Teetering tipsy on the edge and finally falling into administration (the puns – there’s no excuse sorry)…

First Quench (owner of Thresher, The Local and Wine Rack brands) could no longer stay standing yesterday. Fierce competition on the booze started its decline and potent shots delivered by the recession finally finished it off. KPMG has been brought in to catch the ailing retailer and hopes to sell the company as a going concern.

The administrators hope to save as many of …

Not so much of accounting interest, more actuarial, from the BBC…

The world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart, now plans to hold on to customers even after they die – by selling coffins.

Prices range from a “Mom” or “Dad Remembered” steel coffin for $895 (£540), to a bronze model at $2,899.

Comprehensive cradle-to-the-grave customer loyalty they’re after.

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Imagine if tax evasion made up a significant proportion of your whole business. How would you feel about that?

According to KPMG, as much as 80% of the Europeans’ money in Switzerland is undeclared. In all, KPMG reckons that tax evasion could represent up to 25% of Switzerland’s total private-banking market.

Guess it depends on what it means for your clients:

Bank secrecy in itself cannot be a value proposition,” said Walter Berchtold, head of private banking at Credit Suisse, at a presentation …

For anyone worried that England’s beloved game might be short of a coin or two, PWC has announced its support today:

On 29 October 2009, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) were officially announced as the first sponsor backing England’s bid to host the 2018 FIFA World CupTM.

With a long track record of advising football clubs, from the top of the Premier League through to those in the lower divisions, PwC will act as business adviser for the campaign to host the World …

All the way from Tysons Corner, Virginia, USA the Fairfax Times reports…

Three local businessmen have been indicted on a charge of conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service of more than $240 million.

According to the indictment filed in federal court on Oct. 22, two of the men allegedly attempted to defraud the IRS by making several “false and misleading statements” concerning a corporate tax shelter that was implemented by them.

Daryl J. Haynor, a partner in KPMG’s federal tax practice …

There is no silver lining unless you consider a lot of free time over Christmas (without pay) a good thing.

Figures released by insolvency specialist Tenon Recovery estimate a further 5,800 businesses will fail by the end of 2009.

Worst hit are likely to be leisure and hospitality, property, printing and publishing, construction and business services reports Accountancy Magazine.

And adding to the gloom – the Insolvency Service predicts that personal insolvencies are set to reach their highest level since records began, …

First Quench, owner of brand names including Thresher, The Local and Wine Rack is on the brink of collapse. The firm which employs more than 6,500 people in the UK has appointed KPMG as an advisor to discuss strategic options for the group thought to include a pre-pack administration.

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Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay and chief financial officer Nick Fletcher are parting ways according to papers filed at Companies House.

The documents for “terminating appointment” were filed at Companies House last week and mean Fletcher is no longer a director at nearly 20 of the Ramsay companies, including Gordon Ramsay Holdings thisismoney.co.uk reported.

Fletcher is still director at five companies, three of which are overdue for filing company information, which could mean that both Fletcher and Ramsay could be liable for …

It’s looking likely.

Germany, France and Japan are out;  the US expects to have escaped when figures are released on Thursday and City analysts say Canada and Italy will join the US in recording growth in the third quarter.

Which, out of the G7 nations, leaves Britain trailing and stuck in recession.  The lack of balance in the economy – too much dependence on financial services and debt-fuelled consumption for its growth now appears to be hampering our recovery.

So much for …

AMEC has agreed to pay a £4.9m Civil Recovery Order to the Serious Fraud Office and review its accounting policies after it failed to keep accurate records. The Serious Fraud Office agreed the £4.9m civil court settlement with engineering group AMEC over $9m (£5.5m) of “irregular receipts” the company took in relation to the construction of the Incheon Bridge, Korea.

Few details were disclosed by the SFO or AMEC as part of the civil recovery order and the agreement is …

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has released its latest figures showing that the “Big Four” auditors maintain their grip on the UK’s blue chip sector. The FRC figures show the Big Four, PwC, KPMG, Deloitte and Ernst & Young, audited the accounts of 99 of the FTSE 100 companies in August. Only one company in the blue chip index was non Big 4 audited – by BDO Stoy Hayward.

The dominance of the top firms raises concerns about fallout …

PricewaterhouseCoopers, the administrator of Lehman Brothers in Europe, is back in court appealing against a High Court decision to block its speedy administration plan.

Around 900 European investment funds that traded through Lehman Europe had nearly $23 billion (£14 billion) of shares and other financial instruments frozen when Lehmans went into administration on September 15 last year. Although around $14 billion of assets has been returned to the funds, the remaining $9 billion has got caught up due to …

It’s always good to see a man of stature sticking up for his buddys in the face of adversity. The Mail on Sunday reported that the grand old Duke of York, Prince Andrew has urged the Government to preserve the rather controversial loophole that allows Britain’s wealthiest residents to avoid paying millions of pounds in tax each year.

Harking back the non-dom tax debates of yore (so much dirty water has passed under the bridge of controversey since then, they …

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu has seen its global revenues of member firms fall by 4.9% to $26.1bn, a result of the global economic downturn. This represents local currency growth of 1 percent but a U.S. dollar revenue decrease of 4.9 percent.

Tellingly, Europe and the Americas reported the least growth, at 0.9% and -1.3% in local currency respectively, while Africa, the Middle East and Asia reported 21.3 %, 15.6% and 7.6% growth respectively.

Jim Quigley, CEO said in a press release:

“Achieving positive …

You don’t get this over here…

Via Going Concern

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The National Audit Office has found HMRC is making the tax system too complex for older citizens reports Accountancy Age.

Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, said: “Older people want to pay the right amount of tax but too many pay more than they need to because they do not claim allowances to which they are entitled and because of errors.”

And we were hoping to get wiser as we got older.

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We like to see things done properly; hypotheses supported by empirical evidence…

But sometimes you can just tell it’s raining because water is falling from the sky. A survey by the BDO reveals that just three percent of decision makers detect enough transparency from our political leaders when it comes to their tax proposals. You mean people think politicians might be hiding something from us.

Ok so that might be stating the obvious, politicians are economical with their tax plans the …

KPMG as auditor of Madoff’s London based operation, Madoff Securities International Ltd, has been added to a claim by investors defrauded in Bernie Madoff’s huge swindle. Other additions to the civil lawsuit in New York were JPMorgan Chase and Bank of New York Mellon.

Referring to the claims to be made in the case, Reuters quoted lawyer Joseph Cotchett whose law firm carried out prison a interview with Madoff in July and months of investigation and interviews with former employees:

“KPMG …

A bizarre case of an accountant, André Bamberski, 72, taking justice into his own hands was reported yesterday. The accountant allegedly turned vigilante was trying to seek justice for his daughter who was killed over 27 years ago. The case centres around the kidnap of Dieter Krombach, a German cardiologist, who was convicted by a French court in 1995 for the girl’s manslaughter in his absence, after German authorities refused to extradite him. The Times reports …

Just to make everyone feel better about their own personal finances, UK government borrowing hit £77.3bn in the first six months of the fiscal year. And spending is expected by many analysts to go beyond the predicted £175 bn by the end of the year.

Hetal Mehta, senior economic adviser to the Ernst & Young Item Club, was quoted in the Guardian saying the data confirmed “what a sorry state the public finances are in”.

By the end of September total …