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Biden defends economic record, says Trump plans threaten growth

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President Joe Biden warned that Republican Donald Trump’s plans to extend tax cuts and reshape global trade through tariffs risked reversing economic gains, even as dissatisfaction with his own handling of the economy contributed to last month’s stinging electoral loss.

Biden, speaking at an event Tuesday at the Brookings Institution, sought to reverse perceptions of his economic performance, arguing his policies had worked to help Americans recover from the shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Most economists agree the new administration is going to inherit a fairly strong economy, at least at the moment,” Biden said in an address at the think-tank in Washington. “It is my profound hope that the new administration will preserve and build on this progress.”

That’s unlikely, after Trump vowed dramatic change to economic policy on the campaign trail, helping propel his return to the White House and Republican control of both chambers of Congress. The defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris, who entered the race with just months before Election Day after Biden stepped aside, underscored dissatisfaction with his post-pandemic tenure among the electorate.  

Still, the president argued that his policies have planted the seeds that will grow the economy in a way that bolsters working and middle-class families and warned that those gains could be imperiled if Trump enacts tax cuts for the wealthy, cuts entitlement program spending, rolls back investments in infrastructure and levies fresh tariffs. He also warned that a retreat from free trade policies threatened to allow adversaries to take a greater role shaping the world.

“I believe this approach is a major mistake,” Biden said. 

“If we do not lead the world, who does?,” he added.

Biden jabbed at Trump over many of the Republican’s first-term policies, saying that tax cuts he implemented had benefited the wealthy and seeking to draw a contrast with his own agenda, touting measures to help expand access to health insurance and a push to expand the child tax credit. 

“The previous administration, quite frankly, had no plan, real plan, to get us through one of the toughest periods in our nation’s history,” Biden said, referring to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Focus on legacy

Tuesday’s event had the tone of a valedictory address, as Biden spoke to a largely friendly audience of economists, consumer advocates and business and labor leaders. But Biden acknowledged that outside the room, many remained wary of his handling of the economy.

“I know it’s been hard for many Americans to see, and I understand it,” Biden said.

Biden cited 16 million new jobs, the lowest average unemployment rate of any administration in the last 50 years, 20 million applications for new business and a stock market “at record highs” to defend his economic playbook.

“401(k)s are up, more than a trillion dollars in private sector investment in clean energy and advanced manufacturing in just two years alone. After decades of sending jobs overseas for the cheapest labor possible, companies are coming back to America, investing and building here and creating jobs here in America,” Biden said.

And he said that inflation — which fueled much of the public angst over his economic agenda — was “coming down faster than almost anywhere in the world.” 

But also evident was a sense of frustration from Biden that his record had not been celebrated. At one point, Biden noted that Trump as president had sent out stimulus checks during the pandemic with his signature on them. 

“I also learned something from Donald Trump. He signed checks for people,” Biden said. “And I didn’t.”

Trump plans

Trump has vowed to undo many of the hallmark policies of Biden’s tenure, including elements of the Inflation Reduction Act, a sweeping tax and climate package, and the Chips and Science Act, which provides billions in incentives to bolster domestic chip manufacturing and reduce U.S. reliance on Asia.

Most notably, Trump has said he would scrap an electric vehicle tax credit, part of a Biden push to transition the U.S. to cleaner energy that fueled anxiety among blue-collar workers worried about its impact on jobs. 

Trump has also derided the Chips Act subsidies as a bad deal that is costing the U.S. billions. Republican lawmakers, who will control both the House and Senate, may look to claw back funding from laws Biden signed.

Biden said the investments his administration backed had helped both Republican and Democratic states and predicted that GOP lawmakers would buck at efforts to undo projects in their communities.

Messaging challenge

Tuesday’s speech highlights how Biden, and Harris after she replaced him atop the Democratic ticket, struggled to translate positive economic data into support at the polls.

During his own campaign, Biden briefly embraced the term “Bidenomics” — coined by his critics to disparage his approach — and crisscrossed the country to highlight domestic manufacturing, clean energy and infrastructure investments from legislation he signed, arguing that they were bringing high-paying jobs. But those efforts failed to reverse the negative perceptions of his handling of the economy. 

Harris in her campaign struggled to distance herself from Biden even as she sought to assure voters that she would be more attuned to helping middle- and working-class families deal with high costs.

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Accounting

IAASB tweaks standards on working with outside experts

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The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board is proposing to tailor some of its standards to align with recent additions to the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants’ International Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants when it comes to using the work of an external expert.

The proposed narrow-scope amendments involve minor changes to several IAASB standards:

  • ISA 620, Using the Work of an Auditor’s Expert;
  • ISRE 2400 (Revised), Engagements to Review Historical Financial Statements;
  • ISAE 3000 (Revised), Assurance Engagements Other than Audits or Reviews of Historical Financial Information;
  • ISRS 4400 (Revised), Agreed-upon Procedures Engagements.

The IAASB is asking for comments via a digital response template that can be found on the IAASB website by July 24, 2025.

In December 2023, the IESBA approved an exposure draft for proposed revisions to the IESBA’s Code of Ethics related to using the work of an external expert. The proposals included three new sections to the Code of Ethics, including provisions for professional accountants in public practice; professional accountants in business and sustainability assurance practitioners. The IESBA approved the provisions on using the work of an external expert at its December 2024 meeting, establishing an ethical framework to guide accountants and sustainability assurance practitioners in evaluating whether an external expert has the necessary competence, capabilities and objectivity to use their work, as well as provisions on applying the Ethics Code’s conceptual framework when using the work of an outside expert.  

