Famous Accountants and Bookkeepers: Frank Wilson
This blog is the next of an occasional series of blog posts in which we celebrate famous bookkeepers and accountants of history and film.
And this month’s famous accountant: Frank Wilson.
Okay, so I realize that the word “famous” might be misleading because pretty much no one knows who Frank Wilson is! But I promise that you DO know what Frank Wilson is famous for.
Born in 1887, Wilson became an accountant and then later joined the Treasury Department. No big deal so far, right? In 1928, Frank Wilson was reassigned to the Bureau of Internal Revenue and asked to investigate one of America’s most famous gangsters: Al Capone.
What prompted this accountant-as-crime-fighter initiative was the realization that Al Capone ? who was able to evade justice on other charges – might be charged with tax evasion because he was earning revenue from criminal activities but never filed income tax returns.
While other charges were brought against Capone, they were later dropped and it was the tax evasion charges finally brought the gangster to justice.
If you’ve seen the movie “The Untouchables” (which, by the way, is a perennially GREAT movie, and one of Kevin Costner’s only good movies – that’s just my personal opinion), you might have made the connection with Agent Oscar Wallace, played by talented character actor Charles Martin Smith. His character is loosely based on Frank Wilson who, in real life, didn’t share as close of a connection to the crime-fighting team as depicted on screen. (Okay, I think I’ll go rent that movie this weekend).
You may never have heard of Frank Wilson, but every accountant keeps a picture of him by their desks and dreams of being called into similar active accounting service some day.
(Just kidding).
Heather Villa, CEO
Heather's goal is to make IAC-EZ a functional and easy do-it-yourself business application while assuring every customer is given the service and help they desire.
Heather holds MBA and MSM degrees, is a Certified Management Accountant, and is an Intuit QuickBooks™ Certified Pro Advisor. She trains others in bookkeeping and Intuit QuickBooks™ and she offers consulting services. IAC Professionals and IAC-EZ are focused on one thing: Helping businesses run successfully.
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