Author: Tony Novak
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More warnings of crowdfunding fraud
“There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted, but now it happens to everybody”. Yesterday GrindTV ran an article about more crowdfunding fraud. Investment without responsible independent financial oversight leads to disaster. That’s why the accounting profession exists. Investors simply need a healthy dose of reality here. The most basic…
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Aetna oddities
News is emerging that Aetna attempted to strong-arm the U.S. Justice Department last month before pulling out of the individual health insurance exchanges. That doesn’t seem like a smart strategy under any circumstance and of course it did not work. I recall sitting in an Aetna corporate strategy presentation in the late 1980s and recognizing…
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CPA licensing issues
In the aftermath of my recent unplanned involvement in investigating CPA license reciprocity issues, state licensing and peer review requirements, I conclude four things: 1) The stated intention of the AICPA’s mobility project is largely usurped by the states that do not wish to lose control and revenue from the practice of accounting within their…
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Arizona small business crowdfunding
Arizona joined the growing number of states that allow small business equity crowdfunding within its borders on terms that do not violate federal securities laws. The state’s new small business crowdfunding law went into effect this month. FundMyBusinessAZ.com is a site that operates under a new law signed by the governor that paved the way for…
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Another reason to stay clear of GoFundMe
In a post titled “Fraud in Crowdfunding” I’ve written about the ridiculously high rate of fraud on GoFundMe campaigns. Some third-party evidence suggest that the majority of campaigns on that site involve some type of fraud, deception or mismanagement. The scams reported target both the project sponsors and those who fund the projects. Simply put,…
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Insulting Pennsylvanians: enough BS already
I’m still astounded by Trump’s accusations over the weekend about voter fraud in the banana republic of Pennsylvania. Even if he is completely ignorant on the topic, his advisors must be aware that there isn’t a single case of documented voter fraud in recent PA history even after substantial (and expensive) investigation and litigation in…
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Nonprofits and small businesses lack security measures
I started the week by reviewing IRS’s publication about guarding taxpayer data. The publication is meant for tax firms but the concepts apply to all organizations that handle sensitive data. Last week I reviewed an accounting firm’s operations and, for the second time this year, declined to work with a service provider solely on the…
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Small business equity crowdfunding: the first 90 days
In the first three months that small business equity crowdfunding was allowed, only 17 of the 117 businesses that registered offerings on SEC-approved platforms met their minimum funding requirement, according to a NextGen Crowdfunding press release. By ‘small business equity crowdfunding’ I am referring to public offerings up to $1 million sometime referred to as…
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Number of uninsured rises; self-employed most affected
Update: The Kaiser Family Foundation published a detailed update on this topic with 2017 data. The number of people without health insurance is rising again after declining with the massive funding of insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. The federal government says that 29 million Americans were uninsured at the beginning of 2016 and this…
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CPA Mobility
This past few weeks I learned more than I care to know about CPA mobility; that is, the ability of a CPA to provide services in a different state than the state where I am licensed. We should hope as professionals and as consumers that this is a clear and easy-to-understand issue. It is not. This…