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Accounting Professor Bills Trump $900,000 for Expert Testimony · The Accounting Podcast

• Attention: This is a machine-generated transcript. As such, there may be spelling, grammar, and accuracy errors throughout. Thank you for your understanding! Blake Oliver: [00:00:04] I don't understand why CPAs are so worked up about this, and I'm a CPA, and maybe I just am not conservative enough or not risk averse enough, but I feel like honestly, when I look at these discussions on these threads, like on the Arizona Society forums and online, and I see CPAs who are like, you know, worrying about this, I say, like, do you want to make money? Like, are you interested in making profits in your firm or not. David Leary: [00:00:32] Coming to you weekly from the OnPay Recording Studio. Blake Oliver: [00:00:38] Hello and welcome back to the show. I'm Blake Oliver. David Leary: [00:00:41] And I'm David Leary. And, Blake, I know you have big ambitions, right? Between earmark and you, uh, you know, you could be the president of NASBA. But if these things don't work out, I have another way for you to get rich. Blake Oliver: [00:00:53] Really? Tell me. I need. I need to know. David Leary: [00:00:55] And you don't even need to be a CPA to do it. So I'll give you some background. So last week I think we recorded on Friday or whatever day we recorded in that day, I think the next steps of the Trump trial started taking place. And so I saw the headlines, but we didn't have time to digest it. And my reaction was because they were talking about they're bringing in the expert witness, and. Blake Oliver: [00:01:15] You're talking about the civil fraud trial in New York. Yes. David Leary: [00:01:19] For Trump's fraud trial. Yep. Okay. And they're bringing in this gap expert, right. They're bringing him in. His name is Eli Bartov, and he is a professor of accounting at New York University's Leonard and Stern School of Business. He has a PhD from UC Berkeley in 1989. So I was like, who is this guy? So I went and found his LinkedIn page. And basically he has 31 years, seven months at the New York Stern School of Business. But what I can tell, no CPA, no working in practice, no like no practical practice. It's all educational. And then he has his summary, right. You know, on LinkedIn you can kind of summarize, there's a paragraph I don't think I have anything typed on mine, but and I'll read this and award winning researcher and teacher, an internationally recognized scholar. So that's the first sentence. Second sentence. Expert testimony testified on issues related to financial reporting, US GAAP executive compensation, insider trading and equity valuation and securities frauds, contract disputes and other litigation and then talks about it's consulting. Then it talks about his training. And, you know, he's taught numerous short courses. It's kind of funny that the educational one is like the third bullet, you know, to some extent. Okay. Blake Oliver: [00:02:32] So this guy, he's he's a professor at New York University in accounting. He's been there for decades. And he's he testified as Trump's star expert witness. David Leary: [00:02:41] Yes. And so so I went down this and my first reaction is, oh, great, not a CPA. But we never talked about the story last week. Then this week the story broke about how much he got paid for doing this testimony. Blake Oliver: [00:02:53] Not it was like $900,000. Nine I'm in the wrong line of work, David. We are we are totally. He got paid $900,000 to be an expert witness in a single fraud case. David Leary: [00:03:08] So according to the deposition and the court documents, he said he had worked approximately 650 hours, amounting to a total of $877,000 at so basically 1350 an hour. And this is being paid for by both Trump Organization and his political action committee, Save America, which I find interesting. Um, but but both sides this work. So on the other side, the prosecution brought an expert witness. Um, and he is a chairman and CEO of an investment bank called Dylan and Co. He got paid $350,000 to testify on the other side like we were. We were in the wrong business. Blake Oliver: [00:03:47] This is nuts. David Leary: [00:03:48] Now, the part that went off in my head. So the professor's not a CPA, right? So if you're not a CPA, do you? You don't have if you're just a PhD professor, you probably don't have the same ethical standards, I would guess, right? Blake Oliver: [00:04:02] Maybe not. David Leary: [00:04:03] You have to have ethical standards for your CPA. Blake Oliver: [00:04:06] Yes. Well, you yes, you have to uphold your duty to the public. David Leary: [00:04:12] So that's that's where that it's a shocking number. It's shocking. Blake Oliver: [00:04:16] Yeah. Well, I think when I was in public accounting, I left as a manager. My. Hourly rate that we build to our clients was something like $250 an hour. So this guy's got me beat at 1350. Incredible. And hey, welcome. I want to say welcome, David, before you go on, welcome to everyone who joined us live. As a reminder, you can subscribe to us on YouTube and get notified when we go live. So hi Brenda. Brenda says stop. I can't even and uh, boring accountant says for coffee emojis. Uh, normally it's one coffee emoji. Boring accountant. So it must be, um, you must be very tired. Did you. Did you go out into the holiday party last night? Have one too many? If so, you have my sympathies. But awesome. David Leary: [00:05:10] In general. I don't think this helps the ECB's efforts of improving the image of the why you should. The argument to get your CPA like this is not good if you can make this much money not being a CPA. Blake Oliver: [00:05:23] Well, but or they could be promoting it. Forensic accounting is like a sexy area of accounting, and they always mention it when they talk about cool things to do as an accountant. And that would be something I would be doing if I was still in practice. I think forensics is just awesome and fraud is, you know, related to that. Right? Being an expert witness? Yeah. I wonder if he patted his hours in this case at all. We'll never know. I suppose. I want to see the time sheets. I'd love to see the time sheets. Well, David, um, we got a lot to talk about. Got to get to it. Um, I'm gonna I'm gonna take things in another direction here. Okay. Uh, this was in the New York Post. Lovely journalistic publication there. They've got New York Escort who caters to Wall Street bankers, rakes in $34,000 per week in December. Quote, most interesting woman they've ever met. And this is a profile of Mia Lee, who's 35, who gets her stocking stuffed with wads of cash, mainly from private dancing sessions at one of Manhattan's elite strip clubs, as well as by charging for luxurious getaways, she told The Post. And she's a former Wall Street accountant, so this was on my feed, reader. This was like the most popular story that had anything to do with accounting. This past week was the story of Mia Lee, who who went from being an accountant on Wall Street, uh, to being a, uh, a stripper and a, uh, escort. So there you go. That's that's great for our image, isn't it? David Leary: [00:06:49] Oh, I mean, it ties into the Illinois study, right? Illinois, at least the new study on turnover in the profession. And I think the number one thing in that study was pay. Right. Blake Oliver: [00:07:02] And we'll talk about that. Yeah, we'll talk about that. Before we get to that, I want to I want to give you a quote from this article. Um, the one time forensic accountant who came to the US from China at a young age, revealed that she surprises her clients with her knowledge of financial affairs. She claims to have spent a dozen years working on Wall Street. I had a pretty colorful career in finance, she told The Post, but when pressed