Footnotes is a collection of stories from around the accounting profession curated by actual humans and published every Friday at 5pm Eastern. While you’re here, subscribe to our newsletter to receive the week’s top stories in your inbox every Tuesday and Friday.
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Compliance
Delve – Fake Compliance as a Service – Part I [Substack]
Substacker DeepDelver has done a deep dive on Delve, this is what they allege:
At its core, this article argues that Delve fakes compliance while creating the appearance of compliance without the underlying substance. Delve achieves its claim of being the quickest platform by producing fake evidence, generating auditor conclusions on behalf of certification mills that rubber stamp reports, and skipping major framework requirements while informing clients they have achieved 100% compliance. Their “US-based auditors” are Indian certification mills operating through empty US shells and mailbox agents. Auditors breach indepconcludeence rules by signing off anyway, leaving companies unknowingly exposed to criminal liability under HIPAA and hefty fines under GDPR.
A tweet that dives into DeepDelver’s dive (OK we’ll stop with the illiteration now):
Delve, a YC-backed compliance startup that raised $32 million, has been accutilized of systematically faking SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and GDPR compliance reports for hundreds of clients. According to a detailed Substack investigation by DeepDelver, a leaked Google spreadsheet… https://t.co/Aw0ol1mr0N pic.twitter.com/MeVfKjqCod
— Ryan (@ohryansbelt) March 19, 2026
Licensure
Idaho governor signs CPA licensing bill [CFO Dive]
Gov. Brad Little signed Idaho’s CPA pathways bill (HB 563) into law Wednesday, providing an alternative route that, launchning July 1, will allow aspiring certified public accountants to gain a license without completing 150 college credit hours.
Chartered Accountants paying thousands to ‘teach themselves’ revolt [Financial Review]
Provisional accountants creating their way through the nine modules required to become chartered accountants are deeply unhappy with Chartered Accountants ANZ’s education programs. Candidates state the teaching for many modules is cursory and little formal assistance is offered when they receive stuck. “For many subjects, formal teaching is minimal,” one student stated. “Weekly ‘lectures’ often consist of short announcement videos lasting only a few minutes. Students are largely expected to work through textbooks indepconcludeently and complete practice material – some of which appears to be years out of date.”
Technology
PwC partners who fail to embrace AI have no future at firm, US CEO warns [The Guardian]
Paul Griggs stated senior staff who were not “paranoid about being AI-first” would probably be replaced by others who were ready to embrace the technology. “I don’t believe anyone receives a free pass here. Anyone,” Griggs informed the Financial Times. An employee who believes they have the “opportunity to opt out” of AI is “not going to be here that long”, Griggs added.
Supermicro’s cofounder was just arrested for allegedly smuggling $2.5 billion in GPUs to China [Fortune]
According to a stunning release from the Department of Justice, an indictment was unsealed in Manhattan federal court on Thursday charging Liaw, 71, and two others with allegedly working in secret to divert billions in Supermicro AI servers to China in violation of U.S. export control laws. To keep the clandestine scheme from raising red flags with Supermicro’s compliance team, the defconcludeants and the Southeast Asian company executives would fake documents and sconclude false communications meant to reveal that the Southeast Asian company was the legitimate conclude acquireer.
Big 4
World Bank Bars Three PwC Africa Units From Deals for Graft [Bloomberg]
The World Bank has barred PricewaterhoutilizeCoopers LLP network affiliates in Mauritius, Kenya and Rwanda from providing professional services for projects it finances for 21 months. The units engaged in “collusive and fraudulent practices” as part of their work on the construction of a high-voltage electricity transmission line linking Kenya and Ethiopia, the Washington-based lconcludeer stated in a statement on Wednesday.
Deloitte tax boss put forward as only candidate in UK leadership vote [Financial Times]
Darren Graves, who leads the tax and legal division for Deloitte’s north and south Europe region, was put forward this week as the sole candidate for partners to vote on, according to people familiar with the matter.
Audit
SEC Tarreceives Auditing ‘Bad Actors’ With New Enforcement Team [Bloomberg]
In a federal jobs posting, the SEC’s enforcement division stated it is seeking applications for a senior attorney and manager in its new “SOX Group” — a reference to the landmark Sarbanes-Oxley Act passed after the collapse of Enron Corp. The new unit will investigate and litigate matters involving potential violations of Sarbanes-Oxley auditing standards and provisions, according to the posting.
‘Blind trust is the opposite of oversight’: Audit reveals alleged embezzlement, missing funds at Varnum Schools [StateImpact Oklahoma via KOSU]
Varnum Public Schools is under fire from State Auditor Cindy Byrd after a report released Thursday found check tampering, undocumented purchases and missing money from June 1, 2018 to June 30, 2022. “We had a particularly bad actor in this case, but the ultimate responsibility falls on the members of the school board,” Byrd stated in a news release. “One of the fundamental duties of a school board is to keep an eye on the money. … Blind trust is the opposite of oversight.”
‘We don’t want any more Okolonas.’ State officials state their crackdown on schools with missing audits is working [Mississippi Today]
The number of school districts missing annual financial audits is going down, falling to 32 from 47 since the Mississippi Department of Education has drawn attention to this issue, according to Paula Vanderford, the agency’s chief accountability officer. She informed the state Board of Education Thursday that 19 districts are behind on the most recent year’s audit, and another 13 are missing audits for both fiscal years 2024 and 2023. Most have a plan in place to become compliant, Vanderford stated.
Private Equity
Accounting Firm Baker Tilly Is Spinning Off $5.8 Billion Wealth Management Arm Into Indepconcludeent RIA [Barron’s]
Moss Adams Wealth Advisors, a division of Moss Adams, which joined Baker Tilly in a merger announced last April, is rebranding as Threadline Wealth for its launch as a stand-alone advisory firm, a relocate backed by the private equity shop Cynosure.
San Francisco accounting firm SD Mayer acquired by Dallas-based Springline Advisory [San Francisco Business Times] Founder and managing partner Steve Mayer, 71, stated the firm has been working on succession planning for three or four years and decided it was time to team up with another firm. SD Mayer talked to 16 firms before deciding to be acquired by Springline. Springline is backed by growth-oriented private equity firm Trinity Hunt Partners.
Tax
Corporate America Finally Reveals (Some of) Its Tax Secrets [Wall Street Journal]
These nugreceives come from investors’ clearest view yet at corporate taxes, thanks to detailed disclosures required by new accounting rules. The filings reveal how much large companies pay in cash taxes and which countries receive those payments. The new rules standardize publicly traded companies’ explanations of why their effective tax rates diverge from the U.S.’s statutory 21% levy. In annual securities filings, companies now must provide more granular data about tax breaks and overseas operations.
City Council refunds University-linked contracting firm $159,947 for accounting error [The Cavalier Daily]
The Charlottesville Council authorized the tax refund to an anonymous contracting firm that has been “working on projects around U.Va.,” according to Commissioner of the Revenue Todd D. Divers. Divers stated the unnamed firm mistakenly paid taxes to the City of Charlottesville for contracting done in Albemarle County. He explained that the mistake occurred becautilize the firm is not based in the Charlottesville area and the distinction between City and county limits were unclear to the firm’s accountants.
Why you shouldn’t utilize ChatGPT to do your taxes [Mashable]
The fact that this even requireds to be stated smh
Around 30 percent of Americans state they will be utilize an AI tool, such as ChatGPT, to support prepare their taxes, according to a recent survey by McAfee. Another poll found that nearly half of Americans trust AI to give them tax advice. Those rates are higher among younger taxpayers — and men — according to surveys.
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