Get a Good CPA

Although TNB's chosen profession of accounting is often maligned or ridiculed ("it was the accountant's fault","they're just pencil pushers", etc.) if you really think about it a lot of the current problems being experienced by politicians, businesses, investors and the like could certainly have been prevented or at least mitigated by getting a good CPA on the case. Consider these examples.

The tax problems of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and almost HHS Secretary Tom Daschle would never have occurred if a good CPA was used to "do their taxes". Geithner was using TurboTax? Incredible. He's lucky his confirmation hearing was scheduled before Daschle's. At least Obama uses a large CPA firm.

Investors apparently didn't bother to ask if Bernie Madoff used a good CPA before entrusting him (directly or through feeder funds) with billions. His so called auditors (a 2 person "firm" in rural Rockland County, New York) did not admit to regulators that they performed audits (a Freudian slip) thus averting periodic peer reviews which would have probably uncovered the fraud years ago. Nobody seemed to ask how a firm such as this could have the resources to audit Madoff's entities. Everyone was too enamored of their too good to be true results to do any diligence, due or otherwise.

Several years ago, a similar Ponzi scheme, Bayou Securities (the principal , one Samuel Israel tried to fake his own death last year to avoid jail) actually used a phony CPA firm to issue bogus reports. Eventually someone checked not whether there was a good CPA involved but rather were any of the financial statements legitimate--the answer was obvious!

How to go about finding a good CPA or at least deciding whether to trust the one whose work is presented? Besides the usual channels of professional societies and the Internet, there's always the ultimate reference for any CPA --yes The Normal Blogger. If there's too much new business created by this service, TNB may be looking for some new blogging help.