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The IRS Wants More Snitches
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The Wednesday Lowdown ⬇️
If you're new around here, every day or so I share the 4-5 best accounting insights I saw in the past 24 hours.
I scroll. so you don't have to.
Merry Christmas Eve.
The markets are closed. The IRS is closed. You should be too. Let’s make this quick.
🤯 WTF of the Day
The IRS Just Made It Easier to whistleblow
The IRS quietly made whistleblowing a lot simpler.
They updated their process so people reporting tax cheats face less paperwork, clearer rules, and faster handling. The goal is obvious. Get more tips. Catch more hidden income. Pay out more rewards when it works.
For accountants, this is a reminder that the IRS is leaning harder on insiders. Employees, partners, and vendors now have fewer excuses not to report sketchy tax behavior. And the IRS is making it easier for them to do it.
Source: Ledger Lowdown
Someone just spent $236,000,000 on a painting. Here’s why it matters for your wallet.
The WSJ just reported the highest price ever paid for modern art at auction.
While equities, gold, bitcoin hover near highs, the art market is showing signs of early recovery after one of the longest downturns since the 1990s.
Here’s where it gets interesting→
Each investing environment is unique, but after the dot com crash, contemporary and post-war art grew ~24% a year for a decade, and after 2008, it grew ~11% annually for 12 years.*
Overall, the segment has outpaced the S&P by 15 percent with near-zero correlation from 1995 to 2025.
Now, Masterworks lets you invest in shares of artworks featuring legends like Banksy, Basquiat, and Picasso. Since 2019, investors have deployed $1.25 billion across 500+ artworks.
Masterworks has sold 25 works with net annualized returns like 14.6%, 17.6%, and 17.8%.
Shares can sell quickly, but my subscribers skip the waitlist:
*Per Masterworks data. Investing involves risk. Past performance not indicative of future returns. Important Reg A disclosures: masterworks.com/cd
🍿 What’s poppin in accounting
What Accounting Will Look Like in 2026
Bookkeeping keeps shrinking. AI handles more of the grunt work, and firms move up the stack into cash flow, forecasting, and advice clients actually pay for. Accounting shifts from looking backward to helping businesses decide what to do next.
Private equity stays busy. More PE backed firms are expected to flip, but there is also a pushback. Some firms are choosing independence on purpose and betting clients will care. Regulators are watching all of it more closely.
AI stops being optional. Small firms use it to survive. Big firms use it to scale. Audits get more automated, routine tasks disappear, and the value moves to judgment, communication, and strategy.
🕵️♂️ The Audit
Are you an outlier or the industry standard? Vote in our new weekly pulse check, and we’ll share the results next issue.
Last poll results:
The winner? Internal Work Only
This is the smartest move you can make. This week is the only time all year the phone isn't ringing.
If you are using this silence to answer emails, you are wasting a golden opportunity. Use this time to build systems, not service clients.
New Poll ⬇️
What should we change about the newsletter for 2026? |
📊 Weekly Trend Chart
We Finally Hit Peak Coal
After 1,000 plus years of burning the stuff, coal might finally be past its prime.
A new report says global coal use basically tops out in 2025, then slowly declines through 2030. Demand still ticks up this year to a record level, helped by the US using more coal as gas prices rise. But after that, the trend flips.
The big story is China. It uses more than half the world’s coal. Even a tiny drop there matters a lot. China is building renewables fast and pushing to peak coal before 2030. The US, EU, and Japan are also backing away. India is the wildcard, still ramping up coal as electricity demand explodes.
#😂 Meme of the Day
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P.S. What'd you think of today's edition? Hit 'reply' to this email and lemme hear it!