Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

Accounting News Roundup: Digimarc Fires Grant Thornton for KPMG; Ernst & Young’s Liability Risk; Auditing the Fed…For Real? | 12.29.10

Posted on by Caleb Newquist

Groupon Seeks to Sell Shares [WSJ]
Flying high with cash and confidence after snubbing Google Inc.’s reported $6 billion purchase offer, daily deals company Groupon Inc. has set its sights on raising nearly $1 billion in private funds. The Chicago-based company has filed a certificate with the State of Delaware, where it is incorporated, seeking authorization to sell up to 30.1 million preferred shares of stock at $31.59 per share, or a little more than $950 million.

Digimarc changes auditor after clash [Portland Business Journal]
Grant Thornton fired for KPMG. Have we heard this story before?

PE Outlook: KPMG’s Hessing On Private Equity’s Changing Seasons [Private Equity Beat/WSJ]
Things are looking up!

Tax Reform Won’t Happen in 2011 (or 2012) [TaxVox]
And everyone seemed so serious about it pre-November.

Dodging Repatriation Tax Lets U.S. Companies Bring Home Cash [Bloomberg]
At the White House on Dec. 15, business executives asked President Obama for a tax holiday that would help them tap more than $1 trillion of offshore earnings, much of it sitting in island tax havens. The money — including hundreds of billions in profits that U.S. companies attribute to overseas subsidiaries to avoid taxes — is supposed to be taxed at up to 35 percent when it’s brought home, or “repatriated.” Executives including John T. Chambers of Cisco Systems Inc. say a tax break would return a flood of cash and boost the economy.

Ernst & Young’s Liability For Lehman Larger Than Claimed [Forbes]
Don’t forget the 10-Q’s in 2008! “EY’s claim of an arbitrary cutoff for responsibility for the audit after the 2007 10-K is intended to fool the casual reader of media reports. Lehman remained an EY client until the bankruptcy in September 2008. This period included two more 10-Qs.”


Woman in disbelief that pastor broke into her home [Salon]
The tithe in the offering plate obviously wasn’t cutting it.

GAO will be able to audit Fed [On the Money/The Hill]
Somebody has an opinion on this, “The GAO under the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill is now required to audit the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending program instituted in the wake of the financial crisis.”

Posted in ANR

Related Posts

Accounting News Roundup: Congress Still Stalling on Tax Bill; ‘Most Americans Have Not Planned Well for Their Futures’; Deloitte’s Schroeder Joining FASB | 07.15.10

As Tax Cuts’ Expiration Date Nears, Little Consensus [WSJ]
“Lawmakers are negotiating a tax bill, but appear increasingly likely to wait until after the November election to take any final action that could anger voters—either by raising taxes, or by cutting them and thereby deepening deficits. Congress ultimately could decide to extend current tax levels for just a few months, leaving the issue for the next Congress to settle. Another option is a short-term extension of a year or two, avoiding for now the huge cost to the Treasury of a permanent extension. It’s even possible Congress might fail to take any action this year.”

From Jail, Conrad Black Fights $71 Million Tax Bill [Forbes]
“Imprisoned former media baron Conrad M. Black is fighting a $71 million bill from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, which says from 1998 to 2003 he filed no tax returns and paid absolutely nothing on $120 million in taxable income.

In a previously unreported lawsuit in U.S. Tax Court, Black, now serving a six-and-a-half-year-sentence in a Florida federal prison, is challenging the IRS’ demands and asserting the income in question wasn’t taxable in the U.S.”

Americans More Optimistic on Economy Than Their Own Finances, Survey Says [Bloomberg]
Who said Americans only think about themselves? “Americans are generally hopeful, and much of the economic news leads us to conclude that we are out of the recession and a double dip is unlikely,” said Robert Glovsky, chair of the CFP Board and director of Boston University’s program for financial planners. “With that said, most Americans have not planned well for their futures.”

Harvey Golub Resigns as AIG Chairman [WSJ]
“A weeks-long standoff between the chairman and chief executive of government-controlled American International Group Inc. ended Wednesday, when Chairman Harvey Golub resigned, saying, ‘I believe it is easier to replace a chairman than a CEO.’

Mr. Golub’s decision marks a victory for Robert Benmosche, the company’s hard-charging chief, who chafed under Mr. Golub’s oversight. Mr. Benmosche had told the board their working relationship was ‘ineffective and unsustainable,’ Mr. Golub said in his resignation letter.”

FASB hires expert to review how new rules perform [Reuters]
“Mark Schroeder, a recently retired senior partner at Deloitte & Touche [DLTE.UL], will serve as the board’s first “post-implementation review leader” and also serve a similar role for the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, FASB said.

The hiring of Schroeder is one of the big steps that FASB has taken to formalize its process for review of how new standards are performing. Banks and investors had complained during the financial crisis that FASB’s new rules on mark-to-market accounting had contributed to freezing the credit markets, but there was no formal process for reviewing the rules.”

Accounting News Roundup: ‘Go-to’ Accountant Accused of Swindling Calif. Dems; The Extended Estate Deadline; Poverty Stats Not Encouraging | 09.14.11

The 2013 Tax Cliff [WSJ]
President Obama unveiled part two of his American Jobs Act on Monday, and it turns out to be another permanent increase in taxes to pay for more spending and another temporary tax cut. No surprise there. What might surprise Americans, however, is how the President is setting up the U.S. economy for one of the biggest tax increases in history in 2013.

