Definition

Temporarily moving assets or liabilities off the books through short-term sales with prearranged buyback agreements, essentially hiding things in plain sight. It's the financial equivalent of shoving everything into the closet before guests arrive.

Example Usage

The audit committee discovered the CFO had been parking losses with a friendly hedge fund that agreed to sell them back after quarter-end.

Origin

Accounting fraud terminology that became prominent during 1980s-90s financial scandals

Fun Fact

Parking is illegal but was rampant during the savings and loan crisis, with institutions swapping bad assets back and forth like a hot potato nobody wanted to hold.

Source: Forensic accounting and securities law terminology

Related Terms

Advanced

consolidation

Combining the financial statements of a parent company and its subsidiaries into a single unified report, eliminating intercompany transactions to avoid counting the same revenue twice. It's like merging family budgets while hiding the money you owe your brother.

💰 Finance / Accounting
Beginner

payable

In accounting, the money your company owes but hasn't paid yet—basically corporate IOUs sitting on the balance sheet like financial landmines. Also known as "accounts payable," these are the bills that make CFOs wake up in cold sweats. The bigger this number gets, the more creative the excuses to vendors become.

💰 Finance / Accounting
Intermediate

sunk cost fallacy

The irrational commitment to failing projects because you've already wasted so much time and money that stopping now would mean admitting it was all pointless. It's throwing good money after bad while calling it 'persistence.'

💰 Finance / Accounting
Beginner

Diversification

The investment strategy of not putting all your eggs in one basket, which is excellent advice until you have to figure out how many baskets to buy. It's how financial advisors tell you they don't know what will go up, so they're betting on everything.

💰 Finance / Accounting
Beginner

taxable

The classification of income, property, or transactions that the government has graciously decided you should share with them. Essentially, anything that brings you joy probably falls into this category. If you earned it, bought it, or even thought about profiting from it, the taxman cometh.

💰 Finance / Accounting
Intermediate

cost basis

The original purchase price of an asset used to calculate capital gains taxes, proving that the IRS wants documentation of every financial decision you've ever made. Lose track of it and prepare for tax-time panic.

💰 Finance / Accounting

Translate This Term

See “parking” in Corporate Speak, Gen-Z Slang, Pirate Speak, and more.

Try the Translator

Share This Term

Post on XShare on FacebookShare on LinkedIn

Discover a Term

Beginner

Balance Sheet

A financial statement showing what a company owns, what it owes, and the mathematical miracle required to make both side...