Posts Categorized: Advanced Accounting

How to Earn $46,000 for Each Day Spent in Prison

Posted by & filed under Accounting Principles, Advanced Accounting, Auditing, Cost Accounting, Financial Accounting, Financial Reporting and Analysis, Financial Statement Analysis, Fraud Accounting, IFRS, Intermediate Accounting, International Accounting, Managerial Accounting, Video Updates.

Bradley Birkenfeld, the whistleblower in a tax fraud case against Swiss bank UBS AG, was awarded a record-setting $104 million reward from the IRS. Birkenfeld learned about the inner workings of UBS as an employee of the company and supplied many secrets about his former employer’s dealings with U.S. clients. Despite this, he was jailed… Read more »

Do I have to take the course? Will I go to jail?

Posted by & filed under Accounting Principles, Advanced Accounting, Financial Accounting, Fraud Accounting, Managerial Accounting.

More than 300 district attorneys’ offices allow debt collectors to use their letterhead to send letters to people across the country who have written bad checks. These letters threaten them with jail if they do not pay up. In return, the companies try to collect not only the unpaid check, but also high fees from… Read more »

Debt for Life?

Posted by & filed under Accounting Principles, Advanced Accounting, Auditing, Cost Accounting, Financial Accounting, Financial Reporting and Analysis, Financial Statement Analysis, Fraud Accounting, IFRS, Intermediate Accounting, International Accounting, Managerial Accounting.

Here are the facts. Four-year college graduates’ pay advantage over high school grads has doubled over the past 30 years. However, in 2010, student debt exceeded credit-card debt for the first time and in 2011, it surpassed auto loans. In March 2012, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced that student debt had passed $1 trillion… Read more »

Money Market Funds: A Safe Bet?

Posted by & filed under Accounting Principles, Advanced Accounting, Cost Accounting, Financial Accounting, Intermediate Accounting, International Accounting, Managerial Accounting.

Should we risk another 2008 financial meltdown? The answer is no. However, late last month the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) abandoned efforts to impose new regulations on money market funds intended to prevent another panic like the one that occurred then. Because money market funds are typically invested in short-term, low-risk assets (like United… Read more »

The Business Model of Overstating Benefits: How Harmful or Ethical?

Posted by & filed under Accounting Principles, Advanced Accounting, Auditing, Financial Accounting, Financial Reporting and Analysis, Financial Statement Analysis, Fraud Accounting, IFRS, Intermediate Accounting, International Accounting, Video Updates.

It is estimated that between 50,000 to 100,000 patients died or had a heart attack as a result of taking the drug Advandia. For seven years, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) failed to report data that indicated Advandia increases the risk of heart attack by 40%. As we reported back in July, in the biggest health care fraud… Read more »

Private Equity Firms and A Tax Strategy Investigation

Posted by & filed under Accounting Principles, Advanced Accounting, All Articles, Auditing, Financial Accounting, Financial Reporting and Analysis, Financial Statement Analysis, Fraud Accounting, Intermediate Accounting.

Eric Schneiderman, the New York attorney general, is investigating abusive tax strategies at some of the nation’s largest private equity firms. As part of these efforts, last week, he subpoenaed documents from more than a dozen firms hoping to uncover conversion of certain management fees collected from their investors into fund investments, which are taxed… Read more »

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

Posted by & filed under Accounting Principles, Advanced Accounting, All Articles, Financial Accounting, Financial Reporting and Analysis, Financial Statement Analysis, International Accounting.

Procter and Gamble (P&G) has operations in 41 countries and 126,000 employees, with annual sales of $84 billion. While these revenues are double that of its closest competitors, analysts and shareholders are beginning to wonder if the company might see faster growth if it split up. Questions: 1. What is the current stock price? What… Read more »

A New Trend?

Posted by & filed under Accounting Principles, Advanced Accounting, All Articles, Auditing, Financial Accounting, Financial Reporting and Analysis, Financial Statement Analysis, Fraud Accounting, IFRS, Intermediate Accounting, International Accounting, Video Updates.

According to the Associated Press (AP), Chinese companies are withdrawing from the US stock market amid accusations of improper accounting by some companies, as well as complaints that low share prices do not reflect the true value of Chinese companies. On top of this, the AP note that a state bank has provided $1 billion… Read more »

What went up has come down

Posted by & filed under Accounting Principles, Advanced Accounting, All Articles, Financial Accounting, Financial Reporting and Analysis, Financial Statement Analysis, Intermediate Accounting.

Facebook’s stock price has been cut in half since the fanfare of the IPO hit the market three months ago. With this drop, both employee morale and employee stock issues have plummeted. This article provides some insight into what the future holds for those holding Facebook stock. Questions: 1. What is an employee lock-up release?… Read more »

Robo-Signing Redux

Posted by & filed under Accounting Principles, Advanced Accounting, Financial Accounting, Financial Reporting and Analysis, Financial Statement Analysis, Fraud Accounting, Intermediate Accounting, Managerial Accounting.

Debt collection practices focusing on erroneous documents, incomplete records and generic testimony from witnesses in lawsuits by credit card companies is mirroring problems similar to those in the mortgage foreclosure process. According to Noach Dear, a civil court judge in Brooklyn, about 90% of the cases he sees are flawed and cannot prove who the… Read more »