The Blonde Diaries

I have explained in many previous posts that I am a financial statement auditor not a tax auditor. I still pay attention to things that relate to income tax and taxes in general but I keep it at a high level. Today on Yahoo News! an article appeared that discussed how the head of the House tax-writing committee, Charles Rangel (Democrat – New York) admitted that he lied on his income tax forms and OWES the IRS over $5k. This just boils my blood. How are we suppose to expect ordinary citizens to properly report their income to the IRS when our own Senators and Representatives ignore the tax laws? The excuse is just pathetic – it was an innocent mistake. Umm how do you forget to report $75k of income on your taxes?!?! I see similar things every day on various message boards that I visit – Do I have to report this or that because it isn’t really that much. No wonder these people don’t think they have to follow the IRS rules. Their own Congressmen don’t! The IRS code really isn’t all that hard to follow even for a non-accountant. It clearly states that “any form of income from any source for any amount must be reported.” grr

As I have stated, I have no involvement in income taxes other than using Turbo Tax to fill mine out. I do know that it is fairly easy to fill out your forms and report your income using a program such as this because they ask you questions that lead you to answering the tax forms appropriately. A CPA worth anything would do the same. I think I will get out a few ink pens and write in my journal.

~ A frustrated auditor

As I sat in training this past week, a few of my friends (co-workers) and I were digging through our email archives to find the different email jokes that we have accumulated and saved since we started 3 years. In the process I found this doozey that was pretty darn funny. It is basically an “article” explaining how we auditors have nothing to do with tax season and why you may get a nasty glare if asking us for tax advice. I got a chuckle out of it and wanted to share.

Study: Auditors’ Busy Season Has Nothing to Do With Taxes

Indiana, PA – A study released Tuesday by the Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Employment Research provides irrefutable evidence that, contrary to popular belief, an auditor’s busy season has absolutely nothing to do with taxes.

“I’m just as surprised as the next guy,” said Sarah Smith, the lead researcher on the study. “Like every other family member or friend of an auditor, I’ve always assumed that my brother, an Ernest & Young accountant, spends every January through March filing taxes for clients.”

“But since the results prove otherwise, I can now understand why he always gets pissed when I ask him for tax advice. And why he always tells me to ‘Call H&R F***ing Block.’”

In interviews with more than 500 staff auditors at Big Four accounting firms, the researchers discovered that all auditors do during busy season is test a company’s processes and procedures to opine on the accuracy of a company’s reported financial statements.

“While this is just as painfully boring as filing 1040s, it doesn’t have anything to do with taxes,” Smith noted. “In fact, the closest most auditors get to the IRS during busy season is doubling the sales tax at dinner to calculate the tip.”

According to Smith, busy seasons are typically three things: “using calculators the size of pizza boxes and wearing ties in a casual environment to show their clients that they mean ‘business;’ beating up a clients’ junior staff for a month straight about the lack of internal controls because the signatures did not fully penetrate the triplicate on the department-wide birthday card for Larissa in Accounts Payable; and completing a 38-page internal controls checklist on the petty cash fund while completely ignoring the client’s shady accounting treatment for three new SPEs named HIDDENDEBT, IMSTEALING and DONTLOOKHEREPWC.”

Auditors were thrilled with the results.

“Finally the truth,” said KMPG Senior Laura Jones. “Maybe now my parents will stop asking me how the taxes were in busy season, and start asking me how it feels to spend three months of my life preparing a detailed list of proposed accounting adjustments only to have my boss rollover on the golf course and deem them all ‘immaterial’ after the client offers to ‘give him that putt’ and ‘award him a large SOX 404 consulting project’ if we don’t make him book those pension adjustments.”

In a related story, the Center for Employment Research announced that the preliminary results for its Investment Banking study reveal that “most parents have absolutely no idea what their investment banker children do, and why they get paid so much freaking money to do it.”

For the most part that is a joke but the high point of the article drives home the point – I don’t touch taxes and pray to the heavens that I never have to other than filing my annual federal taxes using TurboTax. lol

I had to laugh after getting off of the phone just now with my younger brother. He is in community college right now and finishing up his associate’s degree so he can move on and attend a 4 year university next year and obtain his bachelor’s degree. He’s done fairly well in school. He’s been on Student Government and is the editor in chief on the student newspaper this upcoming year and he’s not even a journalism major. So he’s doing pretty darn well and I have to brag just a little as the proud older sister.

So the semester has just started and he is taking his first accounting class. I have been trying to get him to go towards an accounting degree over a general business degree because I am a bit bias and think accounting is the way to go – job security and great pay – but he’s been fighting me a little on it thinking it will be boring and lots of math which I have explained that as an auditor I do none of that! Well, apparently we must have an accounting gene running through my family (my cousin and I are CPAs) because my brother is acing his in-class work in his accounting class. He is getting the correct answers to every problem presented and he is finishing the assignments in record time. Today his professor told him that he was the first student in 3 years to get this one accounting problem correct on the first try and he did it along with the other questions on the page in 12 minutes. His buddy called him 40 minutes later telling him that he had just finished and the entire class was still in there.

All I can say is he needs to quit fighting it and embrace the accounting gene. My poor future kids don’t have a chance. They will be accountants too at this rate. lol

Last year when I was working very long hours during busy season I noticed that I was having wrist and forearm pain. I was not quite sure what was making this happen until I was discussing with a friend. She told me the same exact thing happened to her one busy season and it was because she was sitting in front of a laptop for 18 hours a day and typing. In order to relieve her pain she bought wrist braces to help keep her wrists straight while she typed. She had tried everything else, just as I had, such as Tylenol and visiting the doctor but the pain from carpel tunnel syndrome was just too much for her. For me, I focused on keeping my wrists straight and took some Tylenol and it seemed to relieve the pain at the time but I have to admit the pain creeps back every now and then and I really just need to buckle down and buy a pair of braces so that I can have some carpal tunnel relief. I found some neat braces on the IMAK website that are padded and look much nicer than the ones at Walmart (ie a lot more stylish). They run about $20 each which is not bad at all and are reversible so if you only need one brace at a time you just need to buy one and you can flip them inside out to fit both hands. That is kinda cool. If you are suffering from the onset of carpal tunnel or want to prevent it head over to IMAK and pick up a brace. They really will help relieve the pain and keep carpal tunnel at bay.

Yesterday I received an email from my relationship partner yesterday at work to meet with her this morning in her office. I was a tad nervous because it is time for our annual compensation discussions at work and last year didn’t go so well. Actually it went so badly throughout the office that many partners had their discussions via phone rather than in person. So I was prepared for another bad year to tell you the truth and was pleasantly surprised when I saw that she wanted to meet in person.

So I made sure to wake up bright and early, pick out office appropriate clothing, and ensure I was in full makeup and decently dried hair (I’m really not that sloppy everyday but partner face time is different) and got to the office early. I had great news!! The Houston office and market in general are really doing well right now and in order to stay competitive with the oil and gas industry I received a 12% raise and a 6% bonus. I am elated. Bonus is going to the Greece fund and the raise will be heading to the 401K and Roth IRA funds. I think we will totally be able to swing Greece now. Yippee!!!