared download the document that it could 'take several minutes to download depending on your network connection'.
The Finance Bill itself was a 417-page killer. Personally, TS limited its reading to the more easily digested lobby notes - a mere 22-pages - but nevertheless found itself clutching for a hot towel and the paracetamol and the obligatory tumbler of single malt whisky halfway through.
Maybe the policy makers should try and present a more succinct assessment next time to keep readers riveted. As one acid-tongued PwC tax partner said in describing the Finance Bill: 'Harry Potter it ain't.'
TS couldn't agree more and that insightful assessment was only four words long – policymakers take note…
April 2, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
