APOCALYPSE - TAX FIDDLERS

WILL THE THIN GREY SUITED LINE
PREVAIL AGAINST THE FOUR HORSEMEN
OF THE APOCALYPSE?

Accountants, the world's bean-counters, and their work as auditors, tax-return filers and bookkeepers, entailing double-entry ledgers, addition, subtraction, and, for the cleverest, multiplication and long division, remain top of the Most-Boring Professions in the known universe. Our subject is not a catchy one. It is dangerously under-reported. 

 TAX PLANNERS PACK THE JURY  linked essay

When dusty, humorless, grey suited, elderly clerks such as I bang-on about tax-havens and ENRON accounting threatening world peace - I might be regarded as a voice crying in the wilderness, whistling in the wind, or whispering from inside a locked stationery cupboard. BUT - fear not! I am not alone. In today's Guardian, other voices are raised in alarm. Like the geese of ancient Rome, we will soon be making such a kerfuffle that even the most committed political ostriches will lift their heads from the sands of oblivion - and leap into action. And we will be heralded as prophets in our own time and countries. 

To relieve the boredom you are about to endure - here is the best accountancy joke. It was aimed at John Major, the (most boring ever) UK Prime Minister, inserted by Thatcher as she resigned, of whom it was accurately said "John Major is the only man ever to run away from the Circus to become a Chartered Accountant".  He was indeed raised in a circus family.  ...We accountants, unacknowledged heroes all, permitted ourselves a wry smile. 

However, these correspondents (below) need to shout louder and more angrily about their fifth-columnist colleagues who fiddle the books, infiltrate governments and threaten global meltdown. The pits of hell are opening. All that stands between civilization and total chaos is an army of honest bookkeepers. 

GUARDIAN LETTERS - Public accounts committee chair Margaret Hodge. The committee claims accountancy firms are using knowledge gained from staff seconded to the Treasury to help wealthy clients avoid paying UK taxes. 

• The 'big four', transparency and tax reform

  28 Apr 2013: Letters: The public accounts committee's report highlighting the 'big four' accountancy firms' conflict of interest in advising the government on tax reform while advising clients on tax avoidance is welcome but only scratches the surface of a much bigger problem
  
  TAX AND ECONOMICS ARTICLES 29TH APR 13