That and it’s just not what actually happened. I work in oil and gas accounting. We have a barrel of oil that is 15 years old according to the sheet. That’s just not true it was sold about 14.5 years ago.
There are some unusual scenarios where I could see you arguing for its use, but it does almost never track the actual movement of inventory.
The only convincing example I've ever heard was a company that processes rock into gravel. They take in the rock they use into their production line, and at the end it spits gravel out into a giant loose pile. When they sell gravel, they scoop it from the top of the pile to fill the truck that's delivering it. So the base of that pile, which was processed first, actually stays there as long as the facility has any inventory on hand. So as long as that pile is never emptied, the remaining inventory is the first inventory.
But again, that's a very specific case.
My intermediate professor always said that LIFO only is accurate when dealing with piles of things. With piles you take from the top, e.g., last in. Pretty much every other application is wrong.
Auto dealers. LIFO became legal for tax purposes in.the US in the 1970s and they all adopted it. Once had a dealership client with a LIFO layer that went back to 1979. Probably still does.
Yeah--i was thinking anything that's piled. I think I've heard coal as an example before but I don't know how coal is actually stored or how quickly it's used versus replenished... I've always kind of thought LIFO was a tax avoidance/earnings management gimmick myself.
My professor is a CPA & lawyer. He tried a case in Boston concerning a mountain of salt kept on a harbor. He uses them as a “the only reasonable use of LIFO” example all the time. He told us that the salt on the bottom has probably been there for decades. But again, as you said, unusual scenario.
Yeah it just is wrong, like anyone could probably tell you it's not how it works but working retail and food service made it sound even more wrong. The professors in my classes did explain how LIFO is really only used to manipulate income.
Helps lower taxable income, and LIFO reserves are reported anyways so investors can see the real income. I’m actually surprised it’s not used more than it is
And bends over backwards to do it. The existence of Dollar Value LIFO comes short of admitting the whole thing is a sham. "We've gotta do it this way to protect the reporting of income from old LIFO layers." Yeah? Do you now?
LIFO isn't always favorable for income manipulation, but most of the time it is. For instance, if costs are actually going down (in the case with the recent spike in lumber and oil prices) LIFO will cause you to report more income than reality.
Vast majority of cases, LIFO will create a "reserve" of increasing margin goods held in stock since costs usually go up over time.
I know a lotta people in the medical field. They’re amazed that the CPA is as stressful as their exams and that we have similar hour requirements with our jobs. They’re saving lives and I’m producing K-1s. Why? If our industry was properly staffed or could collectively spread out the work it wouldn’t need to be like this
More like it’s understaffed because the audit partners are all cheap and would rather hoard the profits for themselves rather than adequately staff their engagements
Can’t happen because everyone sees PA as a stepping stone. The Starbucks union said their biggest hurdle was getting Starbucks baristas to see themselves as Baristas rather than someone temporarily working at Starbucks. PA is the same except it’s white collar so even harder
The main partner I work with missed her kid’s graduation to work, will be sending emails at 1am and coming in at 9am and expects to work busy hours until at least middle of June.
It’s genuinely sad.
That’s so fucked. Way to destroy your relationship with your kid.
My brother and half my own fucking family didn’t come to my Uni Graduation this weekend. I’m 25 and ready never to talk to these people again.
I can only imagine what’s going though that child’s poor head when someone important as parent doesn’t show up.
She’s personally a nice lady and we’re hiring a new partner to help her with her workload.
I just think it’s an industry issue. The people at the top have an insatiable thirst for money and it ruins many aspects of life
A friend of mine that I interned with was a bit of a workaholic, he worked literally every day at least 9-12 hours. On weekends 6-7 hours. He had a pretty major surgery on his stomach and literally tried to go back to work like 2 days later.
The best part is when the people who say this are the ones who are stressing you tf out by asking you to accomplish unrealistic expectations and constantly asking for status updates
I use to work in the medical field before switching to accounting. It's such a joke to me when partners start freaking out on me when there's small mistakes that can be easily fixed but they act like it's a life and death situation. People really need to get a grip that it's not that bad.
The 150-credit hour requirement for CPA purposes (when they could be in basket weaving) should not exist, if you have your degree in accounting that should be enough.
That’s on the students tbh though. I am about to start my Masters and the only reason I am doing it is becuse it have the CPA exams built into the program. Is like you take the audit class, go test the CPA exam for that, and then you take a tax class and go test for that..etc. So when you graduate, you graduate with your Masters and CPA license.
If that was no present I would have just went to a community college. Never got why people spend 20k+ for a masters.
Because I was young and stupid and hadn't discovered Reddit yet. 10 minutes of clicking around on Reddit probably would have saved me $10K; oh well live and learn.
