Enron And Taxes

By TAD BARTIMUS

It's the week of reckoning.

Scraps of paper tossed into grocery sacks and old shoeboxes have been tallied. Lost check registers have been found. Scribbles on charge slips have been deciphered. The tax return sits on the kitchen table, waiting to be signed.

So, why does my heart palpitate? Why do my palms sweat? Why did I lie awake last night trying to remember where I'd misplaced that dry cleaning receipt? Was that gift to a business associate who stayed helping me until 3 a.m. too extravagant? Will this be the year the computer randomly kicks my return out of the pile? 

It's not that I hate income taxes. I don't even mind paying, though I wish I got more for less. What I dislike the most about April 15 is that I'm clueless as to how the process works. What do the forms mean? How can we possibly keep track of the changing laws? Trying to teach me how to file my taxes is like trying to teach Koko the Gorilla sentence structure; it makes me want to run in circles, pound my chest and swing from a tree. 

I decided to have a second cup of coffee and read the newspaper before I signed the tax return. That's when my eyes fell on yet another story about the woes of Enron's accounting firm, Arthur Andersen.

A multibillion-dollar company with thousands of clients, it couldn't keep its numbers straight, either. As both the internal and external auditor for Enron, which collapsed late last year, Andersen apparently couldn't decide whether the money was coming or going. Its biggest mistake was that it didn't actually tell anyone that straight out. Or if it did, it didn't yell it loud enough.

That's not the way my accountant works. When my money's gone, she says, "Your money's gone." There's no equivocation or misunderstanding. That means stop spending. Now.

My numbers cruncher is a widow who raised two sons alone and is a very young grandmother. She has a great sense of humor and infinite patience, prerequisites for dealing with a client who spent $3,000 more last year than she earned. (That would be me.) I told her that's why God invented credit cards. She smiled that tight little smile bankers get when they're about to say "No," and said, "You need to pay more attention to your profit and loss every day, not just on April 14." 

Why didn't the Arthur Andersen accountants tell Enron's CEO Kenneth Lay the same thing? How could the head of the company not know what I do -- if you spend more than you take in, you've got negative cash flow, and eventually you go broke?

Congressional investigators and the courts will have to sort out who's lying and who's not, but I think Enron and Arthur Andersen could have saved themselves a whole lot of trouble if they'd sweated over their books like average Americans have to do. And if my accountant, Jeanette, and hundreds more tax advisers with her integrity had worked for Andersen, it would not have been indicted by a federal grand jury last month on charges of obstruction of justice for allegedly destroying documents relating to Enron. It was Jeanette, after all, who sent me in search of that missing dry cleaning receipt.

Jeanette, like most of us, lives in a world where people's livelihoods, as well as their everyday lives, are at stake if she messes up. Her mistakes could mean the loss of a college fund, default on a mortgage, foregoing medical insurance. 

Combine arrogance and greed, and you get Andersen audits Enron. Despite confusion, risk, and the unmistakable signs of imminent collapse, the accountants at both companies took the attitude that the naysayers could kiss their multibillion-dollar corporate assets. Besides, it wasn't the bosses' and the bean counters' personal fortunes, anyway -- they'd already taken their money and run to the nearest safe haven.

My worst nightmare is sitting down, one on one, with an IRS auditor. That's what keeps me awake at night and gives me sweaty palms. That's what should have happened with every accountant working for Andersen and Enron. Perhaps that's what all our congressmen and senators need, too. Maybe then we'd get a tax form we could understand. Until then, Jeanette's got a job for life.

© 2002 The Women Syndicate

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