The best way to tackle the Big Four [FT]
Michel Barnier has shocked the Big Four accounting firms. The European Union internal market commissioner wants to ban them from operating as consultants as well as auditors, force them to work jointly with others, and set time limits on how long they can audit each company. It could be the biggest shake-up of accounting since the collapse of Enron laid low Arthur Andersen and led to the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Yet it will not amount to much unless the industry’s looming disaster – the failure of another audit firm and contraction to a Big Three – can be avoided.
E&Y Says Greek Default Seems Unavoidable [Bloomberg]
“The euro zone sovereign-debt crisis shows no sign of abating,” E&Y said in an e-mailed report in London [Wednesday]. “A default on Greek government debt now seems unavoidable. The key question is when this default will occur and how it will be managed.”
To Ease the Crisis, Tax Financial Transactions [NYT]
Governments, both rich and poor, urgently need a way to calm speculation in the financial markets and to raise revenue. On Wednesday, the European Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, proposed a tax on financial transactions. Such a measure, already supported by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, is long overdue. Indeed, a tax of just 0.05 percent levied on each stock, bond, derivative or currency transaction would be aimed at financial institutions’ casino-style trading, which helped precipitate the economic crisis. Because these markets are so vast, the tax could raise hundreds of billions of dollars a year globally for cash-strapped governments and could increase development aid.
D.C. tax employee’s arrest followed years of warnings [WaPo]
[F]ederal prosecutors charged a D.C. tax office employee with stealing about $414,000 from the city coffers. Mary Ayers-Zander did it, charging papers state, by making fraudulent manual adjustments to legitimate taxpayers’ income tax withholding, resulting in payments to personal accounts she had set up. In other words, Ayers-Zander found a weakness in the system and exploited it, finding a way to enrich herself because the internal controls within the Office of Tax and Revenue were not up to par, according to court records.
Snoop Dogg tax debt goes up in smoke [TW]
Robert Snell’s celeb tax scoop du jour.
Mr. Buffett’s Tax Secrets [WSJ]
[T]he opportunity to educate the public would be even greater if Mr. Buffett would let everyone else in on his secrets of tax avoidance by releasing his tax returns. Going only by Mr. Buffett’s unverified claims, his federal taxes in 2010 amounted to 17.4% of his taxable income, probably because much of his income was from capital gains and dividends. It’s also likely that he took significant deductions for charitable donations. No doubt the millions of Americans who could end up paying more because of this claim would love to see the details.
Medicis, its auditor will pay $18 mil to settle suit [Arizona Republic]
Medicis Pharmaceutical Corp. and its auditing firm, Ernst & Young, have agreed to pay $18 million to settle a shareholder class-action lawsuit stemming from the pharmaceutical company’s financial statements. Scottsdale-based Medicis would pay $11 million and Ernst & Young would pay $7 million under terms of a settlement agreement filed last week in U.S. District Court in Phoenix.
The iPad Decision [JofA]
Ask one CPA, the managing partner of a 160-employee firm, what he thinks of using the iPad in his work, and he tells you “there’s no other way to practice right now.” Ask another, the IT head of a 400-employee firm, and he tells you that his iPad is no more useful than a paperweight.
