Tax Plan Aims for 25% Cap [WSJ]
The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee wants to cut the top U.S. tax rate to 25% for individuals and corporations, and cut or eliminate many popular deductions. The odds of quick action appear slender. But the move, from Rep. Dave Camp (R., Mich.), is significant as a marker in what will likely be a multiyear debate over revamping the tax code. The plan also provides Republicans with a position to pitch in the 2012 election, a campaign that promises to focus heavily on the economy and jobs.
Moral for CEOs Is Choose Your Fraud Carefully [Jonathan Weil/Bloomberg]
Of all the stories to come out of the 2008 collapses of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, this one may be the most incredible: To this day, neither company has admitted that any of the numbers on its financial statements that year were wrong. It seems the Securities and Exchange Commission won’t be doing anything to challenge that pretense, either, and that this may be by design. The SEC for years has been bending over backward to avoid accusing major financial institutions of cooking their books, even when it’s obvious they did.
A Long, Painful Reckoning [WSJ]
The number of dead and missing after Japan’s twin earthquake and tsunami stood late Wednesday, officially, at 12,920. In reality, Japanese widely agree, the toll of last week’s disaster is likely much higher. In Miyagi, a coastal prefecture that bore some of the tsunami’s worst destruction, officials estimate the toll there alone will be in the tens of thousands.
The Ten Worst Things to Put on Your Resume [FINS]
Your experience as a lifeguard in high school won’t do much good.
Accountants gone bad… [AW]
The latest batch of bad apples.
Congress Deliberates on Taxes and Abortions [AT]
Stamping tax provisions into the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” doesn’t make a lot of sense.
How do tax forms get their names? [MSN]
Some trivial information to distract your clients when they’re about to fire you.
