ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the fundamentals of accounting and finance, and focuses on whether what is being taught in their name today is fact, science or fiction. The 2008 global financial crisis cost hundreds of billions of dollars, leading to large government bailouts and forced mergers and consolidations of big banks. As accounting has come to play a subsidiary role to finance, it has continued to promote the 'religion' of shareholder primacy and wealth maximisation, with little reflection on the fundamental crash of ideology that was revealed in the 2008 crisis. One major arena where the cracks in accounting and finance education have been opened widely is around taxation and offshore secrecy. The accounting profession is increasingly emphasising the importance of inter-personal and social skills in the making of a successful professional, even though the examinations are primarily technical. The most basic element of both accounting and finance is money.
