| Creative Accounting | 2004-02-15 13:28 0 comments |
 by Flemming FunchVia Ben Hammersley, London Review of Books has a review about Rupert Murdoch biographies. Pay attention to the figures: And then Chenoweth has found, looking at the accounts, that the company’s profits, declared in Australian dollars, were A$364,364,000 in 1987, A$464,464,000 in 1988, A$496,496,000 in 1989 and A$282,282,000 in 1990. The odds that such figures were a happy coincidence are 1,000,000,000,000 to one. That little grace note in the sums is accountant-speak for ‘Fuck you.’ Faced with this level of financial wizardry, all the ordinary taxpayer can do is cry ‘Bravo l’artiste!’Yeah, I wish I had accountants who could make my profit turn into such pretty numbers. Of course part of the trick is to have some surplus profits that you can hide away to the exact amount you want. |