The Wednesday Lowdown ⬇️

If you're new around here, every day I share the 4-5 best accounting insights I saw in the past 24 hours.

I scroll. so you don't have to.

💎 WTF of the Day

CPA Busted for $2.5M Tax Scam

An Indianapolis accountant just pled guilty to cooking the books, not for himself but for clients using a sketchy tax shelter scheme.

From 2013 to 2022, Jason Crace filed fake returns with bogus “royalty payments” that weren’t real expenses, just money that got shuffled around and sent right back to the clients. Total damage to the IRS? At least $2.5 million.

Crace faces up to 3 years in prison and will be sentenced in January.

Source: indianapolis business journal

💎 What’s poppin in accounting

House GOP Wants to Gut the IRS Budget… Hard

House Republicans just proposed slashing the IRS budget by $2.8 billion, the deepest cut since 2002. Enforcement? Down 45%. Customer service? About to fall off a cliff.

The IRS has already lost over 25,000 workers this year, and now call wait times are expected to tank. In 2026, only 16% of calls might get answered during tax season.

Tax pros are already seeing chaos, delayed refunds, wrong penalty notices, and no one left to fix it. And just as people need help navigating the new “One Big Beautiful Bill” tax changes… the IRS might be too hollowed out to respond.

Source: bloomberg

 📊 Weekly Trend Chart

Bluey Is the Biggest Show in America. Still.

Forget Squid Game. Forget White Lotus. A cartoon about a blue Australian puppy just crushed them all.

Bluey racked up 25.1 billion minutes watched in the first half of 2025, more than anything else on streaming. It’s been on Nielsen’s Top 10 list 143 weeks in a row, and parents aren’t the only ones binging. Grown adults without kids are watching too.

It’s not just a kids’ show anymore. It’s the show.

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