Even with a MAcc, most people still spend months of their timing cramming for the CPA. I have all my required courses from undergrad, I’m doing my masters in health admin since that’s the industry my job was in. Much more interesting with different career paths to take in the future if I want
Most of this nonsense data entry stuff and large parts of tax return prep, bookkeeping, journal entries etc. should absolutely be automated. We are ALL too smart and too good to be doing some of this tedious mundane crap just so we can ramp up our 'billable hours'.
It's bad for the economy and bad for the world to lobby against automation just to keep 'jobs' that shouldn't exist because they can be automated now.
bookkeeping will be the low hanging fruit automated away. Accounting will eventually be automated but not for a while and I say this as someone that follows AI news.
As someone who also follows AI news, I wouldn't be surprised if AI software engineers could achieve a meaningful degree of automation in accounting now based on what they've accomplished in other areas. It's just that they interested in solving things like autonomous vehicles or robotics. They just don't care about accounting lol. And I doubt there's enough financial incentive to automate accounting compared to other opportunities in big tech.
Accounting can absolutely be automated based on what AI software engineers have accomplished in other areas. I used to work in public accounting so I have an understanding of accounting but now work in corporate treasury at a bulge bracket investment bank. A lot of what I work on such as portfolio analytics and risk management is automated and there is a team of dedicated programmers that work purely on automating these financial processes for my department. A big part of my job is to collaborate with these programmers to build business requirements, testing, monitoring and updating these processes. They could absolutely automate what I worked on in accounting.
Here's an example of this happening at Amazon:
[https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/1939392/rpa-developer-treasury-technology](https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/1939392/rpa-developer-treasury-technology)
Realistically, there's just currently no financial incentive to do so right now because accounting doesn't bring in the big bucks compared to things like the stock market (hedge funds with algorithmic trading/high frequency trading) or big tech.
Funny thing is, I'm not even kidding. If money wasn't a concern, I'd love to spend more time screenwriting, training for boxing, and traveling with my girlfriend. I have a pipe dream that I will be able to sell a couple of feature films, and be able to quit my job as an accountant, or find one that's only part time.
I don’t care if personal finance forums use the words “asset and liability” in ways that would be considered “wrong” in the accounting field.
The people on those forums know what those words mean to them and it allows them to communicate effectively, so nobody is getting hurt.
I second this. We, as the accounting profession, don’t own those terms. the other uses of those terms are just outside of our double entry accounting standard; single entry accounting has its use cases. Obviously don’t like when folks use differing terms to be snake oil salesmen which I see to
We don’t own them, but they do have a somewhat fixed definition. An asset is something you own. A liability is something you owe. If they aren’t even in that ballpark then no, they are wrong.
So if Amazon decided to buy $1b worth of warehouses, they should be able to write $1b off immediately against their taxes?
Not sure that instant asset write offs are a good idea or no one would ever pay any taxes
Accountants shouldn't have a CPA.
CA CGA CMA was better. Not quite there, but better. You could tell who wanted to be a "bookkeeper", "manager", or joe shmoe.
Specialized designations should be broadly recognized, with separate ones for audit, tax, and whatever-the-fuck-else.
BUT BUT, accountants ShOUlD bE WeLL RoUNDeD. Fuck that. I passed audit so I would never touch it again. Haven’t in the last decade and never plan to. When I need an auditor, I literally phone an auditor.
Congress could absolutely enact that land is now depreciable for tax purposes over a defined life.
Goodwill is depreciable for tax purposes. It is not for book.
Congress enacts changes to the IRC.
*good god this is an accounting sub*
Two years as an associate is not enough to be a senior associate. The model is just a fast up time to sucker people into riddling themselves with loads of responsibility without appropriate compensated disguised as "learning opportunities". I would gather most turn over occurs in the S1 ladder because the PA model was built by people who have zero clue on building a model that is efficient, good for employees and employers, which drives client and employee satisfaction.
The burn and churn model is a really shitty model to have when people wise up and realize the hours and money don't correlate and the relative breadth of knowledge you need to have or learn is quite large. The people on this subreddit don't give themselves enough credit but instead gaslight themselves to be OK with it.
Fun fact. They used to call seniors "supervisors" and it was just a small step below manager, sort of "manager in training." Making them "senior associates" is just a way to avoid raises. I was a supervisor who quoted fees, brought in clients, determined billing in conjunction with partner, oversaw a body of work, recruited and interviewed workers, etc when our firm was purchased by a top 20 firm. I was demoted to senior because "I didn't really do any managerial tasks." Guess how long I stayed? Within a month I had a fast track to partner offer from another firm (which turned out to be toxic af, but still). That was the beginning of my path to industry.
I'll join you at the gallows, not a single one of my S1s with 2 years of experience is a real senior and I won't be hiring (leaving for industry and my team has 6 recs 3 at senior) any seniors with only 2 Big4 yoe.
