Accounting News Roundup: Florida Accountant Mistaken for Dad of Shark Dragger | 08.04.17

Posted on by Caleb Newquist
florida CPA shark

Florida accountant

A Sarasota CPA is suffering from a case of a mistaken identity, and in the age of the Internet, that means putting up with a lot of angry strangers calling to curse at you and make empty threats:

“Your son is a f****** piece of s***,” one caller said.

Robert Wenzel has gotten one profanity-filled message after another. Nearly 40 have been left at his Sarasota accounting office.

“You piece of s***. I’m going to **** you by your ***** behind your own car,” said another caller.

The calls started pouring in once video surfaced online of a shark being dragged by a boat at high speed. The video caused international outrage. The three men on the video are believed to be from the Palmetto area.

People on Facebook assumed Robert Wenzel was related to one of the men. The reality: He has a common name and he’s not related to anyone in the video.

If there’s an argument for putting “CPA” behind your name in every instance, no matter how ridiculous, it would be so that no one can mistake you for the non-CPAs whose sons drag sharks behind speed boats. Something tells me, you’d still get some calls, though.

Accountants behaving badly

Here’s another accountant, Nick J. Chacanicas, who allegedly took his client’s money for himself rather than using it to pay their taxes. It’s a silly scam, and I have a hard time believing anyone thinks they can get away with it, but here we go:

Police said Valerie and James Martin reported Chacanias cashed four checks worth $4,245 intended to cover their federal and state taxes as well as fees for his services. However, after giving Chacanias the money, they were notified by the IRS and state officials that they had not paid their taxes, police said.

They confronted Chacanias about the unpaid taxes and, according to court records, he agreed to repay them the $4,245 in June but never showed up at their home.

You have to admire a guy, if only a little bit, when he tries the ol’ “LOOK OVER THERE,” trick as a last ditch effort to escape.

Brought to you by Accountingfly

The featured job of the week is a Remote Tax Accountant with Patke & Associates in Chicago.

Previously, on Going Concern…

Megan Lewczyk wrote about cryptocurrencies. Reminder: people are still talking about compensation. And speaking of compensation, in Open Items, someone wants to know about giving notice before a bonus payout.

In other news:

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