Title: 2 plus 2 equals ?

Authors: Abraham J. Briloff; Tony Tinker; Aida Sy

Addresses: Deceased; formerly of: Department of Accountancy, Baruch College at the City University of New York, One Bernard Baruch Way, Box B12:225, New York, NY 10010, USA ' Department of Accountancy, Baruch College at the City University of New York, One Bernard Baruch Way, Box B12:225, New York, NY 10010, USA ' Department of Economics and Finance, Marist College, School of Management, Room LT101, 3399 North Road, Poughkeepsie, New York, 12601, USA

Abstract: Abe Briloff has passed away recently. The editors of the International Journal of Critical Accounting are updating his classics for publication. This article is a chapter, entitled, 2 plus 2 equals...? The article deals with auditing and financial statements. When Briloff wrote it first, there were big eight accounting firms in the USA. The BIG EIGHT firms, then were in charge of auditing the big corporation. The article raises interesting method of auditing that were twisted by big accounting firms. The article is a critic of failure of compliance of the most elementary GAAP rules and regulations as far as auditing of financial statements of listed corporations is involved. Interesting to see that Abe has predicted the ENRON, WorldCom, Xeros, Vivendi, you name it, saga of corporation frauds, auditing failures, etc. While we are re-publishing this great work, there are now only four big accounting firms in the USA.

Keywords: big accounting firms; audit failure; corporate responsibility; GAAP; financial statements; Abraham J. Briloff; auditing; compliance failure.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCA.2015.070470

International Journal of Critical Accounting, 2015 Vol.7 No.3, pp.213 - 227

Published online: 07 Jul 2015 *

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