Support our non-partisan non-profit newsroom 💜 Donate now

This little-known accounting measure is ringing an economic warning bell

Jul 12, 2023
The level of corporate earnings manipulation is similar to that of other pre-recessionary periods, according to the M-Score.
The M-Score was used to flag Enron as having an elevated risk of fraud years before the company filed for bankruptcy.
James Nielsen/Getty Images

Accountant shortage has companies big and small struggling

Jul 11, 2023
It's a shortage that starts on college campuses, with more and more students opting for data analytics jobs in other sectors.
The number of students receiving accounting degrees dropped 9% over roughly the last decade.
Prostock-Studio/Getty Images

As tax season approaches, accounting firms are short on staff

Feb 7, 2023
And maybe a branding problem, too.
"Nobody thinks about the accountants," said Adrienne Gonzales, editor for the accounting blog "Going Concern." "They think about the accountants on April 15 when taxes are due. But there’s this whole network that is the engine of the economy."
Sasirin Pamai/Getty

Accounting in the COVID era is more subjective than ever

Aug 5, 2020
Companies are finding ways to soften the pandemic's blow to their bottom lines.
An empty Wrigley Field in Chicago on what would have been Major League Baseball's opening day. Since Disney didn't air MLB games, it didn't have to count the licensing cost in its financial results.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
People walk by an Under Armour store in Manhattan in 2017 in New York City.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Ahead of tax season, accountants are scrambling to understand the new law

Dec 21, 2018
It's been a year since Congress passed the $1.5 trillion tax overhaul. And there is still a lot accountants and lawyers don't understand about it.
Accountants are putting in long hours in order to understand the tax bill that was signed into law Dec. 22, 2017.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images

For public good, not for profit.

How forensic accountants help bring down white-collar criminals and drug kingpins

Sep 14, 2018
A forensic accountant gave key testimony in the first trial of Paul Manafort, President Trump's former campaign chairman.
Paul Manafort, former campaign manager for President Donald Trump, leaves the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse after being charged Oct. 30, 2017, in Washington, D.C.
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images

Author Caitlin Rosenthal on the role of slavery in the history of business

Aug 14, 2018
Caitlin Rosenthal, author of "Accounting for Slavery," discusses the role slavery plays in the history of business.
Stereograph Cards Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.

The disturbing parallels between modern accounting and the business of slavery

Aug 14, 2018
How slaveholders used modern management techniques
A group of women and children, presumably slaves, sit and stand around the doorway of a rough wooden cabin in the southern United States in the mid-19th century. One girl reads a book to the group of sitting children.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images