9am Lowdown: Accounting having a pop culture moment

Happy Friday!

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Accounting having a pop culture moment

First Barbadian songstress Rihanna recorded a song attacking her former accountant, then we hear granite jawed Ben Affleck will play the lead in a film titled ‘The Accountant’.

And now, we’re getting a prime time TV drama about forensic accounting. It’s called ‘The Catch’. It’s been created by Shonda Rhimes, the creator of hospital drama ‘Grey’s Anatomy.

The show’s plot centres on a female forensic accountant who, a few weeks before her wedding, discovers her fiancé is trying to defraud her.

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The accidental avoider

AnyAnswer’s witnessed an intriguing case recently when a user made a post titled “My friend may have unknowingly participated in a tax avoidance scheme...”

“So when my friend, who's finnish, first came to the UK a couple years ago, she worked as a contractor under an umbrella company,” wrote Mistayif. “She was assured that all the income tax would be taken care of on her behalf.”

Strangely, half the friend’s salary was paid as normal and “the other half paid as a loan which did not have to be paid back until she reached the age of 70”.

HMRC contacted her recently asserting that the amounts that she received as a loan is still deemed to be income and that she needs to fill out a self-assessment and pay the unpaid tax.

Read the full drama here.

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Australian accountant’s fraud funds fantasy life

The financial controller of a Melbourne four-star hotel siphoned hundreds and thousands of dollars to fund a fantasy life of personal trainers, hotels, dinners and prostitutes.

Gary Robert Johnson will now spend at least two and a half years in jail.

He admitted to stealing more than £311,000 from Flagstaff Gardens Radisson. Johnson transferred £91,000 of Radisson’s money to one male escort.

Johnson, who started working at the hotel in 2005, was a married father of two who appeared to live a normal suburban life.