I am posting the Tax Justice Network Taxcast late: that's something due to being under the weather when it came out last week:
We've had leak after leak, whistleblower after whistleblower. But no matter what the scandal is, when it comes to financial secrecy and tax dodging, the so-called big four accountancy firms are key players. We interview investigative journalist and former tax inspector Richard Brooks of the Private Eye on his new book: Bean Counters: the triumph of the accountants and how they broke capitalism.
Plus: will President Trump be prosecuted for foundation fraud? And can a leopard change its spots? How come the secrecy jurisdiction of Delaware came out in support of a financial transparency bill?
Featuring: U.S. economist, attorney, and investigative journalist James Henry, the Tax Justice Network's John Christensen and investigative journalist Richard Brooks of the Private Eye on his new book: Bean Counters: the triumph of the accountants and how they broke capitalism. Produced and presented by Naomi Fowler.
What they are about is maximising their income. They are not about providing objective audits which is really what society needs. Firstly you need much better auditing and then you need serious consequences for poor auditing and the problem at the moment you don't really have either.”
~ Richard Brooks
Residents and non-residents can still continue to use US shell companies to hide their identity and the US is set to remain in the ranks of the largest and least cooperative secrecy jurisdictions in the world.”
~ John Christensen
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If the figures I’ve read are to be believed and the Big Four now only make 20% of their profits from auditing and the rest from consultancy, this is a critical figure pointing out the 800lb gorilla in the room – that a Big Four company making massive profits from ‘consulting’, either on a big PFI parasite like Carillion or a straightforward TNC,is not going to let a petty thing like providing accurate accounts get in the way of its’ main source of income.
As sellers of over-paid consultancy, the Big Four *cannot* let auditing upset the gravy train – they will *always* produce accounts giving the picture their corporate host wants to show, up until the last nanosecond before bankruptcy. Then, the immediate excuse is that the accounts can only reflect the information provided by the deceased host – at which point the accountants start making money breaking up the corpse of the corporate animal they helped to kill…