Fraud
Pressure, opportunity, and rationalization form this classic model explaining why fraud occurs.
What is the Fraud Triangle?
This clean audit opinion means the financial statements are fairly presented without issues.
What is an unqualified or unmodified opinion?
This U.S. agency collects income taxes and enforces compliance.
What is the IRS?
This index tracks 500 large U.S. companies as a market benchmark.
What is the S&P 500?
This famous New York street is home to the world's largest stock exchange by market cap, the NYSE.
What is Wall Street?
Enron and WorldCom scandals led to this 2002 law mandating stricter financial reporting and auditor oversight.
What is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX)?
This U.S. regulatory body, created by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, sets auditing standards for public companies.
What is the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB)?
Businesses can immediately expense up to $1.22 million (2025 limit) in equipment under this IRC section.
What is Section 179?
These pooled funds let small investors buy diversified stocks or bonds like the pros.
What are mutual funds?
Private companies go public by selling shares in this underwritten offering.
What is an initial public offering (IPO)?
This man ran the largest Ponzi scheme in history, defrauding investors of about $65 billion.
Who is Bernie Madoff?
This equation uses three variables to express overall audit risk.
What is AR = IR × CR × DR?
Rental income from a residential property owned by an individual is typically reported on this IRS form before flowing to Form 1040.
What is Schedule E?
A stock with this value over 1 is more volatile than the market; under 1, less so.
What is beta?
This longtime CEO of JPMorgan Chase has led the bank since 2005 and is one of the most influential executives on Wall Street.
Who is Jamie Dimon?
This common type of occupational fraud involves theft of cash or assets, accounting for over 80% of cases.
What is asset misappropriation?
Under the COSO framework, these five components form the foundation of an effective internal control system.
What are control environment, risk assessment, control activities, information & communication, and monitoring?
This landmark 1913 amendment gave Congress the power to levy an income tax.
What is the 16th Amendment?
Borrowing shares to sell now, hoping to buy back cheaper later, is this risky bearish strategy.
What is short selling?
A private, actively managed investment pool that uses high-risk, sophisticated strategies—such as leverage, short-selling, and derivatives—to generate high returns for wealthy, accredited investors.
What are hedge funds?
This former comptroller and treasurer of the small town of Dixon, Illinois, embezzled a record-breaking $53.7 million over 22 years—described as the largest municipal fraud in U.S. history—to fund this niche hobby.
What is Quarter Horse breeding?
This audit opinion is issued when financial statements are fairly presented except for a material but not pervasive misstatement.
What is a qualified opinion?
This "parallel" tax prevents high earners from avoiding taxes entirely through too many deductions.
What is the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)?
This option pricing model assumes stock prices follow a lognormal distribution and uses inputs including volatility, time to expiration, risk-free rate, and strike price to determine the theoretical value of a European call option.
What is the Black-Scholes Model?
Private equity firms use heavy debt to buy companies in this takeover tactic.
What is a leveraged buyout (LBO)?