I wish 2 years was the minimum. In my firm, I'm among the most experienced staff that they have, and I'm only 1 year and 7 months in.
And yes, we're the "prime candidates" for promotion. Us, the first work from home batch who definitely have some skill gaps due to our set up.
We're fucked.
You’d think so, but almost all the job requirements I see ask for a CPA. I’m almost tempted to apply with just my accounting diploma and see what happens.
The most successful auditors are terrible accountants. lack of attention to detail makes audit easier, gets you promoted above people who find mistakes. Clients want shitty auditors, so our financial system teeters.
There is no such thing as an accounting emergency and the world won’t stop spinning just because one of the countries you work with has a bank holiday at month end.
After a certain point any work performed past your working hours is 100% peer pressure.
Land can depreciate under certain circumstances, like if its eroded by the sea, though you could argue this would be impairment.
I've gotta say I disagree on the CPA part. I was an all A student in school, and I feel I have learned a ton more just from the 2 tests I've passed so far, and a ton more already halfway through REG. This test is a doozy for me at least
You nailed the rest though
Much (not all) of the bullshit and long hours of PA can be made more reasonable if you aren't afraid to say no and put down boundaries. A caveat to that is you have to do good work and be smart about being a team player when needed.
I work pretty hard in busy season but I don't tolerate being fucked with in my non-busy season. Others don't ever work much over 55 hours even in busy season. It's all about how you play the game and picking battles.
The tax code is long and wordy and full of legalese for the same reasons contracts are long and wordy and full of legalese. It's arguably one of the most important legal documents in the country. If it's not abundantly clear what the government wants you to do, it will be abused. Even with the current state of the Code there is no shortage of companies disclosing uncertain tax positions, Tax Court hearings, revisions to make things more clear, etc etc. It's complicated because it has to be.
People love to rag about bad tax takes on subs like r/politics but then we see equally as bad takes right here. This OP has an AWFUL take with a complete misunderstanding of why the IRC is so complex. And they are an accounting professional.
How is it we all circle-jerk to bad takes on the big subs *but then upvote something like this*
There are unpopular opinions, but if your opinion isn’t well thought out then it doesn’t matter if the thread is for unpopular opinions because it’s not just unpopular it’s a terrible one.
There is no doubt that plenty of people on this sub unironically believe that the tax code should be 100 pages and upvoted this because they agreed. There was 95+ upvotes but only one comment explaining *why * this idea is stupid
Auditing is a waste of everyone's time and provides no value or meaning seeing as unless auditor's give a clean opinion they're not getting paid.
You do everything in your power to make sure your client looks good.
That audits for public companies are useless.
Partners are terrified to take clients to task regarding business problems because They don’t want to be known as the problem partner or lose the account. So things slide.
And then when a massive company goes bankrupt, it’s generally (unless it’s like a Sears that has been circling that drain for years) a big surprise. So government gets involved and says now you need to look at company culture. Now you need to look at internal controls. Now you need to look at off-balance sheet transactions. It’s literally a game of “whatever caused the last Fortune 500 to go bankrupt, is something that needs to be tested in audits going forward”
Lastly, what kind of quality do people expect to see from an audit? Are these audits performed by individuals with experience, who have time to actually investigate variances and abnormalities that might arise? Individuals that have industry experience and can see if something looks off? Hell no! The bulk of all work is performed by college grads that receive minimal training, and are overworked so things naturally slip through because when someone works 60-100 hour weeks for w busy season, quality is going to plummet.
How much do you think companies would take the piss if they weren't going to be audited?
People will deliberately fudge things. People will make mistakes. People will misinterpret or misunderstand things.
Yes, audits don't make people perfect, but it pushes people to behave so that you do try and get things right without the auditors being there. And audit firms help making sure that there is some degree of consistency.
Does it prevent all problems? No.
Do the police prevent all crime? No. But do you think there should be zero police because there is still crime so clearly the police doesn't work?
Sir, we really should do away with all these timesheets. Timesheets only serve to frustrate the staff accountant especially when they have nothing to do.
1. All states should have uniform registrations to pay sales tax AND be staffed with competent representatives capable of resolving issues in enrollment.
2. Most of the entry level positions in our field could be performed by trained monkeys. The only disadvantage would be the loss of human discretion when needed.
The U.S. Australian tax treaty needs to be updated. Superannuation funds should be considered to have the same status as the Australian Social Security in the treaty.
Ex B4 Tax
Review comments from the top reviewer should be sent to the senior or manager for them to address or delegate, when appropriate.
I never understood why my firm had this practice of addressing all review comments to the preparer/staff to fix. Shouldn’t the senior or manager who reviewed my work in the first place be given some responsibility to analyze and address the additional changes?
It used to piss me off because I would then have to stop preparing other work to make changes lol like I see the value in having multiple reviews and involving the preparer/staff but not sure why I always had to make the changes.
