Only 20% are Middle-Class, Most Don't Come Close [The Economic Populist]
Noah Smith closes his post with, "The middle-class is dead. There is no going back in our lifetimes. We need to find a new way of thinking about broadly shared prosperity." (Like helicopter drops?)
HSBC Under Renewed Scrutiny Over Swiss Tax Avoidance Claims [DealBook]
In a report released on Sunday, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, an organization based in Washington, along with the newspaper Le Monde in France, The Guardian in Britain, the BBC program “Panorama” and CBS News’s “60 Minutes,” said that secret documents revealed that bank employees had reassured clients that HSBC would not disclose details of their accounts to tax authorities in their home countries and discussed options to avoid paying taxes on those assets.
Deloitte’s Engelbert to be first female U.S. CEO of a Big Four firm [Journal of Accountancy]
Engelbert, 50, has been elected as Deloitte LLP’s CEO and will begin her role on March 11. She will helm a firm with 65,000 U.S. employees and operations in 90 cities focused on four business lines: consulting, audit, tax, and advisory. “My path has been, I think, a path a lot of women can foresee themselves taking,” Engelbert said in an interview. “I … had some great mentors and really good sponsorship helping me find roles in the firm and get a lot of diverse experiences that really set me up for being elected as our CEO.”
AICPA President, CEO, and Beanie Baby collector Barry Melancon speaks out about Deloitte's choice [Twitter]
Congrats to Cathy Engelbert and Deloitte … First female Big 4 CEO in USA. She is a talented leader and great step for the CPA profession.
— Barry Melancon (@barrymelancon) February 9, 2015
Undergraduates keen to do the right thing might find accountancy too taxing [The Guardian]
In 2008, a bright, 22-year-old French graduate called Antoine Deltour went to work for PwC in Luxembourg, full of hope about working for one of the best employers in the world. But it was not the company he thought it was. In fact, he quit within two years. “I discovered how extreme the system was in reality – it was a massive tax optimisation practice,” he has since reflected. “I didn’t want to be part of that.” Before leaving, however, criminal prosecutors in Luxembourg now believe he copied sensitive internal papers – confidential tax rulings that PwC had secured from the Luxembourg tax office for some of the most well-known multinationals.
Rand Paul Rallies Iowans to Audit the Federal Reserve [Bloomberg]
"Anybody feel that the Fed’s out to get us? They’re all over the TV! They’re going to be out there saying, ‘Oh, we can’t audit the Fed.’ What, are they too big to audited? Too secret to be audited?” Actually, Rand, the individual reserve banks ARE audited. You're welcome.
Mom Allegedly Threatens to Blow Up School After Daughter Flunks Test [Gawker]
When your daughter fails a state exam, the next step is obviously to threaten the school.
