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Accounting News Roundup: Olympus’ Loss; Satyam Is Back in the Game; Expectations Gap, Shmexpectations Gap | 02.13.12

Olympus Books $9.7 Million Loss [WSJ]
Olympus Corp. said Monday that it booked a net loss of ¥756 million ($9.7 million) for the fiscal third quarter, while predicting a full-year net loss of ¥32 billion. The third-quarter net loss for the three months ended December by the Japanese maker of cameras and medical equipment, which is trying to emerge from one of Japan's biggest corporate accounting scandals in years, was a sharp reversal from a net profit of ¥2.04 billion in the same period a year earlier.

Oscar ballot counting 'surreal' for L.A. accountant [CTV]
In classic accountant fashion, Rick Rosas admits that he's had the same tuxedo for 10 years.
 
Satyam to Acquire 15% Stake in Dion Global [WSJ]

Satyam Computer Services Ltd. said Friday it agreed to acquire an about 15% stake in Dion Global Solutions Ltd., marking the software exporter's first acquisition since it started recovering form one of India's worst ever corporate fraud. Although Satyam didn't give the deal price, Dion Global said separately that its board has approved issuing equity shares to Satyam on a preferential basis for 350 million rupees (about $7 million). Dion Global is owned by India's billionaire Singh brothers, Malvinder and Shivinder, who founded drug maker Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. and hospital chain Fortis Healthcare Ltd. It provides software services to capital markets, covering trading, portfolio management and treasury and research services. Satyam said acquisition will help it expand coverage of its capital markets software solutions business. Banking and financial services, including capital markets, accounted for nearly 18% of Satyam's $1.13 billion revenue in the last fiscal year ended March 31.
 
PwC US Names Former Washington Post Journalist Ceci Connolly as Managing Director of PwC's Health Research Institute [PwC]
Is no one safe?
 
A Year of Tax-Code Reckoning [NYT]
For two decades, politicians have promised — and failed — to overhaul the tax code to make it simpler and fairer. This time they have a deadline of sorts. On Jan. 1, 2013, a major part of the current code turns into a pumpkin. That is when income tax rate cuts — a host of expanded tax deductions and credits, and generous changes in the taxation of dividends, capital gains and inheritances — are set to disappear. That day of reckoning was supposed to have come in 2011, but President Obama signed a two-year extension of President George W. Bush’s tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, along with temporary tax cuts of his own, most notably the two-percentage-point cut to the payroll tax. This time around, Mr. Obama has vowed that he will not extend the tax cuts for upper-income Americans, and no matter who wins the presidential election in November, Mr. Obama will be in the White House on Expiration Day. That will put pressure on Republicans in Congress to prevent a sudden return to the tax code of the 1990s.
 
Fixing Section 409A: Legislative and Administrative Options [SSRN via TaxProf]
409A, aka: Joe Kristan's nominee for worst tax enactment of the (last) decade.
 
The Auditor's Expectations Gap…Not Again! Excuses, Excuses, Excuses! [GOA]
The Grumpies have had it up to here [bridge of the nose]: "These two Grumpy Old Accountants simply can’t believe that today’s global accounting firms continue to rely on an almost 40 year-old excuse to justify their shoddy audit work.  Yes, we know this because we were accounting undergraduates when this feeble defense was rolled out for the first time.  While the “expectations gap” reasoning may have been believable in our youth, today it is nothing but a meaningless excuse.  After all, independent audits now are dramatically improved over days gone by (or so we are told), and the Big Four have had four decades (two generations of investors) to re-educate the investing public on what an independent audit really represents."
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