for specifics, she would only say, that's for my clients to know. David Leary: [00:07:25] So, okay, okay, so just I'm rewinding. Like, so what separates her from the other escorts? Like, if they're all equal, equal looks equal, everything what they do is equal. The way they dance is equal. What's what's setting her up is her accounting knowledge, her intelligence, her intelligence in her accounting knowledge. And, you. Blake Oliver: [00:07:43] Know, if she's if she's got Wall Street clients, she can actually talk to them on their level. Right. And, um, you know, it's interesting is her hourly rate is actually not that far off from our expert witness in the Trump trial. Her cheapest option is a minimum one hour session that goes for $1,400. And he was 1350, right? David Leary: [00:08:04] Yeah. Blake Oliver: [00:08:05] So there you go. Uh, expert witness in the Trump fraud trial in New York, $1,350 an hour, or former forensic accountant turned escort, $1,300. David Leary: [00:08:19] Is anybody that's in the live chat today? If you're is your hourly rate 1350 or $1300, give a little thumb emoji up or down, please to see if it. Blake Oliver: [00:08:28] Is your opportunity cost for joining us today is extremely high and I advise you to get back to work right away. You are. You are losing a lot of money or our value is just that great, you know? Yeah. Uh, okay. Let's talk about this, um, retention survey. And I'm going to put this up on the screen because there's some great charts. And it's another good reason for our listeners, um, you know, to join us live or to watch us on YouTube. So this is a survey called. Well, it's not a survey called. It's a report called Writing Retention by the Illinois CPA society a look into the accounting profession's greatest management challenge. Uh, and we all know if you listen to the show, you know, that retention is a big deal in accounting. We lost a lot of people. We continue to lose a lot of people. And Illinois, the Illinois society has been doing great work, um, investigating this and doing surveys. Uh, they did one that's an excellent one on diversity and inclusion. Last year, I think it was. And now they've got another one here. Um, so let's go through the highlights. Right. Um turnover takeaways. Rising turnover is real. Blake Oliver: [00:09:35] Almost 39% of employers responding to their survey. And these were Illinois employers said they're seeing increased turnover rates, approximately 42% of public accounting firms and 34% of public and private companies. On the contrary, fewer than 14% of employers said their turnover rates were declining. Accountants quit their employers, but not necessarily the profession. While many employers, about a third, believe their accounting and finance talent is leaving the profession, the truth is, less than 1% of the employees responding to their survey who changed jobs actually left it. So that's different than what I thought. I thought that a lot of accountants were leaving entirely. So I guess they're going from what, public accounting into industry, or they're going from one industry job to another? I guess they're not just they're not telling their employers, like, how do the employers have such a different view of this than the employees communication issue here? Now, here's here's a question why are they leaving? Salary was the most cited reason not enough money. The second most cited reason is ding ding ding. No surprise here. Too many hours slash burnout. And the third most cited reason is lack of work life balance. David Leary: [00:10:44] So so the burnout was interesting. So there bullet number five here. Really the one that kind of hit my brain a little little hard on comprehending it. The people that are left. So when people leave. The and actually causes even more burnout because you have to pick up work for the people that have left the profession. And they're saying managers and staff leadership are having now to pick up more work, which now you're like, why am I working so hard if I never get to actually stop working if I hit a management level? And so the it's a compounding problem. Blake Oliver: [00:11:15] Yeah. So two thirds of employers have seen workloads increase for staff at the leadership level due to the retention challenges. So managers, directors and partners are working harder because they don't have the staff. Which leads to more burnout, which then leads to the managers leaving. Which then causes more stress on the directors and the partners or the C-suite, depending on whether you're in industry or not. So it's a, uh, reinforcing cycle, a doom loop, as some people have called. David Leary: [00:11:46] It, Jenga. Blake Oliver: [00:11:47] Yeah. David Leary: [00:11:49] Number eight is your answer to that other question of the why, why, why? There's a disconnect between the the employers and the employees. Blake Oliver: [00:11:59] Oh, employers and employers and employees are out of touch with each other. Yeah. Um, 28% of employers said they never ask their employees what they most value. Well, if you don't ask, you won't know. And you won't be able to help them out. Dang. Um, what do employees value? Career advancement paths and opportunities is listed as one of the most attractive benefits in employer. But half of employers don't communicate defined advancement paths for employees. That was my experience in public accounting. There was this totally ambiguous path to partner. And so it was sort of just like, hang out, hang out for a while and you'll find out. Um, job hopping is a myth. So most employees are staying with their employers for 1 to 3 years. 44% are staying 1 to 3 years, 36% stay between 4 and 6 years, and 18% stay seven years or longer, and just 2% leave within their first year. So accountants are actually good or not job hoppers. David Leary: [00:13:01] The first sentence intends striking, surprising. According to their findings, 64% of employers have increased employee compensation in the last two years. For sake of argument, it's only half, so only half of people that are enrolling or employing accountants, only half have raised the compensation. You said. Blake Oliver: [00:13:21] It's 64%. David Leary: [00:13:22] Well, yeah. For argument's sake, 64 is like, well you're closer to half than it is 80% or 100%. I would say. Blake Oliver: [00:13:29] Let's say two thirds, two. David Leary: [00:13:30] Thirds. Blake Oliver: [00:13:31] So here's the here's what's misleading about that is that the salary increases. How much were those. Probably just enough to keep up with inflation. Right. So it really is meaningless. It's like it's just keeping it steady. David Leary: [00:13:42] But but this tells me one third are not even keeping up with inflation at all. They're not even trying. Blake Oliver: [00:13:47] Yeah that's bad. And then only half have implemented flexible hours. But that's one of the things that employees value the most is the flexible hours. And a full 14% haven't made any changes to address the turnover challenge. So thank you to Illinois for sending that on over. We appreciate it Derek, over at the Illinois Society, hey, if you are listening and you are from a society and you do research like this, we want to see it. We want to share it with the world so you can send it to us. We are at the accounting podcast at earmarked me that email is the accounting podcast earmarked me and we love getting listener mail. We love getting voicemails. When we get voicemails, we often play them on the air. So send us your research. Send us your thoughts. Yeah. This thing about the increased workload for staff at higher leadership level is concerning to me. And it fits with this stat that I read a while ago that partners are actually working more hours than staff now. And put that into perspective. If you're a staff person and you are