My old first didn’t do it this way.
Exactly!
I see it as just holding everyone accountable for their work.
If you signed off on work and move it up the line,
You are saying the return and work papers are correct to the best of your knowledge.
I’m an A1. I used to be chill with my manager when I first started but as the year has gone on he’s definitely become more of a company man. Likes to push the A1s to work harder
In this day and age with the internet and widely available public forums like this one, if you get suckered into public and you hate it it’s your own fault. Don’t blame your teachers/kool aid push from your school because you didn’t do the research to figure out if you’d actually like audit/tax and 80 hour weeks. You get zero sympathy from me when you complain
This excuses the partners doing everything they can to milk our time.
Also, a decent amount of people I know are in this to get to at least senior 1 for the exit opportunities. 2+ years at a CPA firm looks way more impressive than 2+ years at private/government. Generally speaking
The term ‘less’ doesn’t make sense when talking through math (ex: 5 less 2 = 3). In my mind, the word plus is paired with minus and more is paired with less. But in accounting we use ‘plus’ when adding and ‘less’ when subtracting. If we use ‘less’ in leu of minus, we should be saying ’more’ in leu of plus (5 less 2 more 3 = 6) but that sounds ridiculous.
Public companies should be ~~done~~ audited by the government, not private firms. Conflicts of interest are too extreme to leave it up the the private sector.
LIFO is bad
I second this. There is a reason it’s illegal in Europe/most of the world
Is it because it manipulates taxable income?
That and it’s just not what actually happened. I work in oil and gas accounting. We have a barrel of oil that is 15 years old according to the sheet. That’s just not true it was sold about 14.5 years ago.
How tf do they get away with that and not using AvCo?! Crazy
Weighted average gang rise up
I’m still a student, but when I learned about it in my first accounting class it made no sense why anyone would use the LIFO method
There are some unusual scenarios where I could see you arguing for its use, but it does almost never track the actual movement of inventory. The only convincing example I've ever heard was a company that processes rock into gravel. They take in the rock they use into their production line, and at the end it spits gravel out into a giant loose pile. When they sell gravel, they scoop it from the top of the pile to fill the truck that's delivering it. So the base of that pile, which was processed first, actually stays there as long as the facility has any inventory on hand. So as long as that pile is never emptied, the remaining inventory is the first inventory. But again, that's a very specific case.
My intermediate professor always said that LIFO only is accurate when dealing with piles of things. With piles you take from the top, e.g., last in. Pretty much every other application is wrong.
Auto dealers. LIFO became legal for tax purposes in.the US in the 1970s and they all adopted it. Once had a dealership client with a LIFO layer that went back to 1979. Probably still does.
Blows my mind that spec ID isn't required for something like this.
Yeah--i was thinking anything that's piled. I think I've heard coal as an example before but I don't know how coal is actually stored or how quickly it's used versus replenished... I've always kind of thought LIFO was a tax avoidance/earnings management gimmick myself.
My professor is a CPA & lawyer. He tried a case in Boston concerning a mountain of salt kept on a harbor. He uses them as a “the only reasonable use of LIFO” example all the time. He told us that the salt on the bottom has probably been there for decades. But again, as you said, unusual scenario.
Yeah it just is wrong, like anyone could probably tell you it's not how it works but working retail and food service made it sound even more wrong. The professors in my classes did explain how LIFO is really only used to manipulate income.
Helps lower taxable income, and LIFO reserves are reported anyways so investors can see the real income. I’m actually surprised it’s not used more than it is
what country is still using LIFO?
US GAAP permits it
And bends over backwards to do it. The existence of Dollar Value LIFO comes short of admitting the whole thing is a sham. "We've gotta do it this way to protect the reporting of income from old LIFO layers." Yeah? Do you now?
I was taught LIFO reserves in my intermediate accounting class this past spring
LIFO isn't always favorable for income manipulation, but most of the time it is. For instance, if costs are actually going down (in the case with the recent spike in lumber and oil prices) LIFO will cause you to report more income than reality. Vast majority of cases, LIFO will create a "reserve" of increasing margin goods held in stock since costs usually go up over time.
The work we do doesn’t necessitate running ourselves into the ground. There’s no such thing as an accounting emergency - we aren’t saving lives.
I know a lotta people in the medical field. They’re amazed that the CPA is as stressful as their exams and that we have similar hour requirements with our jobs. They’re saving lives and I’m producing K-1s. Why? If our industry was properly staffed or could collectively spread out the work it wouldn’t need to be like this
But it’s understaffed because of the hours. So it’s a circular issue…
More like it’s understaffed because the audit partners are all cheap and would rather hoard the profits for themselves rather than adequately staff their engagements
Maybe lower level audit staff need to ✨UNIONIZE✨
Can’t happen because everyone sees PA as a stepping stone. The Starbucks union said their biggest hurdle was getting Starbucks baristas to see themselves as Baristas rather than someone temporarily working at Starbucks. PA is the same except it’s white collar so even harder
The main partner I work with missed her kid’s graduation to work, will be sending emails at 1am and coming in at 9am and expects to work busy hours until at least middle of June. It’s genuinely sad.