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Accounting

Tariffs will hit low-income Americans harder than richest, report says

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President Donald Trump’s tariffs would effectively cause a tax increase for low-income families that is more than three times higher than what wealthier Americans would pay, according to an analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

The report from the progressive think tank outlined the outcomes for Americans of all backgrounds if the tariffs currently in effect remain in place next year. Those making $28,600 or less would have to spend 6.2% more of their income due to higher prices, while the richest Americans with income of at least $914,900 are expected to spend 1.7% more. Middle-income families making between $55,100 and $94,100 would pay 5% more of their earnings. 

Trump has imposed the steepest U.S. duties in more than a century, including a 145% tariff on many products from China, a 25% rate on most imports from Canada and Mexico, duties on some sectors such as steel and aluminum and a baseline 10% tariff on the rest of the country’s trading partners. He suspended higher, customized tariffs on most countries for 90 days.

Economists have warned that costs from tariff increases would ultimately be passed on to U.S. consumers. And while prices will rise for everyone, lower-income families are expected to lose a larger portion of their budgets because they tend to spend more of their earnings on goods, including food and other necessities, compared to wealthier individuals.

Food prices could rise by 2.6% in the short run due to tariffs, according to an estimate from the Yale Budget Lab. Among all goods impacted, consumers are expected to face the steepest price hikes for clothing at 64%, the report showed. 

The Yale Budget Lab projected that the tariffs would result in a loss of $4,700 a year on average for American households.

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Accounting

At Schellman, AI reshapes a firm’s staffing needs

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Artificial intelligence is just getting started in the accounting world, but it is already helping firms like technology specialist Schellman do more things with fewer people, allowing the firm to scale back hiring and reduce headcount in certain areas through natural attrition. 

Schellman CEO Avani Desai said there have definitely been some shifts in headcount at the Top 100 Firm, though she stressed it was nothing dramatic, as it mostly reflects natural attrition combined with being more selective with hiring. She said the firm has already made an internal decision to not reduce headcount in force, as that just indicates they didn’t hire properly the first time. 

“It hasn’t been about reducing roles but evolving how we do work, so there wasn’t one specific date where we ‘started’ the reduction. It’s been more case by case. We’ve held back on refilling certain roles when we saw opportunities to streamline, especially with the use of new technologies like AI,” she said. 

One area where the firm has found such opportunities has been in the testing of certain cybersecurity controls, particularly within the SOC framework. The firm examined all the controls it tests on the service side and asked which ones require human judgment or deep expertise. The answer was a lot of them. But for the ones that don’t, AI algorithms have been able to significantly lighten the load. 

“[If] we don’t refill a role, it’s because the need actually has changed, or the process has improved so significantly [that] the workload is lighter or shared across the smarter system. So that’s what’s happening,” said Desai. 

Outside of client services like SOC control testing and reporting, the firm has found efficiencies in administrative functions as well as certain internal operational processes. On the latter point, Desai noted that Schellman’s engineers, including the chief information officer, have been using AI to help develop code, which means they’re not relying as much on outside expertise on the internal service delivery side of things. There are still people in the development process, but their roles are changing: They’re writing less code, and doing more reviewing of code before it gets pushed into production, saving time and creating efficiencies. 

“The best way for me to say this is, to us, this has been intentional. We paused hiring in a few areas where we saw overlaps, where technology was really working,” said Desai.

However, even in an age awash with AI, Schellman acknowledges there are certain jobs that need a human, at least for now. For example, the firm does assessments for the FedRAMP program, which is needed for cloud service providers to contract with certain government agencies. These assessments, even in the most stable of times, can be long and complex engagements, to say nothing of the less predictable nature of the current government. As such, it does not make as much sense to reduce human staff in this area. 

“The way it is right now for us to do FedRAMP engagements, it’s a very manual process. There’s a lot of back and forth between us and a third party, the government, and we don’t see a lot of overall application or technology help… We’re in the federal space and you can imagine, [with] what’s going on right now, there’s a big changing market condition for clients and their pricing pressure,” said Desai. 

As Schellman reduces staff levels in some places, it is increasing them in others. Desai said the firm is actively hiring in certain areas. In particular, it’s adding staff in technical cybersecurity (e.g., penetration testers), the aforementioned FedRAMP engagements, AI assessment (in line with recently becoming an ISO 42001 certification body) and in some client-facing roles like marketing and sales. 

“So, to me, this isn’t about doing more with less … It’s about doing more of the right things with the right people,” said Desai. 

While these moves have resulted in savings, she said that was never really the point, so whatever the firm has saved from staffing efficiencies it has reinvested in its tech stack to build its service line further. When asked for an example, she said the firm would like to focus more on penetration testing by building a SaaS tool for it. While Schellman has a proof of concept developed, she noted it would take a lot of money and time to deploy a full solution — both of which the firm now has more of because of its efficiency moves. 

“What is the ‘why’ behind these decisions? The ‘why’ for us isn’t what I think you traditionally see, which is ‘We need to get profitability high. We need to have less people do more things.’ That’s not what it is like,” said Desai. “I want to be able to focus on quality. And the only way I think I can focus on quality is if my people are not focusing on things that don’t matter … I feel like I’m in a much better place because the smart people that I’ve hired are working on the riskiest and most complicated things.”

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