watching that partner working more hours than the staff, why would you want to become a partner? David Leary: [00:14:54] Yeah. You wouldn't. Yeah. The whole idea is to work extra hard to get a job where I have to work even harder. Blake Oliver: [00:15:00] Yeah, the whole point is that you move up in the organization and you work less. That's the. That's what it's supposed to be. It doesn't matter if you make more, because you're not going to have any time to spend the money. And Gen Z understands that. Slinky Dog, 75, says salary increases might be for new hires, not existing staff as well. Yes, and that's true when we see the range of salary increases. I think CPA trendlines reported that the increases were last year, something between like five and 14%. And if you only raised your starting staff salaries 5%, you just kept up with inflation. And they're more likely to be raising the salaries higher for the experienced staff who are more valuable to the organization. Boring accountant says when I talk to others outside of the accounting industry and there is no awareness of an accounting shortage, oh, there's no awareness of an accounting shortage outside of our profession, yeah, I agree. So what is the so what to having less accountants. How will it impact non accountants. Yeah, that's the thing, is that. Because the rest of us. Well, those who are left in the profession are not, are picking up the slack. There hasn't been a huge crisis that the outside world has perceived yet, but we could get there, right? Like it could get so bad that we have another Enron. And that's when people will start to pay attention, perhaps, and. David Leary: [00:16:24] They might be paying attention. Blake, I know I texted this to you, so last week I had some time in between, you know, picking up a kid. And I went to a bar that has a nice, like, patio. The weather's perfect right now in Tucson. And I was sitting there and I got accounting stickers on my laptop. And here is what the bartender asked me. She said, do you think we weren't even having a conversation? She just flat out asked it out of the blue. Do you think I is going to take jobs away from accountants? I'm like, are we at that level of mainstream now where people are thinking about this? And she's not an accountant? I asked her, are you an accountant? She's no, but she has a friend that's in photography that's using a lot of I. Yeah, tools. And she just connected the dots. So I thought that was kind of interesting that it's that con. And it was. I was the most shocked that she asked me that I was like, wow, this is not just us on our podcast talking about this anymore. Blake Oliver: [00:17:11] Did you clap back at her and ask her if she thinks bartenders are going to get automated by? David Leary: [00:17:15] Funny, I should have thought that. Blake Oliver: [00:17:17] I mean, they're working on those robot bartender. Uh, robots. David Leary: [00:17:22] They can make drinks, but they are slow. Have you ever been to a conference where they have one of these on display? They are just so slow. Blake Oliver: [00:17:28] It'll get faster. They'll figure it out. Um, this chart here, I just want to highlight for everyone. Why do employees resign? Top reasons seeking more work life balance. Wanting to avoid fewer hours, avoid burnout, and then salary. So, like there's real options here. Remote work is actually only half of the work life balance. So the option here if you're an employer is give your people more. Flexible hours. Let them choose their own hours. They don't need to be sitting in that chair with you, looking over their shoulder to get work done. I mean, some people do, but you just don't hire those people. So. David Leary: [00:18:07] So we know plenty of modern, forward thinking firms. Many of them listen to this podcast and they're solving all those pain points for their teams. Yes. Like how do as a profession, how does the word about that get out more to accountants going into the profession at universities? Because right now everything is the stories. Everybody hears the go to work at audit and you're going to burn out, right? Like how do they discover all these other opportunities? You know, I don't know, but. Blake Oliver: [00:18:35] I don't have an answer to that. If you know and you're listening, let us know. Shoot us an email. The accounting podcast at earmarked me. We should make a list of firms that offer flexible work environments. I set up. David Leary: [00:18:46] A little website in another table, like like like accounting jobs you might want to have. And we'll just list those firms. Yeah. Blake Oliver: [00:18:53] Let's keep going. Um, here's a study that I saw. Accounting rules in the supply of accountants. This is fascinating to me. This was published on Ssrn.com. This is by Anthony Li from Columbia University. David Leary: [00:19:09] What is ssrn.com what is. Blake Oliver: [00:19:11] I it's I don't know what it actually stands for. It's an e-journal site. Okay. Uh, for like, academic papers. So this is, you know, like a real study, academic study. Right? Anthony Li explored the role that accounting rules, in particular the restrictiveness of GAAP, have played in the declining supply of accountants. He finds that when exposure to Restrictiveness is high, there are fewer students majoring in accounting, fewer CPA exam candidates, and fewer accountants and auditors. Overall, the overall demand for accountants does not decrease when exposure to Restrictiveness is higher. However, the nature of the demand for accountants changes. There is less focus on tasks such as applying judgment, thinking creatively and thinking critically, and more focused on determining compliance. Despite the decrease in the number of accountants, earnings for accountants do not increase and the wage distribution becomes more compressed. Basically, he has studied this and found that gap becoming more restrictive, more rules based, has reduced the supply of accountants because people don't want to do that. People don't want to work jobs. Where they're just following a bunch of rules. So here's a solution to the accounting talent crisis is actually to simplify GAAP and make it make it more, uh, creative in the sense that it's not just following a zillion rules, you know, like least accounting and ASC 606 and all this crazy stuff that FASB has been doing over the last decades, like take accounting back to its roots, where you could actually use discretion as an accountant, and you could generate financial statements that actually make sense. You're not just following a bunch of rules. So I think this is fascinating. I've never seen anything like this, and I hope that the leaders in our profession will pay attention to this like it's regulation. In many ways, I think that's killing the profession too much. Regulation, right. David Leary: [00:21:12] Regulation around so much headache, you're like, forget it, I'll do something else. Yeah. And it's not enjoyable. You're right. Because and you've said this at conferences where like there's actual accounting happening, you're like, that's accounting. All the other stuff is not accounting. Right. And if people fall in love with accounting and the art of accounting. Blake Oliver: [00:21:30] I encourage all of our listeners to read the book, uh, The End of Accounting by Baruch Lev, who has done research into this and found that financial statements are just not that useful to investors anymore. It accounts for like less than 14% of their decision making because GAAP has not modernized. It's too inflexible. It's a bunch of rules, and it doesn't describe businesses based on intangible assets very well. So think about it this way. If investors aren't using financial statements, that means all this work we're doing to generate financial statements has less value. Therefore, accountants