Sunday News Roundup 25.08.03: Williams shown the door at PCAOB, Lambos in the tax lane, and more Canadian accounting news

Our weekly Canadian accounting news roundup includes Trump and the US audit watchdog, are accountants ready (or not) for AI, accounting dealbook, and more

Aug 3, 2025 Author: Canadian Accountant

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TORONTO, August 3, 2025 – In case you missed it, Erica Y. Williams, the head of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board in the United States, resigned from the US audit watchdog in June. We will have an editorial on Williams’ departure in the coming days — because so much of Williams’ tenure affected Canadian accounting firms — but we would be remiss if we did not acknowledge the facts of her departure.

The PCAOB was not expected to survive Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which eventually passed on the Fourth of July, and would have dissolved the agency and shifted its responsibilities to the Securities and Exchange Commission. But it survived to live another day due to a technicality, as the BBBA’s anti-PCAOB provision was a policy rather than budget measure, which violated Senate (Byrd) rules.

That was apparently too much for the ongoing Sturm und Drang of the Trump Administration. Within weeks, SEC Chair Paul Atkins — a cryptocurrency champion and financial consultancy founder recently appointed by Trump — demanded the resignation of Williams, whose last day was July 22. The ironically named US Center for Audit Quality, a lobby group created by the Big Four, cheered the firing.

It will be interesting to watch what happens now at the PCAOB. Now that Williams has departed, will the Trump Administration do the hard legislative work of putting the PCAOB out of its misery, or will the agency’s neutering suffice, perhaps with a compliant Trump appointee at the helm?

Our money is on PCAOB member Christina Ho, who has been critical of Williams and PCAOB progress from the get-go, and whose appointment would seen as rewarding a Trump loyalist. Having recently fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for delivering honest reporting, anything is possible in the rapidly declining empire south of the border.

But Williams, to her credit, had a message for the Big Four on her way out the door, described as a “warning shot across the bows of accounting firms” by the Financial Times in the UK. “The lifecycle of an investigation and the statute of limitations is long, oftentimes longer than an administration,” she said. “So you do take a risk in engaging in wrongdoing now because you don’t know what might happen a few years from now.”

And now, on to the rest of the news from the past week in Canadian accounting.

Artificial Intelligence: Ready … or not?

A couple weeks ago, online magazine The Observer published an interesting article, Big four cut jobs for graduates as AI adds to consulting crisis, which argues “the disrupters have become the disrupted.” The general thesis of the article is that large accounting firms are moving from pyramid to diamond-shaped organizational hierarchies due to the impact of artificial intelligence, and are cutting entry-level and graduate jobs because AI can do those jobs better.

Meanwhile, CPA Canada has just released a joint report, Closing the AI trust gap: The role of the CPA in AI assurance, with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. As Accounting Today reported, “The rapid rise of AI throughout the global economy opens up new opportunities for accounting professionals to provide independent assurance of these systems to help build trust and confidence in their functions.”

It’s the third and final paper in CPA Canada’s artificial intelligence series. The national body continues to work with national global and finance partners, not the least of which was its recent deal with FP Canada, as reported here in Canadian Accountant. We note that the report is for CPA Canada members only, a noticeable change for Ontario and Quebec CPAs accustomed to getting access to national research and resources.

If you’re looking for a free webinar on Generative AI for smarter tax research, try Rewriting Reality: The Generative AI Movement, presented by Wolters Kluwer this Tuesday, August 5th.

Life in the Tax Lane: Canada Carbon Rebate and more

Video Tax News has dropped another episode of Life in the Tax Lane to kick off the month of August. The Canada Carbon Rebate leads the list, as the federal government signalled its intent back in early July, to keep the rebate for small businesses non-taxable.

Among the other topics covered are the CRA’s administrative policy on fees for services, as well as a number of entertaining tax court decisions recently announced, including this highly entertaining Quebec ruling on personal use of corporate vehicles, including a Ferrari and a Lambo. Since the ruling is in French, just use your Google translate button to read it in English.

Accounting Dealbook: Deloitte AI, Xero, MNP

Speaking of accounting and AI, Deloitte Canada has announced expanded generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) capabilities in Omnia, its global, cloud-based audit and assurance technology platform. The new GenAI-based features include, according to Deloitte, “enhanced documentation review, improved navigation of financial statements, summaries of information across documents, drafting capabilities for audit-related communications and memos, improved research capabilities, and identification of potential audit risk factors.”

Accounting software platform provider Xero recently acquired a company called Melio, a bill pay platform for small to medium-sized businesses that integrates accounting and payments. It’s a huge, $2.5 billion deal that, according to Ron Shelvin, whose Fintech Snark Tank column appears in Forbes, will help Xero “capture small businesses’ payments flow — not just their accounting ledger — a powerful expansion of its fintech ecosystem.”

And finally, no Sunday News Roundup would be complete without mentioning the latest deals from MNP. The homegrown national accounting giant recently picked up McLelland Crawford Topp LLP in Sudbury, Lazer Grant LLP in Winnipeg, abca Société de comptables professionnels agréés in Carleton-Sur-Mer, and Johnston Beaudette Chartered Professional Accountants in Cornwall.