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Signing a deal that makes anyone a net profit participant in a Hollywood movie deal has always been a sucker’s bet. In an era where studios have all but eliminated first dollar gross and invited talent to share the risk and potential rewards, guess what? Net profit deals are still a sucker's bet. I was slipped a net profit statement (below) for Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix, the 2007 Warner Bros sequel. Though the film grossed $938.2 million worldwide, the accounting statement below conveys that the film is still over $167 million in the red.

Accounting basics: when a company experiences what accountants call "a material adverse impact" on its expected future earnings, and those changes affect an item that is already on the balance sheet, the company is required to record the negative impact--"to take the charge against earnings"--as soon as it knows that the change is reasonably likely to occur. This makes good accounting sense. The asset on the balance sheet is now less valuable, so you should record a charge. Otherwise, you'd be misleading investors. The Democrats, however, seem to believe that Generally Accepted Accounting Principles are some sort of conspiracy against...

* 3/17/10 at 10:58 AM Former Lehman Executives ‘Giggle’ at ‘Nonprofessionals’ Who Think Losing Billions of Dollars Is a Big Deal How do you think former Lehman Brothers executives felt about the recently released report on the firm's failure that reveals, among other things, the firm used a weird accounting practice known as "Repo 105" to move $50 billion of toxic mortgage assets off its books in order to make its balance sheet look healthier? Embarrassed? Regretful? Are they thinking to themselves Wow, in retrospect, that does look pretty bad. What were we thinking? Not really, no. This morning's Post...

One of Britain’s biggest companies could face legal action over the $700 billion collapse of Lehman Brothers, a scathing report revealed today. Accountancy giant Ernst & Young failed to challenge the book-keeping 'gimmicks' the American investment bank was using to stay afloat, according to report author Anton Velukas. He concludes that the British firm been 'negligent' and that Lehman could pursue claims against the firm for 'professional malpractice'. It is also revealed that one of the UK's leading law firms gave Lehman the green light to use the accountancy gimmick - known as 'Repo 105' - in the first place....

Next Tuesday is James Madison's birthday and National Freedom of Information Act Day, the high point of Sunshine Week celebrations of the public's right to know. Madison enshrined that right with the First Amendment's guarantee of an independent press. President Obama could use the occasion to strike a major blow for transparency with one simple directive: He could tell the Federal Housing Finance Agency to drop its nonsensical claim that it doesn't have to make public Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac documents, especially those concerning federal campaign contributions made on behalf of the two agencies in the years leading to...

Hello fellow DBA and other small business owners, I'm seeking advice about accounting software for small business operations. I've used Quickbooks for decades and I'm looking for a new application since my business has upgraded to Win-7, which is WOW btw. QB has become a tiresome and time consuming ordeal since the old school support has become a memory of the past. What app do you use and how long? Does it fare well with small DBA’? And any other input would be gratefully appreciated.

(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) says the Obama administration is using an accounting “gimmick” in its budget by not including the debt owed by mortgage firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. “The accounting gimmicks that are used today would make an Enron and WorldCom accountant blush,” Hensarling told reporters. “The American people know that under the policies of this administration—under the policies of this Congress—we are drowning in a sea of red i

Have not done this in a while and I know we all love it lol. I have been posting this every now and again, but don't believe I have seen one this year. :) Let's just have a fun post today.

Secretary Kathleen Sebelius discusses abortion coverage in the Senate health bill with a representative from BlogHer on December 21, 2009

... recent study, "Minorities in Tax 2010," conducted by TaxDiversity, a web site dedicated solely to issues of diversity in the accounting profession. Although some noticeable progress has been made between 2002 and 2008, "the accounting profession has made very limited strides in both attracting and advancing minorities within the field," the study finds. Among the study's key findings: * Overall, white people are exiting the tax profession at a faster rate than many other professions. * Even though the number of Blacks in the public accounting profession has increased by 25 percent between 2002 and 2008, they still only...

It took just five weeks after the WorldCom accounting scandal erupted in 2002 for Congress to pass, and President George W. Bush to sign, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. That... --snip-- The House Financial Services Committee this week approved an amendment to the Investor Protection Act of 2009 — a name George Orwell would appreciate — to allow most companies to never comply with the law, and mandating a study to see whether it would be a good idea to exempt additional ones as well. Some veterans of past reform efforts were left sputtering with rage. “That the Democratic Party is the...