make less money, right? You have to deliver value to make money. So that's why salaries have stagnated, because what we're doing is just not that useful. When was the last time any of you read the GAAP financial statements before making an investment decision? If you go to a conference, even when you ask all the people that have all the experience, the. David Leary: [00:22:21] People making the statements are not. Blake Oliver: [00:22:22] The people that supposedly know what all this stuff means. They don't even read the financial statements. So the same thing with audits, right? If the financial statements aren't that useful, what is the use is the audit. And then audits have become commoditized and check the box activities. So there's your problem. If we actually want to solve the accounting talent crisis, we have to get to the root of the problem, which is. Accounting just has to be modernized. The language is is if accounting is the language of business, GAAP is Latin. David Leary: [00:22:52] Well, just in time. Phatsby is announced. Uh, some new rules. I don't know if you saw that this week for cryptocurrencies held by. Tell me about it. So previously, remember if you had cryptocurrency on your balance sheet examples Tesla had a lot. And so it was it MicroStrategy. Those guys were like all in on the the Bitcoin and the Ethereum. And but you never could adjust it. You had to leave it at whatever you paid for it. So now um, they're going to change to fair value. And so now you can period period adjust that and flow that through the uh, net income and recognize both the gains and the losses of that crypto over time. Um, this takes effect for fiscal years that start after December 15th, 2024, which means for 2025 calendar year end companies, they can choose to follow the rules ahead of the actual deadline, which I think was in 2027. So more rules. But at some level, like your argument is also like modernize things. At least this is kind of catching up a little bit. Yeah, it's a little bit modern. It feels modern. Blake Oliver: [00:23:55] I guess it took them too long to do it though, right? Like, how long have we had crypto? David Leary: [00:24:00] Well, I think that was the shocking part. It's still like three more years before, like you have to do this. Blake Oliver: [00:24:06] Uh, all right. Let's talk about let's talk about tax season. The IRS is expanding their modernization efforts for technology. The new IRS Business Tax Accounts tool, which allows you to log into a portal and to access information and submit documents. Amazing. We finally have a way to submit documents to the IRS outside of snail mail and fax. It's a world changing technology here. Well, the good news is that that tool, um, which was previously only available to sole proprietors with an Ein now is available to individual partners of partnerships and individual shareholders of S Corporation businesses. They can also access a business tax account. The information and features that will be available to you depend on the business type and your role in the business. Sole proprietors with an Ein can view their business balance, due tax records, business name and address on file and select digital notices. They can also request a tax compliance check and register for clean energy credits. David Leary: [00:25:09] Does it have I mean, did it mention about having, uh, a team use case? Or I can invite my accountant to also log in on my behalf or. Blake Oliver: [00:25:17] Uh, I, I don't see that here right in what I'm looking at, but I think that was something that was. It is possible, like you can do the power of attorney thing now on this portal, or soon we'll be able to um, and that's going to be a welcome change. As somebody who has recently had to fax an Ein application into the IRS because the online tool wasn't working, this is a welcome change. David Leary: [00:25:43] I think I saw this week about eins, about how it's taking too long. Blake Oliver: [00:25:47] They were well, yeah. So the I saw that article too. And it's all related to this FinCEN thing, uh, which we should talk about because it's kind of absurd what is going on with FinCEN right now. So so it takes it can take a while to get an Ein. Like in my case, I couldn't use the online tool for whatever reason. I think it's because I have created too many businesses recently. And so, you know, like they they made me fax it in and then I had problems. So I had to fax back and forth and figure out what the issue was and all that stuff. And my, my tax accountant had to call in and sort it out. And so that's a problem because if FinCEN requires you to report your beneficial ownership, this whole new beneficial ownership information report like within 30 days, and you don't have an Ein yet, you can't report. So then you're in violation. And there's these, you know, significant fines and even potential jail time if you don't comply with this FinCEN rule. So that's an issue. But I think the bigger issue is that FinCEN, as we record, it's December 20th and this new rule, this new this new reporting requirement goes into effect January 1st for new businesses. And the form still isn't available. The actual form that you fill out. Is not yet available. How is this possible that like. David Leary: [00:27:04] For delays right. They want to try to possibly postpone or delay. And AICPA. Blake Oliver: [00:27:09] Is pushing for a delay to this whole requirement for like a. David Leary: [00:27:13] My understanding it's still not hashed out perfectly and it could roll out here on the first. All these new problems arise and they're going to probably change it three, four, five times during this year. This whole thing. Blake Oliver: [00:27:24] Is going to be a gigantic show, if you ask me, because something like 30 million businesses are now required to file this report. Now, the existing businesses don't have to do it until 2025, I think the end of 2024. But new businesses have to do it. And there's lots of new businesses created every single day. So we'll see. I don't know, maybe it'll just become a giant. You know, cluster. And then there will be a delay or something like that. But I just can't believe that we're we're. 13 days. We're two weeks out from this new filing requirement, and the form is not available. And there's like no online portal available. Like, are they really going to get this done before January 1st? Yeah. David Leary: [00:28:10] And Twitter is very hard now to use in general. So I feel like I miss things. But I and it's hard to like review what happened. But apparently there's a big, big argument. People want two sides of the fence on this on tax Twitter I guess this week. Um, about what about firms should be dealing with this, not dealing with this. Oh yeah. Blake Oliver: [00:28:28] That's the crazy thing. Yeah. The lawyers don't want to do it. The the accountants don't want to do it. So who's going to do this thing? I'm actually in the camp of like, figure out how to do this for your clients, especially if you're doing accounting. Outsourcing accounting work like this is a perfect opportunity. To me. It's like a lot like 1099 reporting. You could totally productize this service, do it for your clients. And if you're worried about it taking up too much of your time, just charge enough money for it, right? David Leary: [00:28:52] Like like like $1,300 an hour. Blake Oliver: [00:28:56] Well, I've seen, um, there's some, like, technology startups, which I don't know how much technology they're actually using, but they're basically, you know, like Productized boy reporting startups that are saying $300 a year for your boy report, and then it will handle the initial filing and then the changes if you need to, like, update it. And I'm like, hey, you know, if you have 100 clients that need boy reporting and you charge them $300 a year, I think you could staff that. Now, the question is unauthorized practice of law. How do you get around that? And I think there's lots of ways you could get around that. Like push that determination back on the client. Don't make that determination yourself and just facilitate the filing. I don't understand why CPAs are so worked up about this, and I'm a CPA and maybe I just am not conservative enough or not risk averse enough, but I feel like honestly, when I look at these discussions on these threads, like on the Arizona Society forums and online, and I see CPAs who are like, you know, worrying about this, I say, like, do you want to make money? Like, are you interested in making profits in your firm or not? David Leary: [00:30:07] And I think the real service here, if somebody could solve it, is yes, you have to do the reporting, but it's the tracking. To know when to report is the difficulty. Because if you have a partnership, there's 12 partners, right? Yeah. Uh, somebody's always either selling a house and moving or getting divorced and had a name change. And like, how do you keep track of that to know, to file the new reports. And that's that's where the money is if you can, if you can solve. I have a. Blake Oliver: [00:30:32] Solution for you, David. I have a solution for everyone. Okay. You set up a process in your firm where you sign people up for this, right? That's some sort of web form. It can just be a web form. Right now you've got this spreadsheet of clients, our babysitting service. David Leary: [00:30:47] You're going to sign up for that. Blake Oliver: [00:30:48] Right boy babysitter I like that okay. So every month you sign somebody in the firm, right? This is their job. Every month you go through that sheet and you collect all of the emails for all of the partners, for all of these entities as well. Right. And every month, every 30 days, you send an email out to the entire list and you say, has any of this information changed for you? If so, let us know. And I have a link to a form to fill it out to change it. And then you've covered. You've sired right? And you. David Leary: [00:31:23] Charge extra if they don't fill it out in a timely fashion, well, if they don't fill it out in. Blake Oliver: [00:31:27] A timely fashion, they're the ones who are going to deal with the penalties. Right? And you just make sure that the engagement letter for the service or the terms of service, which is a better thing to use, you know, covers you in this case. Now you got to make sure that your insurance covers this thing too, right? Which is why it's better not to be a CPA firm, actually, and to just be a service provider, because if you're a CPA firm now, your insurance companies, you know, all up on you about this stuff. But like, I really don't, I just don't maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see the huge risk in doing this. Brenda says, I agree, I don't know why all the fretting. There could be automated emails with formstack or something. Exactly. Brenda, we're on the same page here. I don't, I don't I don't understand the accounting profession sometimes. Like, do you want to make money or not? David Leary: [00:32:11] And then again, here's more rules and regulations that people have to follow. Then people are like, forget it, it's too much headache. I want out, right. Blake Oliver: [00:32:18] I guess so. Let's talk about fraud. Let's do a fraud story. These are always fun. Former Jaguars employee and accused of stealing over $22 million. Your football fan, David. David Leary: [00:32:31] Um, my kid found that article and texted it to me. He's like, sell this to deal my fraud. Guys, they should cover this. And I want to get credit for discovering the story. That's what he told me. Blake Oliver: [00:32:40] A former Jacksonville Jaguars financial employee is accused of stealing more than 22 million from the franchise over a four year period by manipulating its virtual credit card program, according to documents filed this week in US District Court. This was written by Michael Dirocco. He's an ESPN staff writer and this appeared on ESPN.com. So this is a new one for me. Virtual credit card program. Let's let's dig into this and see how this happened. Did did your son, by the way, explain to you how this happened, David. No, because then he'd get points. David Leary: [00:33:14] Yes. And we could have brought him on to explain it to the listeners. And so when they say virtual credit cards, this is kind of like you would spin up with, um, uh, well, relays, more debit cards, but, uh, I think Ram and. Blake Oliver: [00:33:27] Expense management, a. David Leary: [00:33:28] Lot of those platforms that you spin up virtual. Blake Oliver: [00:33:30] Yeah, yeah. So you get you well, let's, let's read what happened in the article and then see if we can figure it out. So, um, in the charges, it says that the individual was a former manager of financial planning and analysis. So not in accounting in finance, who took advantage of his trusted position to covertly and intentionally commit significant fraudulent financial activity at the team's expense for personal benefit. He used the money for purchases that include a condominium in, uh, is it Ponte Vedra? Ponte Vedra Beach? He bought a Tesla model three sedan cryptocurrency chartering, private jets, luxury hotel stays, a country club membership, and luxury wristwatch watches. Well, that's a big mistake, as you will learn if you listen to the Oh My Fraud podcast. The one thing you should not do if you steal $22 million is conspicuous consumption of such fraudulently obtained funds. Um. Patel became the sole administrator in October 2019 of the Jaguars Vvc program, which is a payment method that functions like a traditional credit card account but without a physical credit card. Certain employees were allowed to use the VCC program for business related purchases and expenses. Patel is accused of duplicating legitimate expenses in an electronic ledger, inflating amounts of legitimate transactions and entering fictitious transactions, and then using the money for personal purchases. So there's the other mistake sole administrator. David Leary: [00:34:58] Of entering the bills and paying the bills. That's basically what he's doing. He's creating fake bills. He creates this fake credit card and pays it off. Blake Oliver: [00:35:04] Such simple mistakes, internal controls, lack of internal controls, not having separation of duties and not having multiple administrators and probably not having notifications of these purchases going to somebody else, even even just having a notification. Right. Ah well, how are the Jaguars doing this year, David? David Leary: [00:35:24] Uh, I think they're doing okay. Okay. They're gonna make the playoffs. I think they're doing okay. I think the, uh, they're all owned by billionaires. So people probably because that's that justification of doing. That's one of the fraud triangles, right? Yes. Justification. Yeah. There's a billionaire. He's not going to care if I spend some of this money. I don't even know where it was. But like, it might have been like a Instagram Reels or something. Something flew by and somebody was talking about it was financial crime related, and somebody was like, you should always hire dumb employees that can never figure out how to steal from you. You just just get dumb employees. And then nobody, like they might try to steal like five bucks, but they're not going to be able to commit millions of dollars of fraud against you. They'll never. The thing that worries. Blake Oliver: [00:36:06] Me is that the frauds that we hear about are so dumb. I wonder how many frauds that are smart we just never hear about because those people just never get caught. David Leary: [00:36:12] Really smart people. Blake Oliver: [00:36:13] Yes. Yeah, that's