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The utility of accounting careers and the analytical, mathematical focus of accountancy may be responsible for the stereotype of accounting being plain or dull. Bucking this stereotype, a number of celebrities’ careers began in accounting. Ranging from professional singers and athletes to bestselling authors, these famous individuals studied or practiced accountancy before they landed in...

Payroll fraud, or schemes in which employees use means to deceive employers into issuing undue payments, represents one of the most common forms of employee theft. Payroll fraud is always a possibility for any business that issues paychecks to its employees. Because of the many methods of perpetrating payroll fraud, a well-educated business is a...

One of the first major cases of employee fraud to break in 2021 was a “ghost employee” scheme in which a computer technician working for Chicago Public Schools stole approximately $122,000.00 during a two-year period. This case, as reported by the Chicago Sun-Times on January 6, saw the unnamed computer technician living in California and...

In 2012, the small town of Dixon, Illinois found its claim to fame; it was the site and victim of a $53 million embezzlement scheme perpetrated by a former town official. The official, Rita Crundwell, had led an exorbitant lifestyle and created a horse-breeding empire at the expense of her struggling town.

The story of...

In 2018, hobbyists experimenting with machine learning and artificial intelligence reached a remarkable technological achievement with deeply problematic ramifications: the first widely circulated deep fakes. In a short amount of time, deep fakes have become a matter of public knowledge. They have generated widespread fear for their breach of personal privacy and potential for disinformation....

In 2016, the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) chose its first African-American Chairman of the Board of Directors, Kimberly Ellison-Taylor, CPA, CGMA. With her leadership experience at NASA, Motorola, and Oracle – as well as her active involvement in the AICPA – Ellison-Taylor was a natural choice for the position. During her term as Chairman...

Universities, advocacy organizations, and accounting professionals are currently faced with an important question: what will it take to ensure a healthy, sustainable number of students majoring in accounting—especially among African American students? Data from AICPA “Trends in the Supply of Accounting Graduates and the Demand for Public Accounting Recruits Report” indicates the percentage of African...

With more than 5,000 African American CPAs in the United States today, the profession has made remarkable progress in the last 50 years, especially compared to the early years of the CPA designation. This progress was made possible by the dedication and tenacity of many pioneers in the field of accounting—one of the earliest of...

As businesses struggle with the difficulties of an isolated workforce and changing consumer needs during the COVID-19 pandemic, income loss has threatened to make business closures and cutbacks permanent. Across the insurance industry, loss of business income claims have surged and forensic accounting firms, such as SDC CPAs, are tasked with investigating and verifying these...

In September of 2020, a high ranking official of the Houston Independent School District was accused of participating in a cash kickback scheme. Allegedly, the official worked with a landscaping contractor to approve and pay for phony proposals from the contractor. The jobs for which the contractor was paid were done, at times, by school...