The privilege of being an accountant rather than a lawyer

At a panel debate hosted by Pinsent Masons and The Times on Monday evening I heard two mildy amusing references to accountants. The subject under discussion was Legal Advice Privilege and the recent Prudential case. This confirmed that tax accountants are not tax lawyers.

Tom Adam QC mischievously suggested that:

"as we all know, deep down tax accountants want to be lawyers. After all, we have 'Legally Blonde', 'Ali McBeal' and 'Suits'. And what do accountants have......? 

Big calculators and lots of pens in their top pocket!"

Also on the panel, Mike Truman, editor of Taxation magazine, later got in a retort of his own:

"The big difference between lawyers and accountants, when it comes to the provision of tax advice, is that accountants are expected to get the numbers right as well as the words!" 

The accountant's malaise

What do accountants suffer from that ordinary people don't?

Depreciation.

A boring accountant's awkward sexual adventure

The "funniest canadian sex comedy ever made" features 'a boring accountant' from Winnipeg who sets out to learn the secrets of making love from a Toronto stripper.

Here are a couple of extracts from Jay Stone's review of 'My awkward sexual adventure':

"the accountant is far too unlikely in his halting ineptitude to be taken at all seriously." 

"Jordan is hopeless until he drunkenly falls into the clutches of Julia (Emily Hampshire), a stripper and gourmet cook. Together they strike a deal: he will use his accounting skills to straighten out her messy financial affairs, and she will become his “sex Yoda,” a platonic instructor in all things explicit, nasty, forbidden and kinky."

Barry Cryer's ode to accounting software

This dates back to the 2007 Software Satisfaction Awards arranged by AccountingWeb.

Barry Cryer OBE was the guest speaker and he had prepared one of his customary very funny odes. This included the immortal lines:

I see before me, chattering, nattering,managers and also a smatteringof accountants and t'is a crying shamethat 99% of them get the other 1% a bad name 

I now feel my S-A-P risingmy IRIS widening, it's not surprisingas these names resoundyou are Infor a penny, Infor a poundyour Kashflow with a "k"rolls on - and may I saybefore I become a fidgeterI salute OLAP-based Excel and Digita

Onward I paddle my rhyming coracledesperately seeking a rhyme for Oracle 

Enough!! my system draws near to a crashtout suite, NetSuite, i must now dashto a close - cease my poetic spreadsheet analysislife is full of enormous fallaciesif you see what I mean - my program, with one "m"is done - my metrical practice, my hopefully funny function, I must stemmy flow, all's done and saidso, with a joyful cry of "XL Cub-ed"the message coming down the wireI greet you, toast you, thank you...Barry Cryer. 

You can read the full thing on AccountingWeb here>>>

A real beancounter....

With many thanks to Tony Nedderman in HK for passing this on to me.