Updated: Fired Birmingham city accountant wins major battle in ongoing fight with city [AL.com]
A longtime Birmingham city accountant has won a major battle in a protracted legal fight over her firing with a Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge panel ordering the city to pay her back-pay for the time she was banned from City Hall. Three judge panel today affirmed a ruling of the Jefferson County Personnel Board earlier this year that ordered Virginia Spidle's return to work in addition to back-pay. Spidle at that time returned to work but was fired again by Mayor William Bell's administration in January after a week back on the job.
Japan Sales Tax Risks Growth Grinding to Halt in 2014: Economy [Bloomberg]
Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda risks stalling the economy by pushing through a higher sales tax that may damp consumption even as it aids efforts to tame the world’s largest debt burden. The nation’s recovery after last year’s earthquake and tsunami could grind to a halt in 2014 when the first increase will take effect, according to UBS AG and Itochu Corp.
IRS Announces Tax Relief For Dual Citizens And US Citizens Abroad [Forbes]
A new IRS procedure will take effect on September 1, 2012. IR-2012-65. Once the rules kick in, you’ll be able to file delinquent tax returns for the past three years plus FBARs for the past six years. That’s less than the usual eight amended returns and eight FBARs for OVDP participants. Payment of any federal tax you owe and interest must accompany the submission. Penalties? Hopefully none. The IRS will review your materials and if you look clean, won’t add any penalties. If you look like a bigger compliance problem, you might face an audit going back more than three years, sort of like opting out of the OVDP, the IRS says. Penalties may be the wildcard. The IRS says it won’t impose penalties in some cases.
Sheriff, county auditor at odds over review of inmate property controls [Star-Telegram]
"Our initial reluctance to participate in this nonmandated audit centered over concerns the audit staff would not fully understand jail operations, and perhaps misinterpret or fail to understand how and why some things are done in relation to inmate property," the sheriff wrote.
China's auditor general delivers 2011 audit report [Xinhua]
Liu Jiayi, auditor general of the National Audit Office (NAO), said that the agency audited 112 cases of major law violations and economic crimes last year. The cases involved more than 300 people, including some administrative department chiefs. Twenty-three of the 62 county-level public hospitals sampled were also found to have charged higher medicine prices than regulated, which led to extra revenue totalling 673.2 million yuan (106.85 million U.S. dollars), Liu said.
Deloitte wanted €166,000 for report on 'whitewash' error [Independent.ie]
Some have called the report a "waste of money" and "barely readable." Ouch.
Scouts must protect kids and adults [Edmonton Journal]
When it came to protecting children in its care from sexual abuse, Scouts Canada sometimes failed to live up to its own motto: "Be prepared." A review of Scout records by the auditing firm KPMG discovered 486 cases of alleged sexual misconduct by officials over a period spanning six decades. The majority of cases were passed along to police or other authorities for action at the time, but a disturbingly large number were not. KPMG found 65 cases in which authorities were not notified. In another 64 cases, the auditors couldn't figure out what happened because records were "disorganized, incomplete and inconsistent."