Author: Caleb Newquist

Founding editor, Going Concern.

Accounting News Roundup: FinReg Brings Plenty of Change; Some Number Crunching of Goldman’s Fine; ATF: Sin Taxes Rose 41% | 07.16.10

Law Remakes U.S. Financial Landscape [WSJ]
The Journal asked twelves experts about the bill, many of whom are not nearly as impressed as the Deal Professor. “Congress approved a rewrite of rules touching every corner of finance, from ATM cards to Wall Street traders, in the biggest expansion of government power over banking and markets since the Depression.

The bill, to be signed into law soon by President Barack Obama, marks a potential sea change for the financial-services industry. Financial titans such as J.P. Morgan Chase &Group Inc. and Bank of America Corp. may be forced to make changes in most parts of their business, from debit cards to the ability to invest in hedge funds.”

Apple May Offer IPhone Cases, Rebates to Address Flaw [Bloomberg]
Start forming the lines again, “Apple Inc., looking to avoid a recall of the iPhone 4, may give away rubber cases or offer an in-store fix to address a design flaw in the newest version of its top-selling product, according to analysts.

The company, which is holding a news conference at 1 p.m. New York time today, doesn’t plan to announce a recall, a person familiar with the matter said yesterday. Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs may instead offer the giveaways or refunds to dissatisfied customers, some analysts said.”

Google CFO: Old Spice Is The Future [Tech Crunch]
Written on a horse: “You know you’ve got a viral marketing hit on your hands when the CFO of Google mentions it in an earnings call. Yes, I am talking about the Old Spice YouTube Tweetathon where the bare-chested Old Spice Man addresses people on Twitter via personalized commercials on YouTube.”

Goldman’s SEC Settlement by the Numbers: We Do the Math [ProPublica]
Effectively, it will be paid for by August 1.


AIG Says It Counted as Much as $2.3 Billion of Repos as Sales [Bloomberg BusinessWeek]
Somewhere a former Lehman CFO is screaming, “See, I told you everyone was doing it!”

“American International Group Inc., the bailed-out insurer, said it classified as much as $2.3 billion of repurchase agreements and $3.8 billion of securities- lending transactions as sales in calculating quarterly results.

In late 2008, ‘certain of AIG’s counterparties demanded significantly higher levels of collateral to enter into repurchase agreements, which resulted in sales rather than collateralized-financing’ treatment under accounting guidelines, the New York-based insurer said in an April 13 letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission released today. The accounting didn’t materially affect any ratios or metrics the company publicly disclosed, AIG said in the letter.”

‘Sin Tax’ Revenue Surges [TaxProf Blog]
“The Treasury Department’s Alcohol and Tobacco Trade and Tax Bureau has released its Fiscal Year 2009 Annual Report, detailing a 41% increase (to $20.6 billion) in the amount of “sin taxes” on alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and ammunition collected by the federal government. Most of the $6 billion revenue increase resulted from the higher tobacco taxes included in the Children’s Health Insurance Reauthorization Act of 2009. Firearms and ammunition excise tax collection rose 45%, the largest annual increase in the agency’s history.”

KV Pharma Names New CFO; Hunt for Auditor, Signs of an Internal Control System Begins

The AP reports that K-V Pharm named Tom McHugh as their new CFO today which is good news for KV but could be some serious bad news for Tom.

As you may recall, things haven’t been as good as you could ask for over at KV this year – directors, auditors and executives are all bolting for the door and someone has to make a run at this thing. One of those lucky ducks is Tom McHugh:

K-V Pharmaceutical Co. on Thursday named Chief Accounting Officer Thomas McHugh as its new chief financial officer, replacing Stephen Stamp after three months.

The company said McHugh becomes its CFO effective immediately. McHugh served as the company’s interim CFO from September 2009 until April 2010. He was named chief accounting officer in February.

So it sounds like Tommy probably knows the place well enough but he still gets to fix all this:

“Material weaknesses have been identified and included in management’s assessment in the areas of entity-level controls (control awareness, personnel, identification and addressing risks, monitoring of controls, remediation of deficiencies and communication of information), financial statement preparation and review procedures (manual journal entries, account reconciliations, spreadsheets, customer and supplier agreements, stock-based compensation, Medicaid rebates and income taxes) and the application of accounting principles (inventories, property and equipment, employee compensation, reserves for sales allowances and financing transactions).”

And find an auditor! Since KPMG quit, the hunt is on for a new one, so hopefully there’s someone in St. Louis willing to help them out because…the NYSE kinda, sorta took notice that the company didn’t file their 10-K on time and well, that’s a no-no. Just ask Koss.

So the good money is probably is riding against Tom but we’re rooting for you buddy. Turn this ship around!

K-V Pharma replaces CFO after 3 months [AP]

The SEC Should Be Careful Not to Spend All $550 Million in One Place

Hopefully they’ll spread it around, you know, with lifetime memberships to: ladyboyjuice.com, kinkycomments.com, sexyavatars.net, cafebuckskin.blogspot.com et al.

Goldman Sachs has agreed to pay $550 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the largest penalty ever paid by a Wall Street firm, to settle charges of securities fraud linked to mortgage investments.