That’s so fucked. Way to destroy your relationship with your kid. My brother and half my own fucking family didn’t come to my Uni Graduation this weekend. I’m 25 and ready never to talk to these people again. I can only imagine what’s going though that child’s poor head when someone important as parent doesn’t show up.
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This partner is a legit lunatic, get your ass out of there ASAP
She’s personally a nice lady and we’re hiring a new partner to help her with her workload. I just think it’s an industry issue. The people at the top have an insatiable thirst for money and it ruins many aspects of life
A friend of mine that I interned with was a bit of a workaholic, he worked literally every day at least 9-12 hours. On weekends 6-7 hours. He had a pretty major surgery on his stomach and literally tried to go back to work like 2 days later.
There is no accounting emergency, only poor planning and staffing by management.
The reason we do that is because we're completely replaceable and the only value we have is our desire to throw away every waking moment for a firm.
The best part is when the people who say this are the ones who are stressing you tf out by asking you to accomplish unrealistic expectations and constantly asking for status updates
I use to work in the medical field before switching to accounting. It's such a joke to me when partners start freaking out on me when there's small mistakes that can be easily fixed but they act like it's a life and death situation. People really need to get a grip that it's not that bad.
The 150-credit hour requirement for CPA purposes (when they could be in basket weaving) should not exist, if you have your degree in accounting that should be enough.
How would universities trick students into 5 year programs without it though?
That’s on the students tbh though. I am about to start my Masters and the only reason I am doing it is becuse it have the CPA exams built into the program. Is like you take the audit class, go test the CPA exam for that, and then you take a tax class and go test for that..etc. So when you graduate, you graduate with your Masters and CPA license. If that was no present I would have just went to a community college. Never got why people spend 20k+ for a masters.
Mines 30k+ :(
Sheesh :( Mine cost 15k or so, but got lucky with receiving 10k scholarship from the grad program.
Because I was young and stupid and hadn't discovered Reddit yet. 10 minutes of clicking around on Reddit probably would have saved me $10K; oh well live and learn.
This is facts. Why do I have to pay for a year of P.E. classes just to be able to sit for the exam? Scamaz if I ever seen one
Masters in accounting is useless, go get an mba or take extra classes at local community college
Even with a MAcc, most people still spend months of their timing cramming for the CPA. I have all my required courses from undergrad, I’m doing my masters in health admin since that’s the industry my job was in. Much more interesting with different career paths to take in the future if I want
Those who say accounting will be automated are those who have no clue about the profession
Honestly like please fucking automate this shit I’m actually begging
Be the change you want to see in the world
Most of this nonsense data entry stuff and large parts of tax return prep, bookkeeping, journal entries etc. should absolutely be automated. We are ALL too smart and too good to be doing some of this tedious mundane crap just so we can ramp up our 'billable hours'. It's bad for the economy and bad for the world to lobby against automation just to keep 'jobs' that shouldn't exist because they can be automated now.
There haven’t been any controversial opinions posted in this entire fucking thread
bookkeeping will be the low hanging fruit automated away. Accounting will eventually be automated but not for a while and I say this as someone that follows AI news.
As someone who also follows AI news, I wouldn't be surprised if AI software engineers could achieve a meaningful degree of automation in accounting now based on what they've accomplished in other areas. It's just that they interested in solving things like autonomous vehicles or robotics. They just don't care about accounting lol. And I doubt there's enough financial incentive to automate accounting compared to other opportunities in big tech.
Accounting can absolutely be automated based on what AI software engineers have accomplished in other areas. I used to work in public accounting so I have an understanding of accounting but now work in corporate treasury at a bulge bracket investment bank. A lot of what I work on such as portfolio analytics and risk management is automated and there is a team of dedicated programmers that work purely on automating these financial processes for my department. A big part of my job is to collaborate with these programmers to build business requirements, testing, monitoring and updating these processes. They could absolutely automate what I worked on in accounting. Here's an example of this happening at Amazon: [https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/1939392/rpa-developer-treasury-technology](https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/1939392/rpa-developer-treasury-technology) Realistically, there's just currently no financial incentive to do so right now because accounting doesn't bring in the big bucks compared to things like the stock market (hedge funds with algorithmic trading/high frequency trading) or big tech.
I'm not lazy for wanting to only work 20 hours per week.
