Subject: Employee Embezzlement
Services: Write-up and accountingEver since 1989 IMPACT has brought its readers War Stories from the CAMICO claims files. The War Story tradition continues to this day and is one of the many distinguishing characteristics of CAMICO’s exemplary loss prevention services, designed to warn policyholders of the many pitfalls and risk exposures facing CPAs.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit earlier this year affirmed a U.S. District Court ruling in favor of a CPA firm in the case Mosier v. Stonefield Josephson, filed Feb. 23, 2016. The appellate court’s decision is significant and breaks new ground in California’s laws governing claims against auditors (and other professionals).
By Emily Franchi
With the creation of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the passing of the National Labor Relations Act (the Act) in 1935, employees have enjoyed protection to speak freely with one another about their employer. This was commonly done over the office water cooler with office rumors and gossip being freely discussed. Fast forward 80 years, and the water cooler has been replaced with social media sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
CAMICO financials remain sound after five consecutive years, 2010 through 2014, in which CAMICO’s net income and policyholder surplus have grown. All key financial ratios have not only returned to the normal levels of the years prior to 2008, but these ratios have improved to levels greater than the best years in CAMICO’s history.
CAMICO was recently honored by the Washington Society of Certified Public Accountants (WSCPA) as the society’s 2014-2015 Business of the Year.
In the preceding issue of IMPACT (103), we asked readers to complete a brief survey to help CAMICO better understand the social media habits and practices of our policyholders. Here are highlights of the survey results:
CAMICO offers several hours of free CPE to policyholders each year through webcasts on the LearnLive platform (https://university.learnlive.com/camico). We provide education on risk management specifically for CPA firms, brought to you by our experts, many of whom are CPAs themselves. You won’t find this level of expertise and depth of risk management content anywhere else.
CAMICO webcasts are an outstanding way to fulfill CPE requirements, and they offer a number of advantages. For example, our webcasts:
The Surface Transportation and Veterans Health Care Choice Improvement Act of 2015 changes the due dates for partnership and corporate income tax returns as well as for FinCEN Form 114, Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR), among other items.
The marijuana industry is a prime example of a “current, emerging and future” risk area, given the number of perplexing difficulties CPAs face when trying to assess the special considerations pertaining to marijuana business clients and to the CPA firms that service such clients. At the heart of the difficulties is the split between federal law, under which marijuana is basically illegal, and the laws in states where voters or legislators have approved measures to allow the use of marijuana for medical and/or recreational purposes.
AICPA’s Accounting and Review Services Committee (ARSC) issued Statement on Standards for Accounting and Review Services (SSARS) No. 21 in October 2014. This Standard marked the conclusion of the ARSC’s Clarity Project, which clarified and modified existing standards covering the performance of review and compilation engagements for historic financial statements.
The following alert has been modified as a result of new guidance provided by the IRS. On February 13, 2015, the IRS released Rev. Proc. 2015-20, which provides a new simplified procedure for small businesses. Under this simplified method, a small business may adopt the final tangible property regulations on a prospective basis and Form 3115 is not required.
IMPACT’s fourth interactive War Story covers a case involving a large embezzlement, how it happened, and how the CPA firm could have avoided it.
