The roles and liabilities of public accountants (audit firms) are limited to the members (shareholders) or those charged with corporate governance (such as trustees) of a particular firm as clearly affirmed in International Standard on Auditing (ISA 200) – Objectives of the auditor.The results...

Dozens of judicial opinions have held that shareholders own corporations, that directors are agents of shareholders, and even that directors are trustees of shareholders' property. Yet, until now, it has never been proven. These doctrines rest on unsubstantiated assumptions. In this book the...

This paper examines the development of education and experience requirements for CPAs. Relying on the past work of Siegel and Rigsby (1989) and others, we frame the current state of CPA education in the context of changes over the past century plus. Beginning with the first passage of CPA...

When examining a corporate taxpayer, the IRS often seeks special accounting documents called tax accrual workpapers. These workpapers often contain privileged documents, but the IRS does not care. It believes it is entitled to the documents despite that the work product doctrine protects the...

This study examines whether we can learn from the behavior of blockchain-based transfers to predict the financing of terrorist attacks. We exploit blockchain transaction transparency to map millions of transfers for hundreds of large on-chain service providers. The mapped data set permits us to...

According to the conventional wisdom, “one size does not fit all” in corporate governance. Firms are heterogeneous with respect to their governance needs, implying that the optimal corporate governance structure must also vary from firm to firm. This one-size-does-not-fit-all axiom has...

Auditors use decision aids to achieve various objectives of their audit engagements. Decision aid use can be scrutinized by juries if auditors are sued for negligence in civil litigation. Lowe, Reckers, and Whitecotton (2002) investigate how juries perceive auditors‟ decisions to either not...

This article is a comprehensive exploration of why financial and nonfinancial firms engage in short-termism with particular attention given to the financial crisis of 2007-2009. Short-termism, which is also referred to as earnings management (or, alternatively, managerial myopia), consists of...

A huge number of quantitative and qualitative criteria perform the research practice and legal issuing on firm size and firm-size-related measures. Inside each of those criteria, quantitative boundaries between two firm categories have also been diverse, even arbitrary. This approach to firm...

Sowohl nach Handelsgesetzbuch (HGB) als auch nach International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) kann die Gewinn- und Verlustrechnung entweder nach dem Gesamtkostenverfahren oder nach dem Umsatzkostenverfahren aufgestellt werden. Beide Verfahren führen zwar zum gleichen Ergebnis,...