Under the terms of the deal, Goldman will pay $300 million in fines to the Treasury Department, with the rest serving as restitution to investors in the mortgage-linked security. Goldman will not admit wrongdoing, though it will admit that its marketing materials for the investment “contained incomplete information.”

That doesn’t sound nearly as fun but we understand a few people may have gotten hurt on this deal.

Goldman Settles With S.E.C. for $550 Million [NYT]

Lots of Appointing Going on at KPMG Today

Namely Jim Liddy the new Vice Chair – Audit; Tom Duffy – National Managing Partner – Audit; Scott Ozanus Vice Chair – Tax; and Jeff LeSage National Managing Partner – Tax.


And on such a grand occasion, John Veihmeyer gets to say lots of nice things about all these guys even though at least one of these guys is probably gunning for his position.

Jimbo: “Jim Liddy has a remarkable record of providing deep insights to financial service clients and companies in other sectors about their businesses and growth strategies, and is a proven leader. I’m confident that with his intense focus on audit quality, Jim will build on the strong audit practice that Henry Keizer created over the past five years to help ensure KPMG’s continued success.”

Tom: “As the newly named national managing partner – audit, Tom Duffy will team with Jim Liddy to lead our audit practice. Tom has considerable industry experience and a proven track record of delivering audit quality and exceptional service to our clients.”

Scottie: “We’re looking forward to Scott’s leadership during this important period for our tax practice and KPMG’s clients – as companies cope with legislative and regulatory changes, and seek clarity in complex challenges related to transfer pricing, restructuring, renewable energy and a variety of other areas.”

Jeff: “As the new national managing partner – tax, Jeff LeSage will team with Scott Ozanus to lead tax, bringing global tax experience, industry insight and outstanding client service skills to this important role.”

Congrats gentlemen. Not sure if these particular positions get you 18 with Phil or not but we’re sure they are sweet gigs all the same.

KPMG Appoints Jim Liddy Vice Chair – Audit [PR Newswire]
KPMG LLP Appoints Scott Ozanus Vice Chair – Tax [PR Newswire]

It’s Possible That the IRS Is Partly to Blame for Postal Workers Going Postal

Our favorite corner of the Federal bureaucracy, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, has come out with a new report today that admits that the IRS current method of sending notices and letters is costing us – taxpayers – millions because so much of it is undeliverable. This happens for various reasons, including nearly 25% of instances where recipients may or may not have physically threatened their mail carrier.


Press release (our emphasis):

TIGTA Report: Current Practices Are Preventing a Reduction in the Volume of Undeliverable Mail

The Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) current method of sending notices and letters is costing taxpayers millions of dollars because it results in a large amount of undeliverable mail, according to a report publicly released today by the Treasury Office of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).

The IRS sends out approximately 200 million notices and letters each year to individual and business taxpayers and their representatives at a cost of $141 million. In 2009, approximately 19.3 million of those mailings were returned to the IRS at an estimated cost of $57.9 million.

TIGTA assessed whether the IRS can reduce the volume of undeliverable mail. Its review of a random sample of 331 notices and letters returned to the IRS found that 37 percent were undeliverable because of invalid or nonexistent addresses; 35 percent had the wrong address; 24 percent were refused by the taxpayer or the taxpayer was not at home to receive the certified or registered mail; and four percent were returned for other reasons.

TIGTA recommended that the IRS allow taxpayers to submit a change of address over the telephone and improve its systems for identifying known bad addresses. TIGTA also recommended implementing a standardized procedure for processing undeliverable mail.

“The Internal Revenue Service needs to take advantage of the latest technologies and systems now available to cut down on undeliverable mail, thereby saving the taxpayers money,” said J. Russell George, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

In response, the IRS agreed with all of TIGTA’s recommendations and has begun the process of planning to implement them.

So, in other words, the IRS is partly responsible for several instances of the following:

Are Ernst & Young and PwC Neck and Neck in the Compensation Race?

From the mailbag:

I heard some scoop and wanted to share with my fellow indentured servants in the big 4 field. Word on the street is that P-dubs gave 10% raises to staff 2s becoming senior 1s (early promote) and 16% raises to staff 3s becoming senior 1s.

However, P-dubs doesn’t hand out the 5k bonus that Uncle Ernies offers to its staff 2s becoming senior 1s. I’d like to see how EY will top this, per an earlier promise from a partner that EY raises will be higher than P-dubs (maybe can some low performing partners?). In addition, the variance between average performers and high performers at P-dubs is only .6% (not significant at all).


If you forgot what this is referring to, back in April we reported a tip out of the Ernstiverse that a partner had claimed that the raises at E&Y would beat PwC’s. The reports out of PwC have been better than expected, although not for everyone.

So if this partner’s prognostication holds up, how will they pull it off down the stretch? Seems like a good question. Conversations are going on right now and the official news will reportedly be out in a couple weeks.

Since we’ve got half of the Big 4 involved here we’ll just mention that the belly aching at KPMG is in full force on the bonus front but maybe there’s hope for a strong move down the stretch?