A ‘Go To’ Accountant Is Accused of Fraud [NYT]
For almost 15 years, Kinde Durkee has been one of the go-to accountants for Democratic candidates in California. She and her firm kept track of expenditures and contributions and made sure that candidates and party committees’ campaigns complied with California’s tangled election finance laws. But just after Labor Day, Ms. Durkee was arrested by the F.B.I. on charges of siphoning hundreds of thousands of dollars from the campaign of a State Assembly member from Orange County for her personal use. The F.B.I. found that Ms. Durkee had control over nearly 400 campaign accounts and had been shuffling money between them — and out of them — for years.

I.R.S. Extends Estate Taxes Deadline [Bloomberg]
The Internal Revenue Service said on Tuesday that tax returns for estates that are worth more than $5 million for people who died in 2010 will be due on Jan. 17, instead of Nov. 15. The estate tax lapsed during 2010, and the filing process has been complicated because the I.R.S. has not released details and forms that govern how heirs should establish the basis of assets inherited without an estate tax.

Tax Plan for Jobs Bill Has Familiar Ring [NYT]
[T]he White House […] says its plan should be viewed as a rough framework, because its top priority is to get the jobs bill enacted. If Congress approves the president’s jobs plan, it could instead pay for it with other spending cuts or tax increases if that is what the Congressional committee on deficit reduction recommends later this fall.


Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010 [U.S. Census Bureau]
There were 46.2 million people in poverty in 2010, up from 43.6 million in 2009 ─ the fourth consecutive annual increase and the largest number in the 52 years for which poverty estimates have been published.

How Payroll Tax Cuts Can Create Jobs [NYT]
The payroll tax is the second most important tax in the United States, normally bringing in almost $900 billion a year through a combination of taxes on employers and employees — about 15 percent of payroll. Although workers may not realize it, most of them pay more payroll tax than they pay in federal income tax. The president proposes cutting the employer portion of the payroll tax by 3.1 percentage points (bringing the combined total down to about 12 percent) for employers with less than $5 million in payroll. Unfortunately, this last condition is business-distorting. Why encourage a $10 million business to split into two $5 million businesses?

Accounting News Roundup: The Tax Reform Can Is Getting Kicked; Mount of Troubles at Olympus; Doubled-up Expenses Led to Layoffs | 11.14.11

Deficit Deal Might Delay Tax Overhaul [WSJ]
“There could be a two-step process that would hopefully give us pro-growth tax reform,” Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R., Texas) said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Mr. Hensarling is a co-chairman of the deficit-cutting supercommittee that faces a Nov. 23 deadline for reaching agreement on a plan to cut at least $1.2 trillion from projected future deficits. The approach could ease the path to an agreement, by allowing Congress to reach the outlines of an agreement on tax revenues and spending cuts this year, while postponing the difficult details of a tax overhaul until nexthe issue back to the congressional tax-writing committees. On Sunday, at a press conference in Honolulu where he was hosting the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, President Barack Obama called on Republican lawmakers to soften their resistance to revenue increases as they work on a deal bring the deficit under control, saying he hoped lawmakers will “bite the bullet and do what needs to be done.”

The Folly of the Flat Tax [WSJ]
Figuring out your taxable income can be quite an effort. But once that is done, most taxpayers just look up their tax bill on an IRS-provided table. Those with incomes above $100,000 must perform a simple calculation that involves multiplying two numbers together and adding a third. A flat tax with an exemption would require precisely the same sort of calculation. The net reduction in complexity? Zero.

Olympus Sale Helped Hide Balance Sheet Hole [Bloomberg]
Olympus Corp. (7733)’s 2009 sale of its profitable diagnostics unit may have undermined efforts to expand into health care as the company sought cash to shore up a balance sheet that was hiding decades of losses. Olympus’s then-President Tsuyoshi Kikukawa said the Japanese camera maker was unable to compete in the industry, even as he bought face cream, plastic cookware and recycling companies. A day after Beckman Coulter Inc. (BEC) purchased the Olympus unit, Chief Executive Officer Scott Garrett told analysts the division’s “long and enviable track record of above-market growth” would give an immediate boost to earnings. Barclays Capital upgraded Beckman on the deal.

Rogue Traders, Rogue Firms: The CME, PwC, MF Global and the Legacy of Refco [Re:The Auditors]
FM: “The auditor has complete access, at any time, including to financial systems and reports. They are responsible for issuing an independent opinion on internal controls over financial reporting and for issuing additional reports to the regulators – which they are dependent on- regarding controls over segregated assets per the Commodity Exchange Act. So… When you think about frequency, access, independence, and the fact they get paid well for their services by the shareholders the auditor is in line as the first-responder.”

Romney Tax-Cutting Path to Budget Balance Clouded by Few Savings [Bloomberg]
“Romney may be our only hope, so let’s hope he takes a remedial math course before January 2013,” says former Reagan administration budget director David Stockman. “You can’t get to 20 percent of GDP on spending without taking a fire ax to the Pentagon budget and sharply reducing Social Security payments to the more affluent current retirees.”


Error led to Workforce Central Florida layoffs, controller contends [OS]
Oops: “Three years ago, a former financial controller at Workforce Central Florida says he made a startling discovery. For several months, he said, the agency mistakenly posted expenses twice, making it appear as if Workforce had less money than it really did. By mid-2008, those phantom costs were pushing agency executives to lay off more than 20 workers, he said. The controller said he reported his findings to Workforce’s chief financial officer and chief operating officer, hoping to avert cutbacks. But he said the chief operating officer told him Workforce board members had already been notified about the layoffs, and she was not willing to tell them there had been a mistake.”

KPMG files to shift MF Canadian accounts to RBC [Reuters]
MF Global fired all 1,066 of its brokerage employees on Friday, triggering anger and resentment about the firm’s collapse after bad bets on European debt under former CEO Jon Corzine’s leadership. KPMG said on Saturday it filed the motion with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, seeking authority to transfer certain MF Global Canada Co customer accounts to RBC Dominion Securities Inc.