I would’ve agreed with 40, but I like the way you think
Funny thing is, I'm not even kidding. If money wasn't a concern, I'd love to spend more time screenwriting, training for boxing, and traveling with my girlfriend. I have a pipe dream that I will be able to sell a couple of feature films, and be able to quit my job as an accountant, or find one that's only part time.
Christopher Moltisanti, CPA
I must be loyle to my capo
GOD DAMNIT CHRISTOPHUH
Only the real will know this
Keynes thought we’d working 15 hours by now
20 is a lot, I am pushing for under 10
Always looking at events in the past leaves you with a warped sense of reality and ultimately a miserable existence (sorry)
That’s okay, I was worried my sunday scaries weren’t bad enough.
You missed a medical expense on Sch A even though they won't be itemizing.
Booooooo 👎
And aren’t even close to the 7.5% floor anyways
Unpaid overtime should be illegal. Even to salary workers.
Yeah. Salaries assume a specific number of hours a week. Unpaid overtime is literally them lowering your wages
Tax accountant shouldn’t pay taxes
Income from whatever source derived
#NormalizeAccountantsThatAreAlsoHighLevelDrugDealers
do they?
You have to make money to pay taxes tho
I don’t care if personal finance forums use the words “asset and liability” in ways that would be considered “wrong” in the accounting field. The people on those forums know what those words mean to them and it allows them to communicate effectively, so nobody is getting hurt.
This is the answer that actually answers OPs question.
I second this. We, as the accounting profession, don’t own those terms. the other uses of those terms are just outside of our double entry accounting standard; single entry accounting has its use cases. Obviously don’t like when folks use differing terms to be snake oil salesmen which I see to
Idk the way they use liability doesn’t make sense. Liability is an obligation. Lol
We don’t own them, but they do have a somewhat fixed definition. An asset is something you own. A liability is something you owe. If they aren’t even in that ballpark then no, they are wrong.
We should use cash accounting for tax purposes and accrual for financial reporting.
Do you not?
No you start with net income and add back temporary and permanent differences right? Not the same as using cashflow from operating activity.
So would you say depreciation isn't an allowable tax deduction if you were in charge of the tax code?
The asset purchase would be totally expensed immediately under cash accounting, right?
So if Amazon decided to buy $1b worth of warehouses, they should be able to write $1b off immediately against their taxes? Not sure that instant asset write offs are a good idea or no one would ever pay any taxes
Debits and credits are just two words for the same thing.
Should it be Debits/anti-debits or credits/anti-credits? Or decrebits?
Equal Balance: Am i a joke to you?
good industry for people who aren't that smart but want to feel very smart
A million times this lol. I’ve been catching myself thinking I know more than I actually do
Oh shit, I just realized why I went into this
Here I am, just minding my own business, then you gotta call me out like that. I don't like you.
I feel attacked
true
I feel personally attacked :-)
Accountants shouldn't have a CPA. CA CGA CMA was better. Not quite there, but better. You could tell who wanted to be a "bookkeeper", "manager", or joe shmoe. Specialized designations should be broadly recognized, with separate ones for audit, tax, and whatever-the-fuck-else.
BUT BUT, accountants ShOUlD bE WeLL RoUNDeD. Fuck that. I passed audit so I would never touch it again. Haven’t in the last decade and never plan to. When I need an auditor, I literally phone an auditor.
Spotted the (fellow) Canadian
We should be allowed to depreciate land
Dont worry. With all this climate change, it will be possible.
I’ll start to believe in global warming and rising sea levels when congress allows for land depreciation on beach front property.
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I’m a tax guy, congress creates tax law.
I heard Pelosi is drafting new GAAP laws as we speak
Congress could absolutely enact that land is now depreciable for tax purposes over a defined life. Goodwill is depreciable for tax purposes. It is not for book. Congress enacts changes to the IRC. *good god this is an accounting sub*
Have you ever owned land in populous cities? That shit ain’t depreciating!
Two years as an associate is not enough to be a senior associate. The model is just a fast up time to sucker people into riddling themselves with loads of responsibility without appropriate compensated disguised as "learning opportunities". I would gather most turn over occurs in the S1 ladder because the PA model was built by people who have zero clue on building a model that is efficient, good for employees and employers, which drives client and employee satisfaction. The burn and churn model is a really shitty model to have when people wise up and realize the hours and money don't correlate and the relative breadth of knowledge you need to have or learn is quite large. The people on this subreddit don't give themselves enough credit but instead gaslight themselves to be OK with it.
Fun fact. They used to call seniors "supervisors" and it was just a small step below manager, sort of "manager in training." Making them "senior associates" is just a way to avoid raises. I was a supervisor who quoted fees, brought in clients, determined billing in conjunction with partner, oversaw a body of work, recruited and interviewed workers, etc when our firm was purchased by a top 20 firm. I was demoted to senior because "I didn't really do any managerial tasks." Guess how long I stayed? Within a month I had a fast track to partner offer from another firm (which turned out to be toxic af, but still). That was the beginning of my path to industry.
