KPMG the latest example of accountants being unaccountable

KPMG is the latest accounting firm to be at the centre of a global scandal emanating from its Australian operations. (Four Corners)

Before the arrival of "celebrity accountants", the keepers of the books were often looked down upon as nerdy and, well, unexciting.

Who could forget Mr Anchovy's ill-conceived visit to the vocations guidance counsellor in Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

When advised that his ideal career would be an accountant, Anchovy retorts that that is exactly what he's been doing for years.

"It's dull, dull, dull. My God, it's dull. It's so deadly tedious and stuffy and boring and desperately dull. I can't stand it any longer. I want to live," he says.

To which the counsellor responds: "Well, yes, Mr Anchovy, but your report here says that you are an extremely dull person."

Far from being drab and unimaginative, accountants and auditors these days regularly grace the halls of infamy, relegating even entrepreneurs at the more exciting end of the business world to second place when it comes to risky behaviour.

In more recent years, instead of balancing columns of numbers, the books have become highly imaginative works of fiction.

And now this. Subterfuge, intrigue and the alleged misuse of confidential information for personal gain.

KPMG is the latest to be at the centre of a global scandal emanating from its Australian operations.

Former and current senior leaders from KPMG will be grilled over their conduct at a parliamentary hearing this Friday.

It is accused of using information obtained in audits of its clients that it knew was off limits to win new business.

Just three years ago, PwC, while advising Australian Treasury, was embroiled in a global uproar after leaking secret government plans for new anti-avoidance tax laws, in order to help multinational clients avoid those very laws.

KPMG, like many big firms before it, has dug itself an even deeper hole as evidence mounts that it ignored a whistleblower and actively sought to suppress the scandal.

They're now called the Big Four. But once, they were the Big Five. That was until the tech wreck and the stock crash of 2000.

Arthur Andersen, then the world's biggest accounting firm, was the auditor of Enron, the US energy giant that went bust owing huge amounts of money.

Arthur Andersen was accused of hiding debts and later shredding documents to avoid the prosecution that ultimately led to the firm's collapse.

The firm was also Bond Corporation's auditor and faced a $500 million lawsuit for its shoddy audit work on the collapsed multinational.

Since then, the accounting