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- Carvana drama, Intuit’s lock-in play, IRS shutdown fears
Carvana drama, Intuit’s lock-in play, IRS shutdown fears
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I share the 4-5 most important accounting that actually matter. I scroll so you don’t have to.
So grab your coffee, take a quick break, and lets catch up.
In this issue:
Carvana sinks after $1B accounting claims
Intuit is locking in future accountants
Shutdown could wreck tax season
Yale gets cheaper, harder to enter
- Ledger Lowdown Team
Ledger Lounge 🎧
Music for When You’re Actually Working
We made a Spotify playlist called The Ledger Lounge.
It’s background music for reconciling, reviewing, or grinding through work without frying your brain.
Mostly instrumental. Some light vocals. Hit shuffle. Let it run.
Reply and tell us if it helped you get more done.
WTF of the Day🤯
Carvana Drops 14% After $1B Accounting Allegations
Carvana is the online used car company with the vending machines. They just reported their best quarter ever. Revenue up. Profits up. Cash flowing. Then the stock fell hard.
Why? A short seller came out and said the profits might be coming from accounting tricks. The claim is that Carvana moves loans between companies owned by the CEO’s family so profits show up in the public company and losses sit somewhere else.
Carvana says that’s flat out wrong.
Here’s what makes this messy. The actual business looks real. They are selling more cars, moving them faster, and paying down debt. Big banks on Wall Street didn’t panic and kept their buy ratings.
So this comes down to one question. Do you believe the accounting story or do you believe what the business numbers are showing?
What’s poppin in accounting🍿
Intuit Is Playing a Much Bigger Game Than It Looks
Let me explain what Intuit is actually doing.
They’re not just “training 1 million future accountants.” That’s the PR headline.
What they’re really doing is getting to students before firms do and teaching them accounting inside Intuit’s tools. QuickBooks. ProAdvisor. Their AI stuff. So when these kids graduate, they don’t need onboarding. They already work the Intuit way.
That’s huge.
Firms are desperate for talent. Students are scared AI will wipe out entry-level jobs. Intuit steps in and says, “We’ll train you, certify you, and make you employable.” Everyone wins. Especially Intuit.
The free certifications are the tell. Once firms start seeing “Intuit-certified” as table stakes, switching software becomes painful. That’s not education. That’s distribution.
And notice the AI framing. They’re not saying AI replaces accountants. They’re saying AI makes accountants more valuable. That keeps students coming. And it keeps accountants in the workflow.
This isn’t charity.
It’s a long-term lock-in strategy.
IRS Update 🍿
Accountants Are Panicking About a Shutdown in the Middle of Tax Season
The IRS just opened tax season. And now there’s a real chance the government shuts down again.
The American Institute of CPAs is waving a red flag and saying please do not furlough IRS staff right now. They want 100% of IRS employees working, even if Washington melts down.
Why? Because the IRS is already stretched thin.
They are down about 27% of their workforce after layoffs and resignations. Roughly 74,000 people are trying to handle millions of returns. If a shutdown hits and staff get sent home, refunds slow, phones go dead, systems break, and backlogs explode. We have seen this before and it was brutal.
The last time the IRS shut down during filing season was COVID. It wrecked everything. Backlogs lasted for years. The AICPA is warning that doing this again in the middle of the 2026 filing season would be even worse.
Their point is simple. Collecting taxes is not optional. It is core infrastructure. If the Internal Revenue Service runs at half capacity right now, taxpayers and accountants deal with the fallout long after Congress moves on.
This is accountants begging DC to keep the lights on, keep the IRS staffed, and sort out politics later.
Because nothing makes people angrier than a missing refund and a dead IRS phone line in April.
Weekly Trend Chart 📊
Like Many Elite Colleges, Yale Is Only Getting Harder And Harder To Get Into
Yale just announced it’s waiving tuition for families making under $200k and covering everything for families under $100k. Sounds like they’re opening the gates, right?
They’re not.
This isn’t Yale going soft. It’s Yale getting smarter.
Applications are still insane. Even after international apps dropped, this was still one of the biggest applicant pools Yale has ever had. Acceptance rates are around 5%. Thirty years ago it was closer to 20%. Same school. Way tighter funnel.
So what’s actually happening?
Elite schools realized something uncomfortable. A lot of the kids they want are getting in and then walking away because of money. Not because they’re broke, but because $80k a year feels stupid when Harvard or MIT is offering a better deal.
So Yale changed the price, not the door.
They’re copying Harvard, MIT, Penn. Make it free for the families they care about, lock in the admits, protect the brand, keep the acceptance rate tiny, and look generous while doing it.
Meme of the Day😂
😂 😂