CPA Hauntings: Tales of Succession-Planning Horror

In honor of Halloween, we present succession-planning horror stories. For more on succession planning, check out this Wednesday’s Practice Management Conference, featuring a panel of partners from small, mid-size and large firms sharing their succession-planning expertise, moderated by member Robert Fligel.

Vincent Price may have inspired these creepy tales…but are they based on true stories? You be the judge!!

Narcie's Woe

There once was a 55-year-old CPA with the unusual name of Narcie. She had started to think about succession planning for her practice, but did not know who to turn to. One day, while hiking in the woods, she was approached by a friendly lady around her own age. She was surprised to learn that this lady, who had the lovely name of Nemesis, was also a CPA. She quickly began to trust Nemesis, with whom she seemed to have so much in common. The two became friends and made an oral agreement to purchase one another's practices from their respective spouses in the event that they should pass away.

However, Narcie never formalized the agreement and never told her husband about it. Whenever Nemesis suggested they see a lawyer to formalize their plan, Narcie refused, saying that she was fine and there was no need to worry about it yet. “I’m still so young and lovely!” said Narcie. “Why bother with that gloomy business?” One day, while walking in the woods with Nemesis, the latter pressed the issue. Narcie grew annoyed and began gesticulating vivaciously, insisting that she was still too young and lovely to worry about it. While swinging her arms in a wild gesture, Narcie caught sight of her own reflection in a pond and, pausing to admire herself, she fell into the water and was never seen again. Her husband struggled to work out the details of selling her firm to Nemesis, but the process dragged on, and 80 percent of Narcie’s clients left for other firms. Nemesis refused to pay the poor widower more than 20 percent of the firm’s value. From that day forward, hikers began to tell stories of a certain pond in a certain woods that was filled with thousands of glistening gold coins, but when anyone tried to retrieve the coins, they vanished. Stranger still, there were reports that when you looked into the pond on a sunny day, it was not your own reflection staring back at you, but that of a strange lady hovering atop the coins!

The Crabby CPA

A secretive CPA shared very little about his lucrative CPA practice with his wife. In fact, there was much about himself he kept close to the vest. He reached old age, but no one understood how he managed to look so young. He still hadn’t retired or created a succession plan. Rumor had it that he was searching for an elixir that would allow him to live forever. Indeed, his favorite hobby was mixing strange chemicals in test tubes in his basement. Eventually, he grew to be 101 and was still remarkably youthful. For instance, he insisted on being the first person into the office every morning. Some said his longevity was owing to his experiments with horseshoe crabs, a species whose ancestors date to prehistoric times. But one night, while working late into the midnight hours in his basement, there was an explosion and he vanished. His widow was unable to prevent all his clients from leaving. One clue to his disappearance may have been the horseshoe crab seen scurrying across the basement floor with a set of electrical wires taped to its brain. There was tape on the other end of the wires, but to what or whom had it been taped to? No one could say. But from then on, whenever employees at his firm arrived at work before sunrise, hoping to get a jumpstart on the day, they were startled and alarmed to see what they swore was a horseshoe crab scurrying away as the lights came on!

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