Hope they don’t get Andersened
KPMG has agreed to pay $456M in fines and eight former executives have been indicted for selling fraudulent tax shelters. Last time a big firm took a hit, it went under. Later, a unanimous supreme court threw out Arthur Andersen’s conviction. It didn’t matter because they were done. I think they have a shell of an office in Chicago.
I was also surprised there are so many accounting blogs. I’m an accountant and I don’t even read them.
Update: Chris points out that it’s the largest tax evasion scheme in U.S. history.
August 31st, 2005 at 8:41 am
[…] I mentioned KPMG’s indictment earlier. I found it odd that no news story I read was clear regarding what exactly KPMG did. The media used weasel words like tax shelter because, let’s face it, this accounting and tax law stuff is hard to grasp. As a general rule, tax evasion is illegal while tax avoidance is not. So, I did some searching and found: The tax shelters that KPMG sold have still not been definitively ruled illegal by courts. But the government says KPMG intentionally failed to register the shelters as required, with one internal memo saying the profits from selling the shelters were enough to offset the potential civil penalties for failing to register them. […]