1. What does CPA stand for?
a. Can't Pull Attorneys
b. Certified Public Accountant
c. Certified Professional Adder-upper
d. Certified Public Annoyance
2. What should you ask a CPA before you hire him?
a. Are you a CPA?
b. Do you have any money being stored under your mattress?
c. Have you ever sued yourself for discrimination and deducted your work as court costs?
d. Have you ever advised a client to report $1 billion in income so the IRS will think you're some sort of big shot?
e. Have you ever advised a client to list the $9 he spent to see "Slumdog Millionaire" as a "charitable contribution"?
f. Are any tax loopholes named after you?
3. What is the most important thing to an accountant?
a. That he gets paid.
b. That the numbers add up and reconcile.
c. That the IRS doesn't audit his client.
d. That he gets your consulting business as well as your accounting business.
4. What do attorneys, accountants and tax consultants have in common?
a. Expensive suits
b. Chargeable Hours
c. The same girlfriend -- named "Hun."
d. High bills.
5. What would an accountant NEVER do?
a. Embezzle money from his client.
b. Give bad advice to his client.
c. Advise his client to set up off-shore accounts to avoid corporate taxes.
d. Do something illegal.
e. Keep a record of advice to do something illegal.
6. What does it mean if your accounts are "out of balance"?
a. You're sunk.
b. You're accounts must be jiggered.
c. You need a new accountant.
d. You need to run the numbers again.
7. What is a "budget"?
a. An orderly system for living beyond your means.
b. An inviolate limit to spending.
c. A spending guideline that doesn't mean all that much.
d. Something counties and cities have to give the state before they ignore them.
8. What's the difference between the long and short tax form?
a. With the short form, the government gets your money. With the long form, the accountant gets your money.
b. The cost.
c. The amount of time it takes to prepare.
d. Short forms are more likely to be audited.
9. What is the difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion?
a. Jail.
b. About $200 million on average.
c. Tax evasion may be illegal.
d. None.
10. What's the difference between an actuary and an accountant?
a. The actuary is the one with a personality.
b. The actuary deals with the economic value of human beings.
c. The accountant wears a green eye-shade; the actuary dresses like a mortician.
d. Which side of the ledger are the debits are on.
e. The one nearest the window.
11. What is the "Alternative Minimum Tax"?
a. $0.
b. The amount you pay if you’re rich.
c. The lowest fee you can pay your accountant or tax preparer.
d. Too high.
12. What constitutes “reliable information”?
a. Whatever you tell your accountant.
b. Whatever your accountant tells you.
c. The Internal Revenue Code.
d. Your brother-in-law.
13. What are “Generally Accepted Accounting Principles”?
a. Whatever the Accountant says they are.
b. Whatever the Accountant says they are as long as he can tell you what page they’re on.
c. Whatever methods or procedures the IRS will accept.
d. Anything taken from the book entitled “Credibility GAAP.”
14. What is a “Chart of Accounts”?
a. A list of bills you’ll never pay.
b. A diagram showing which money coming in goes to which overdue account.
c. A bunch of code numbers with titles like “miscellaneous depreciable assets under cyclic transitional management.”
d. Your wife’s shopping list.
15. A general ledger shows:
a. Nothing much. Nobody ever looks at it, anyway.
b. All your generals, ranked in order of competence.
c. Whatever your accountant wants it to show.
d. That you’re really, really screwed.
16. Depreciation is
a. What happens when the Federal Reserve prints too much money.
b. Insulting.
c. Tax deductible if you paid too much in the first place.
d. What happens to all of us eventually.
17. Retained Earnings is
a. What’s left after the IRS takes its pound of flesh.
b. Not enough.
c. What you don’t report to the IRS.
d. The value of everything you sold on the black market.
18. Equity
a. does not exist and cannot be attained.
b. is the total value of everything you’ve stolen.
c. is the value of that never-to-be-repaid loan you foolishly made but still have on your books as a “receivable.”
d. Is the name of the third place horse at Upsin Downs.
Answers: Ask your accountant.
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