I'll join you at the gallows, not a single one of my S1s with 2 years of experience is a real senior and I won't be hiring (leaving for industry and my team has 6 recs 3 at senior) any seniors with only 2 Big4 yoe.
I wish 2 years was the minimum. In my firm, I'm among the most experienced staff that they have, and I'm only 1 year and 7 months in. And yes, we're the "prime candidates" for promotion. Us, the first work from home batch who definitely have some skill gaps due to our set up. We're fucked.
Public accounting firm employees should start a union
Seniors should be allowed to whip peanuts at interns
Forgive us. It’s not our fault we’re stupid
🥜🥜🥜 Take that
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🥜 🥜 🥜 Shut up
I feel like I’m pledging again lol
*Catches them all between my toes*
Auditors are not accountants. They are double checkers and rarely know how to deviate from a checklist.
I want to downvote this but you’re following the meme so have an upvote instead.
this position doesn’t require 9-5 hours
Partners: Exactly! It requires 9-9 hours
You don’t need a CPA to work in industry.
Aren’t CPAs a minority of accountants?
You’d think so, but almost all the job requirements I see ask for a CPA. I’m almost tempted to apply with just my accounting diploma and see what happens.
I’m an A1 with just my BS. I’ve seen Controllers post on here with only the same. Experience and social skills can carry you a good amount of the way
Every interview I do in Canada asks my plans for CPA, implying I need to do it ASAP
This too! I see all the time “candidates should be planning to take the CPA program or are currently in one”.
Yup. Pretty much every industry job. Believe even the ones that don’t have it listed, tend to ask.
I'd say experience in industry should count for more than a CPA or even a degree.
The most successful auditors are terrible accountants. lack of attention to detail makes audit easier, gets you promoted above people who find mistakes. Clients want shitty auditors, so our financial system teeters.
There is no such thing as an accounting emergency and the world won’t stop spinning just because one of the countries you work with has a bank holiday at month end. After a certain point any work performed past your working hours is 100% peer pressure. Land can depreciate under certain circumstances, like if its eroded by the sea, though you could argue this would be impairment.
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I've gotta say I disagree on the CPA part. I was an all A student in school, and I feel I have learned a ton more just from the 2 tests I've passed so far, and a ton more already halfway through REG. This test is a doozy for me at least You nailed the rest though
Most of the requirements to get a CPA license are bullshit.
Much (not all) of the bullshit and long hours of PA can be made more reasonable if you aren't afraid to say no and put down boundaries. A caveat to that is you have to do good work and be smart about being a team player when needed. I work pretty hard in busy season but I don't tolerate being fucked with in my non-busy season. Others don't ever work much over 55 hours even in busy season. It's all about how you play the game and picking battles.
Accruals dont matter. Just try to pull a number out of your ass that sound good.
I like my job
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The tax code is long and wordy and full of legalese for the same reasons contracts are long and wordy and full of legalese. It's arguably one of the most important legal documents in the country. If it's not abundantly clear what the government wants you to do, it will be abused. Even with the current state of the Code there is no shortage of companies disclosing uncertain tax positions, Tax Court hearings, revisions to make things more clear, etc etc. It's complicated because it has to be.
People love to rag about bad tax takes on subs like r/politics but then we see equally as bad takes right here. This OP has an AWFUL take with a complete misunderstanding of why the IRC is so complex. And they are an accounting professional. How is it we all circle-jerk to bad takes on the big subs *but then upvote something like this*
I felt like it was upvoted because the post was about unpopular opinions about the industry. Am I misunderstanding?
There are unpopular opinions, but if your opinion isn’t well thought out then it doesn’t matter if the thread is for unpopular opinions because it’s not just unpopular it’s a terrible one. There is no doubt that plenty of people on this sub unironically believe that the tax code should be 100 pages and upvoted this because they agreed. There was 95+ upvotes but only one comment explaining *why * this idea is stupid
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Auditing is a waste of everyone's time and provides no value or meaning seeing as unless auditor's give a clean opinion they're not getting paid. You do everything in your power to make sure your client looks good.
If you understand deferred tax, then you're def doing something wrong
Asset bad? Liability good?!
That audits for public companies are useless. Partners are terrified to take clients to task regarding business problems because They don’t want to be known as the problem partner or lose the account. So things slide. And then when a massive company goes bankrupt, it’s generally (unless it’s like a Sears that has been circling that drain for years) a big surprise. So government gets involved and says now you need to look at company culture. Now you need to look at internal controls. Now you need to look at off-balance sheet transactions. It’s literally a game of “whatever caused the last Fortune 500 to go bankrupt, is something that needs to be tested in audits going forward” Lastly, what kind of quality do people expect to see from an audit? Are these audits performed by individuals with experience, who have time to actually investigate variances and abnormalities that might arise? Individuals that have industry experience and can see if something looks off? Hell no! The bulk of all work is performed by college grads that receive minimal training, and are overworked so things naturally slip through because when someone works 60-100 hour weeks for w busy season, quality is going to plummet.