what I want to know. Uh, speaking of fraud, remember. Remember that startup called Nikola the Electric? Uh. Or was it, like, hydrogen powered truck company? David Leary: [00:36:27] Okay. Blake Oliver: [00:36:28] You remember them? Trevor Milton, the founder of Nikola. Is getting four years in prison for deceptions on his zero-emission trucks. So this was quite a brazen fraud. And I don't know if this was like before Theranos or during Theranos, but it's very similar in, in the, um, in the sense that, like, there never was a working product and, and the, the thing you might have have heard about was the advertisement they did like a, a highlight reel or like some sort of promo video for these trucks where they push the truck down a hill. They had to they push the truck down a hill to make it look like the truck was driving on its own. Yeah. Um, prosecutors had sought 11 years. He said that the company's zero emission truck prototype was drivable when it wasn't. Milton said Nikola was equipped to produce the necessary hydrogen to power the trucks when it wasn't, and he boasted that the company had a long list of sales orders, many to companies that didn't exist. Milton, speaking through tears during a three hour hearing in Manhattan, told the judge that his statements about the company referred to its business model. Quote, I did not intend to harm anyone and I did not commit those crimes, unquote, he said during a rambling 30 minute statement. He's been ordered to pay a $1 million fine and forfeit a property in Utah where he's from. I just. I just like you, only get four years, right? He gets four years for this massive fraud where he defrauded investors. Right. And like the guy could after four years, the guy could just live another life, basically. It doesn't seem like. Doesn't seem like the consequences are really that great. I mean, I know four years is a long time, but he's only 41. David Leary: [00:38:22] Yeah. I mean, if you get to if you think about a fraud like this for three, 4 or 5 years, you still just live it up, man. Blowing money on stuff, living on the beach, you get caught, you serve your time. Four years later, you you kind of go back to normal life. I don't know, it's crazy. But you're again though he he lost. Blake Oliver: [00:38:40] So his fraud lost investors $660 million, which under federal sentencing guidelines could mean 60 years in prison. But the prosecutors only pushed for 11 and the guy only got four. Well. David Leary: [00:38:53] I don't think penalties in general ever fit the crimes anymore. Like, did you see PwC? And I don't want to talk. It feels like every week it's another cheating scandal. But PwC agrees to pay 1.45 million to settle with a CPA Ontario because they were exam cheating. Again, the. Blake Oliver: [00:39:08] Ethics exam cheating scandal. David Leary: [00:39:09] Like it's just it's just like the penalties just are nothing. It's. Blake Oliver: [00:39:15] Yeah. So basically, um, the lesson here is that if you want to commit a massive fraud on the public markets, like he took a company public and then he continued to lie about it. Um, you can and you'll just go to jail for a few years, and then you'll get out and you'll be, uh, you'll be fine. So, like. David Leary: [00:39:36] And this, like, rewinds everything about the profession and audit. How does a company go all the way to being public. Blake Oliver: [00:39:43] And not get caught. David Leary: [00:39:44] And not like, how does this. Blake Oliver: [00:39:46] Like, like, yeah. David Leary: [00:39:47] Is everybody in the in the, in the game. Everybody getting a piece of the action like this doesn't make any sense. Blake Oliver: [00:39:53] Doesn't have to. David Leary: [00:39:53] Have audited financial statements to even go apply to go public. I uh it doesn't make any sense how it can get to that far without anybody calling it out. Blake Oliver: [00:40:03] Moving on. Here's another stat. That caught my attention 64% 64% of employees waste hours due to lack of deadlines. And I immediately thought, that's not the accounting profession. We've got plenty of deadlines. But then I thought, actually, maybe, maybe this does apply to us. But before I do that, let's dig into this stat more. This is a survey of 300 full time, US based professionals by work management platform slingshot. 64% of the employees surveyed said they lose up to two hours a week because they lack deadlines. About a quarter said their productivity was also affected when they were unsure of which tasks and projects should be prioritized. And I thought to myself, well, we have lots of deadlines in accounting, so that can't possibly be the problem. But then I also thought, well, if the only thing you're working toward is, say, the April 15th deadline or the September or the October deadlines, then it could be a problem. Because if every return is the same priority, then it's really hard to know what to work on, you know? And um, so maybe that's something that accounting firms can work on, right? Is like set set weekly goals and due dates instead of just having a massive pile of work that has to get done. David Leary: [00:41:27] Yeah, well, I think due dates also contribute to not improving things if you're constantly driven by a due date. I had to get this done because it's due Friday, and then next thing you know, it's next week and this is due Friday, you never get a chance to step back and. Um, improve the process or get better at something or, um, be more efficient because you're just always under the gun with those deadlines. And you're right. And it's worse when it's all one deadline date. And so hence what we've talked about before for firms immediately file extensions for every single return and then just spread out that work. Spread out the work. Yeah. Blake Oliver: [00:42:01] That's what we see. Uh, the, the leading firms doing. And if you think your clients won't put up with that, fire them because you have leverage to do that. So do it. I got some Big Four news. E is laying off US partners amid tough economic conditions, as reported in the Wall Street Journal. Can you imagine if you spent 17 years? Working to make partner at EA. And then you got laid off. Wow. Now, to be fair, this is mainly on the advisory side of the US Operation consulting, not audit. Not tax. It's affecting over 10% of partners and consulting and about 4% in strategy and transactions. That's a lot. The layoffs follow Eli's decision in April to let go of 3000 US employees, or less than 5% of its US workforce. The firm began notifying effective affected partners last week, with the process expected to continue this week. David Leary: [00:43:08] And some part of me is thinking like, why should it matter if they're a partner or not? Because I think about tech and I think of other companies, or let's go to the auto industry. And if. Maybe you're managing that plant and they stop producing that car. Nobody wants to buy your gas powered automobile anymore, Blake, for whatever reason. And they shut down that one plant because you've worked your way up in your senior manager, a VP of that plant or location. You're going to lose your job. I mean, like, why should it not be true for accountants and partners either? I mean, I agree, like, yes, if you worked really hard to get there, it sucks, but I don't I don't see an issue with this per se. Like I'm sure partners that were running good divisions probably didn't get laid off. Blake Oliver: [00:43:50] Some positive news about EA. They named. As their CEO, the first female global CEO of a big four firm. Janet. Uh, is it Truncale? I'm going to say Truncale. I could be totally wrong. And I apologize to E and to Janet if that is the case. Yes. She's the first woman to lead a big four audit firms international network. She will assume her role on July 1st, succeeding