The recent scandals involving prestigious accounting firms like Arthur Anderson have sent shockwaves through the accounting industry and have led to tightening of accounting rules and regulations. What does this have to do with chess, you ask? Well every year in the past the USCF has gotten an accounting firm to sign off on an audit of our books despite the long held suspicion that our books were not really in very good order. This year, the accounting fudging that had been taking place at USCF for over six years was forced to an end, and the new Executive Director Frank Niro made the necessary corrections to allow the books to show the precise financial state of the USCF for the first time in many years. While the honesty is good, the site was ugly. What it comes down to is that the USCF is actually worth about $700,000 less this year than it was last year when the accounting firm signed off on what most believe were inaccurate financial audits.

USCF has been losing money for some time and this year is no exception. Although the official line is that we only lost about 35,000 this year, most experts think it will end up being much more than that even if more than half of that $700,000 decline in net worth is attributed to past misreporting of our true financial state over the past six years.

If you would like to comment either pro or con on the accounting issues at USCF click on the link and send your message to bdraney@novia. net.

Assuming your statement adheres to the guidelines listed on the home page, your statement should appear as soon as I have had the chance to read and process it.

To return to the chessdiscussion home page click here home.