Tax and Ethics

The FT reports that: Rules regarding how banks account for off-balance sheet interests are “irretrievably broken”, a senior group of international rulemakers has warned…Accounting standard setters are already under pressure for their support of marking assets to current market prices – a practice that has resulted in billions in writedowns and affected banks’ profitability seriously. [...]

Prem Sikka’s argument that: …the very model of company audits is flawed. It permits company directors to hire and remunerate auditors, albeit with shareholders rubber-stamping their decisions. Under the model, profit-seeking auditing firms are expected to regulate capitalist enterprises. As no one can make a profit without appeasing or accommodating clients, auditors can never be [...]

Barely a week goes by without some salacious news about our friends at KPMG. This week it is the turn of ex-KPMG partner Robert Pfaff’s turn to spend time in the dock. The court documents are well worth the reading because apart from detailing the extent of Pfaff’s alleged fraud, they also show how stupid [...]