Carmen de Sibio, the leader of the failed Project Everest, which aimed to split the consulting and, uh, audit teams into different firms. Her most recent position was as regional managing partner for Aei's financial services organization in the Americas, overseeing 14,000 professionals. David Leary: [00:44:43] Did you see that the IRS is going to? Reorg at the highest leadership levels. Blake Oliver: [00:44:49] I did not, so. David Leary: [00:44:51] Previously they always just had. Two deputy commissioners. And that gets a little gray of like who's role is what. So now they're going to move to a one deputy commissioner and have four chief positions. So they're going to have somebody overseeing taxpayer service tax compliance, information technology and operations. So now it's very clear who's in charge of what and how they roll up. Um, hopefully that's more efficient. And we will we will see, you know, but I think that's a it's a good first step by, uh, Danny Wuerffel to move on with this. Blake Oliver: [00:45:22] The new commissioner. Well, here's something that's very timely, uh, with what's going on in the Middle East. I have, uh, been very reluctant to dive into any of that on our show because it's such a hot button topic, but there is a accounting finance angle to this. There was an article in the New York Times last week, and the headline is Israel Found the Hamas Money Machine. Years ago. Nobody turned it off. In 2018, Israeli security officials obtained secret documents detailing a private equity fund used by Hamas to finance its operations. The documents revealed assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars, including companies in Sudan, properties in the United Arab Emirates and Algeria, and a real estate firm listed on the Turkish Stock Exchange. And this is what shocked me is the amount of money that Hamas, a terrorist organization. Controlled. It's like half $1 billion. Or it was anyway, at its peak. So that's how they were able to finance. What happened recently. Half $1 billion of assets, and the United States knew about it and Israel knew about it. Tens of millions of dollars were flowing from these companies to Hamas, aiding in the build up of its military infrastructure. The New York Times says that Israeli and American officials failed to prioritize the financial intelligence they had, instead focusing on financial sanctions against Iran. Israeli leaders believe that Hamas was more interested in governing than fighting, a belief that contributed to the lack of action against the group's financial network. So they allowed. Hamas to have the financial resources, thinking that they weren't going to use this for a terrorist attack, perhaps. And then they did. David Leary: [00:47:23] Yeah. Because. Because by having these financial resources in this private secure, you're trying to look, we're being legit. We're trying to play by the rules of all of society. And then. Yeah, so and so so so they were given a little bit of trust then. Blake Oliver: [00:47:36] Well and I'm not I'm not totally up on all the geopolitics of this whole situation. But I have heard, um, like one of the arguments I've heard about, um, who's the who's the prime minister of Israel right now? Who's the leader? Uh, what's his name? Benjamin Netanyahu. Right. Yeah. God, it's like I'm a child again. Because he was like prime minister when I was a kid. Or is he president? Whatever he is like, his strategy was to divide. The Palestinians by keeping Hamas in power in the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian Authority in power in the West Bank. That obviously backfired. But I find it, regardless of where you stand on this issue, I find this financial aspect fascinating. And it goes like this, this, this trend, this is not unique to this situation. Um, bin laden. Osama bin laden built up a huge. A huge asset base that allowed him to finance his operations too, and we knew about it. So a lot of this stuff that happens in the world, like The Killing, it's often. Preceded by financial buildup because how else to finance it? So I feel like our intelligence organizations and our politicians like, fail in this regard to stop this. David Leary: [00:49:02] And this reminds me of, uh, George Clooney. And when we were expensive con and his, his, his organization because that's kind of what they do is they go after the bad guys. And he realized the only way to really get them is to take their money away. Yeah. Blake Oliver: [00:49:14] Yep, yep. David Leary: [00:49:16] You can't shame them for the murders. That doesn't work. Blake Oliver: [00:49:19] No. Um. So since we're talking about politics, David, you had your mouth open, so it sounds like you want to. David Leary: [00:49:26] I was gonna I was gonna go to a lighter story, but let's knock out this politics story and then we'll go to. Blake Oliver: [00:49:31] Well, I was going to jump to Hunter Biden since since we're all knock. David Leary: [00:49:34] It out, go for it. You might as well just do it and just get it out. Get it out. Blake Oliver: [00:49:37] Since we might be, uh, you know, we might be irritating people might as well get it all out of the way. Um, so so Hunter Biden got indicted, and I thought this would be an interesting use for I, because I don't want to read the whole, you know, indictment document. And I also don't want to just read the biased news coverage of it. So I took the PDF of the indictment and I asked. Claude I to provide an executive summary of the document in plain English. I said, I'm a CPA. You are a helpful legal assistant. Provide an executive summary of this document in plain English. I am particularly interested in any accounting or tax issues. And here's the main allegations as summarized by I. Biden earned substantial income from various sources, like serving on boards in Ukraine and China, but did not pay all of the taxes he owed. He owed around $1.4 million in federal income taxes over four years, but engaged in a scheme to not pay them. He subverted the normal payroll withholding process that his company used to pay taxes by taking money directly out that avoided tax withholding. So he just took distributions. David Leary: [00:50:46] That's reasonable compensation, right? Yeah. Like he avoided that. Okay. Yeah. Blake Oliver: [00:50:51] Um, despite owing large tax bills, Hunter Biden spent lavishly on luxury lifestyle with money that could have paid his taxes. This included drugs, escorts, expensive real estate rentals, exotic cars, hotels, clothing, etc. and in 2019 to 2020, when he was facing contempt of court in two civil lawsuits, he finally filed his late tax returns for like 3 or 4, uh, 16, 17, 18, three years. But he did not pay over $1 million owed. And then there's an allegation of false deductions. And. I asked. I was curious, what are these deductions that he claimed? Because those are always the fun ones in the indictments. Like what did he actually spend this money on that he should have paid his taxes with? Uh. So he claimed in 2018 388,000in business travel expenses. The government alleges that Biden did very little true business travel that year and instead claimed luxury hotel stays and personal trips as business deductions. No, no surprise there. We've all had clients that do that. Wages slash payroll expenses for women. He had relationships with Hunter Biden, allegedly put several women he had romantic relationships with on his company payroll and paid them salaries and benefits, then deducted this from his company's taxes despite them doing no work. David Leary: [00:52:11] Well, what if she had a financial expertise, like your first story earlier in the episode? Like she could provide some financial guidance? Blake Oliver: [00:52:19] Or maybe you could make the argument that sleeping with Hunter Biden is, uh, is a job. Luxury car