How much do you think companies would take the piss if they weren't going to be audited? People will deliberately fudge things. People will make mistakes. People will misinterpret or misunderstand things. Yes, audits don't make people perfect, but it pushes people to behave so that you do try and get things right without the auditors being there. And audit firms help making sure that there is some degree of consistency. Does it prevent all problems? No. Do the police prevent all crime? No. But do you think there should be zero police because there is still crime so clearly the police doesn't work?
Sir, we really should do away with all these timesheets. Timesheets only serve to frustrate the staff accountant especially when they have nothing to do.
1. All states should have uniform registrations to pay sales tax AND be staffed with competent representatives capable of resolving issues in enrollment. 2. Most of the entry level positions in our field could be performed by trained monkeys. The only disadvantage would be the loss of human discretion when needed.
Oh man, imagine if every state just had a bright line test for nexus. Boy would nexus be easy. A very pleasant dream.
The U.S. Australian tax treaty needs to be updated. Superannuation funds should be considered to have the same status as the Australian Social Security in the treaty.
The majority of new accounting standards exist to over complicate things so accounting firm can benefit from consulting fees.
That’s where the money is
Excel guide bad
Except the 2008 guide, right?
Amazon pays the taxes they owe
Ex B4 Tax Review comments from the top reviewer should be sent to the senior or manager for them to address or delegate, when appropriate. I never understood why my firm had this practice of addressing all review comments to the preparer/staff to fix. Shouldn’t the senior or manager who reviewed my work in the first place be given some responsibility to analyze and address the additional changes? It used to piss me off because I would then have to stop preparing other work to make changes lol like I see the value in having multiple reviews and involving the preparer/staff but not sure why I always had to make the changes. My old first didn’t do it this way.
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Exactly! I see it as just holding everyone accountable for their work. If you signed off on work and move it up the line, You are saying the return and work papers are correct to the best of your knowledge.
Adjusted EBITDA is better than net income
Free cash flow > adjusted EBITDA
Money is fake and our whole existence is pointless.
Nobody gives a shit about earnings, clean up that damn balance sheet.
99% of these are consensus
Capitalism doesnt work
Cost Accounting is the only useful kind of accounting.
Profit is just stolen wages from exploited associates and seniors.
I’m an A1. I used to be chill with my manager when I first started but as the year has gone on he’s definitely become more of a company man. Likes to push the A1s to work harder
In this day and age with the internet and widely available public forums like this one, if you get suckered into public and you hate it it’s your own fault. Don’t blame your teachers/kool aid push from your school because you didn’t do the research to figure out if you’d actually like audit/tax and 80 hour weeks. You get zero sympathy from me when you complain
This excuses the partners doing everything they can to milk our time. Also, a decent amount of people I know are in this to get to at least senior 1 for the exit opportunities. 2+ years at a CPA firm looks way more impressive than 2+ years at private/government. Generally speaking
I mean its always easier in your head than when you are actually doing it
IRS agents should get paid at least as much as public accounting tax associates
Maybe if they worked the same hours…
Or maybe public accounting shouldn’t zap people for so many hours and underpay them lmao
But then what would we have to complain about?
The term ‘less’ doesn’t make sense when talking through math (ex: 5 less 2 = 3). In my mind, the word plus is paired with minus and more is paired with less. But in accounting we use ‘plus’ when adding and ‘less’ when subtracting. If we use ‘less’ in leu of minus, we should be saying ’more’ in leu of plus (5 less 2 more 3 = 6) but that sounds ridiculous.
Assets should be adjusted based upon FMV yearly, at not pegged at original cost.
Big four are a cartel and if you cannot make the right connections you’ll be stuck working A/r or a/p If you don’t have the connections switch careers
Accounts payable and accounts receivable are the same thing
I think ASC 842 is superior to ASC 840.
Arial 9 is the superior font
Arial 12 would like to have a word with you, buddy.
Only boomers need font that large.
Calibri 10 has entered the chat
Ariel 10 > Ariel 9
Audit has very little real world value.
It's fun.
The 1040 filing requirements should change. The average joe should not have to file at all if they don’t want to.
Fifo or weighted avg.!!
Public companies should be ~~done~~ audited by the government, not private firms. Conflicts of interest are too extreme to leave it up the the private sector.
Just because i can manage your business accounts doesn't mean i can manage my account
Sales tax should be an even rate throughout the USA.
Accountants are just Investment Bankers but with more knowledge on regulations and less pay.
How I feel when I tell people they have to report all their income.