Four thousand years ago, a government bureaucrat in Mesopotamia jotted down a tally of slave laborers on a clay tablet. The bureaucrat left behind the count in wedge-shaped symbols that proved hard to fully decipher with the naked eye. Until now. Researchers at the University of Southern California's West Semitic Research Project have helped uncover its hidden narrative with the aid of lighting and imaging techniques that are credited with revolutionizing the study of ancient texts. Over the last three decades, the USC project has produced thousands of crisp images of inscriptions and other artifacts from biblical Israel and other...

Vast Cache of Financial Papers Is Rich in Details One day in 1791, President George Washington received a bill for 60 pounds, 1 shilling and 7 pence from his physician friend James Craik, who regularly made the rounds at Mount Vernon. The invoice ran two pages: "Anodyne Pills for Breachy . . . Laxative Pills for Ruth . . . syphilic Pills for Maria . . . oz 1 Antiphlogistie Anodyne Tincture . . . Bleeding Charlotte . . . oz 4 Powdered Rhubarb . . . Extracting one of your Negroes tooth . . . a Mercurial Purge for...

The bankruptcy of Colonial Bank (CNB) was the largest bank-bankruptcy in the U.S. since several large, U.S. financial institutions collapsed last year – with the most recent being Washington Mutual, last fall. However, there is one huge difference between the mega-bankruptcies of last year and the collapse of Colonial Bank a week ago. During the large bank-failures of 2008, the acquiring institutions wrote-down the “assets” on the books of these banks by an average of 18% - according to a Bloomberg article. However, when BB&T Corp purchased Colonial, it immediately wrote-down Colonial's assets by 37%, double the amount of discounting...

Even beleaguered Ford Motors has found it easy to "make" money once again. It reported a $2.3 billion second-quarter profit...

If the government wants to spend money on a program — presuming it’s unwilling to simply roll the printing presses — it must choose between two ways of acquiring the needed funds. It can borrow the money, or it can raise it through taxation. Neither source is ideal. The disadvantage of raising taxes is obvious. The disadvantage of borrowing stems from markets taking notice, and — if you do it often and irresponsibly enough — punishing you for it.

The board that sets U.S. accounting standards on Thursday gave companies more leeway when valuing assets, providing a potential boost to battered banks' balance sheets. The independent Financial Accounting Standards Board voted to adopt new guidelines under the so-called mark-to-market accounting rules, which require companies to value assets at prices reflecting current market conditions. The board was meeting at its headquarters in Norwalk, Conn. The changes will allow the assets to be valued at what they would go for in an "orderly" sale, as opposed to a forced or distressed sale. The new guidelines will apply to the second quarter...

Accounting: a Narrative Art? If U.S. GAAP becomes principles-based, financial executives would do well to become students of Mother Goose. David M. Katz - CFO.com | US March 13, 2009 The move to a principles-based accounting system is likely to demand that corporate finance executives be good yarn-spinners, speakers at the annual CFO Rising conference said. A system less like the rules-based U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and more like the judgment-focused international financial reporting standards (IFRS) would draw more heavily on the narrative skills of finance executives, according to David Sherman, a professor of accounting at Northeastern University....

Top US lawmakers said Thursday that Congress would take action if accounting regulators and rulemakers failed to quickly improve the mark-to-market accounting standard that has forced banks to record billions of dollars in asset writedowns. "If the regulators and standard setters do not act now to improve the standards, then the Congress will have no other option than to act itself," Paul Kanjorski, the chairman of the US House capital markets subcommittee, told a hearing he called to examine the accounting standard. The Financial Accounting Standards Board is working on new guidance to help banks determine whether a market is...

We have been accused of beating a dead horse when it comes to our support for either suspension of, or targeted relief from, market-to-market accounting. And we suppose after writing thousands of words, producing videos and giving speeches about the issue, some might be tempted to let it go. But we can't do that, especially when the government continues to spend trillions of dollars and is coming very close to bank nationalization. Article Controls email print reprint newsletter comments (59) share del.icio.us Digg It! yahoo Facebook rss Yahoo! BuzzThis is a real shame. Suspending mark-to-market accounting could fix major problems...