rentals and housing for girlfriend's expenses like luxury car rentals. When he first moved to California and house rentals for a girlfriend were allegedly falsely claimed as business deductions, extravagant hotel stays, he stayed in hotel suites in locations like Beverly Hills and Las Vegas, claimed that his business travel government says it was personal indulgence, false consulting expenses. He he categorized. He allegedly categorized wire transfers to women, providing personal services and funds spent at a sex club as consulting fees for his business. So and then family expenses, tuition for his daughters, law school rent for his daughters, New York City apartment, and his personal life insurance premiums were allegedly falsely stated as business deductions. So if true. If true, man. David Leary: [00:53:13] So? So if all guilty. What does he wind up owing? What's the total here? Blake Oliver: [00:53:17] Well, he. It's like $1 million, but again, like with penalties. And I mean, you can go to jail for this. David Leary: [00:53:22] So, so as an expert witness, your services to the to be engaged could be worth a good hundred grand to be an expert witness about how these are business expenses. Possibly. Maybe there might be a good racket here for some PhD business professor or accounting professor somewhere to make a quick hundred grand. Blake Oliver: [00:53:41] All right, David, I'm gonna let you close things out here. David Leary: [00:53:43] We got a few more. I gave you a clip, and I'm gonna have you play this in a moment. Um, so there's a this article I found on no film school. Com. And it kind of really reminded me of you a little bit. Blake. Right. Like you were not in accounting, and you had to get some skill sets here. And so there's a new film called All Sorts, and it's about a data entry worker that's working to depress windows 98 era cubicle office. Maybe like a lot of current accounting firms, I don't know. Right. Um, so the writer director wrote an article and I'm going to tell you about the article in a moment. But why don't you play? I have a little clip of him talking about his background. And this is what reminded me of you. Speaker3: [00:54:21] Los Angeles I found out that it's really hard to get a job in film, and so I worked in all these different office jobs, had a lot of data entry jobs where all you're doing is entering numbers from one spreadsheet into another spreadsheet, and then faxing it back to somewhere. I was writing all of these office stories where something magical happens. I think I've always been drawn to these magical, surreal office environments, and that's what became the basis for all sorts. David Leary: [00:54:46] So so so so you wrote this movie and this actually looks kind of fun. Uh, be interesting to watch. But his blog post is amazing. So he wrote a blog post and the title is called the 73 spreadsheets. You'll need to Finish Your Feature Film. So he's a he's a movie director and he talks about his top learnings A things you probably don't have to learn. Pivot tables be things you wish for. They were useful, but probably aren't pie charts and then things you're most likely going to have to learn formulas. And then he goes on and he lists all these spreadsheets and from pre-production, right. You need your the team. You're going to work with, the investors, your budget and any screenshots and puts these oh, cool items in the blog post here. Blake Oliver: [00:55:30] Wow. David Leary: [00:55:31] And contacts, casting contracts, even post-production social media posts, um, editing, visual effects, uh, the distribution everything. Film festivals, everything. Now. Yes, arguably it's using a spreadsheet like a database, but a lot of people do because it's so versatile. But it reminds me of some discussions I've had with my. My wife's a counselor at high school, and she talks. She's always telling kids, you need to learn regardless of anything. You need to learn Google Sheets or Excel because you see this happen a lot. Um, political. If you ever do political volunteering, Blake, it tends to be a very senior crowd that's involved in that. Yeah, and none of them can use a spreadsheet. But most of the things like the door to door knocking list campaigns, phone call campaigns and politics is all like a CSV file or a spreadsheet or a Google sheet, and they just can't use them. So there's just like a when we think about the accounting profession in general, like spreadsheets have got to now be common common taught in school. Blake Oliver: [00:56:28] Now this is amazing. I did not realize that it was so many spreadsheets to make a movie. I mean, just look at this. We've got, uh, there's 12 PR marketing spreadsheets. There are. Oop. I keep moving around here. 20 pre-production spreadsheets, including budget spreadsheets, uh, production spreadsheets, post spreadsheets, crowdfunding spreadsheets. Distribution spreadsheets. So a lot of this isn't finance, but it's like project management makes me wonder, like, why hasn't somebody created an app for this yet? David Leary: [00:57:04] Well, I think that's the bed of Airtable and all of those ones that are letting it spreadsheets be kind of a hyper database. But at the end of the day, this is probably one of the biggest uses of Excel is people use project management. Project management. Yeah. Blake Oliver: [00:57:17] Well, and you know, the reason nobody has made an app is because there's no money in independent films. There you go. But maybe I could could manage this someday. Well, David, that's all the time we have this week. If our listeners want to follow you online, where can they do that? David Leary: [00:57:34] I'm on all the socials just @DavidLeary. Blake Oliver: [00:57:37] I am @BlakeTOliver follow me on LinkedIn. That's my favorite place these days. Now that Twitter, now known as X, has become a dumpster fire. And I really am not just saying that because it's popular to say like I find my feed has gotten like much worse. Um, so I don't know what they're doing over there, but they're really messing it up. So LinkedIn is my new home and send us an email. The accounting podcast at earmarked me. Subscribe to us on YouTube, find out what we look like. Maybe you'll be surprised. We've had some people say, Blake, I thought your voice was David's. And they've said, David, I thought your voice was Blake's. And don't forget, it's CPE season. It's the most wonderful time of the year. You can earn free CPE for listening to this show. If you are listening to me right now, and you made it all the way through this episode, you're due one continuing professional education credit. Download the earmark app. Find our show on the app. You can verify you already listened. Take a five question quiz and get a CPE certificate. And you can do that for free every single week. And if you want to support our work at earmark, you can subscribe for, uh, at this point, $130 a year. David Leary: [00:58:45] And that is a business expense. That's a valid business expense. Blake Oliver: [00:58:48] That is a valid business expense. Yes, it's it's very valid. And, um. David Leary: [00:58:58] I don't want us to be in some news article. One day, they spent $130 on lavish things like earmark. Blake Oliver: [00:59:05] And we have a special bonus interview for you. Uh, we just spoke with AICPA Sue Coffey and Lexi Kessler from the National Pipeline Advisory Group. This is the committee the AICPA set up to come up with a plan to solve the accounting talent crisis, and we got both of them on for half an hour, spoke in depth about the committee and what they're doing. And it's a great interview. Go find that on the accounting podcast feed. Take a listen and let us know what you think. All right. Thanks, everyone for joining us. Uh, great to see you and happy New Year. Merry Christmas. [00:59:44] See you around.