The waiting, the screaming, the crying, the fainting… Rock star accountants

BY NURY VITTACHI

Amiddle-aged man in a boring grey suit walks on to the stage and waves his calculator. "Are you READY TO ROCK?" he shouts. The audience goes wild.

Apparently, accountants are the new rock stars, according to a spate of news reports.

"I'm a rock star now" was the headline on a feature on accountancy in The Washington Post. An almost identical report in The Wall Street Journal was titled: "The tax law makes Chartered Public Accountants interesting for now." The Mercury News said: "Tax bill turns America's accountants into rock stars."

In Asia there have been waves of identical headlines several times, the most recent case being the occasion when the Indian government made a surprise decision to get rid of almost all physical banknotes, apparently after taking financial advice from YouTube pranksters. ("Cancel all the banknotes! Everyone will have a good laugh! What could go wrong?")

Indian accountants become rock-star popular. Even in remote, rural parts,