As for Deloitte, apparently communication has occurred for promotions but it sounds like word on comp could be more than a month out. If you’ve got the scoop get in touch with the details and discuss this four horse race but as it stands right now, it looks as if PwC has E&Y by a nose.

More Than a Few People Didn’t Heed the ABA’s Advice re: “Fair Value Sucks” Letters to the FASB

Just last week we mentioned the American Bankers Association and its efforts to undermine the FASB’s latest fair value proposal that, in the ABA’s mind, could bring down civilization as we know it.

Because of this danger, the ABA encouraged “investors” through email and on its website to write individual letters to the FASB, expressing their displeasure with the worst idea in the modern history of double-entry accounting. We say “investors” because the ABA not-so-subtly asked everyone (i.e. who felt the overwhelming urge to write Bob Herz & Co.) to refer to themselves as such.

Further, the ABA provided a template of a letter to send to the Board for the “investors,” however, it did warn to resist using the example as their own because A) this is far too important and telling the FASB that fair value pains you in the deepness of your soul and takes food out of your children’s mouths will be a far more effective narrative; and B) the FASB hates form letters. HATES. So much so that Bob Herz rips up all his gold stars that he gives for the constructive letters he receives and then your unoriginal ass gets negative points.

The group urges investors to “write your own letter — the FASB does not appreciate ‘form’ letters, and often discounts them in their analyses.”

Simple enough, right? Well, maybe. But In his column today, Jonathan Weil gives an example of one ABA soldier that wasn’t very good at following instructions:

Among the letter writers was Terry L. Stevens of Francesville, Indiana, who identified himself as a bank investor, as the ABA had suggested. He didn’t mention that he also is chief financial officer and executive vice president of Alliance Bank, a closely held lender in Francesville with $270 million of assets.

“As a bank investor, of utmost importance to me regarding the banks in which I own stock is their financial position, and transparent financial reporting is key in order for me to make investment decisions,” Stevens’ letter said. “With this in mind, I am writing to express my deep concerns and opposition to the portion of the proposal that requires all financial instruments to be marked to market.”

Stevens didn’t write those words himself. He copied them verbatim from a sample letter the ABA posted on its Web page. So, too, did a bunch of other bankers who submitted comment letters to the FASB opposing its proposal, notwithstanding the ABA’s warning that they shouldn’t do cut-and-paste jobs.

This had to be a mistake, right? This is far too important of an issue to the banks of this country that a mishap like this could just happen. Bankers are responsible people that take this stuff very seriously and would never risk going through the motions just to serve at the whims of their lobby’s voice…would they?

Stevens told me he didn’t have time to write his own letter from scratch. “The points that I grabbed out of their paragraphs did a good job of explaining how I felt about the situation,” he said.

Oh.

Stealth Bankers Bomb as Anti-Reform Crusaders [Jonathan Weil/Bloomberg]

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.”

The IRS Is Giving Gulf Oil Spill Victims Their Full and Undivided Attention This Saturday

Attention “self-reliant nonconformists who don’t pay much heed to everyday rules and regulations”! The IRS is offering you help with your nonconformist ways this very Saturday!


If you’re not interested in conforming with, you know, the Internal Revenue Code, then the Service might be a little bit less accommodating. Sure, it’s a Saturday but this is the government offering you help for free. No physical harm intended.

The Internal Revenue Service announced the locations of Taxpayer Assistance Centers in seven Gulf Coast cities that will be open this Saturday, July 17 to provide help to taxpayers impacted by the BP oil spill.

The following locations will be open from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Central Time:

1110 Montlimar Drive, Mobile, Ala.
651-F West 14th St., Panama City, Fla.
7180 9th Ave. North, Pensacola, Fla.
2600 Citiplace Centre, Baton Rouge, La.
423 Lafayette St., Houma, La.
1555 Poydras Street, New Orleans, La.
11309 Old Highway 49, Gulfport, Miss.
Individuals who have questions about the tax treatment of BP claims payments or who are experiencing filing or payment hardships because of the oil spill will be able to work directly with IRS personnel at any of these locations on Saturday.

A Couple of Senators, Who Probably Aren’t Yankee Fans, Are Making a Run at This Estate Tax Problem

John Kyl and Blanche Lincoln must have figured that they could not allow one more billionaire (without naming names) get away with dodging the estate tax. The two Senators have introduced a proposal that would set the exemption at $5 million with a tax rate of 35%:

The proposal would require the Senate Finance Committee to amend H.R. 5297, the Small Business Lending bill, to permanently set the estate tax rate at 35 percent, with a $5 million exemption amount phased in over 10 years and indexed for inflation. It would also provide a “stepped up basis” for inherited assets.

“It’s time to take decisive action on the estate tax, and provide the permanent solution that Arkansas’s hardworking farmers and small businesses are desperately seeking,” Lincoln said. “Uncertainty in the estate tax law has caused incredible difficulties for these individuals, which is why I have fought for a quick resolution to the issue that is both permanent and fair. One way to improve upon an already strong legislative initiative that includes tax incentives and a number of other benefits for small businesses is to ensure that we reach a permanent solution on the estate tax to provide small business owners and famers with the certainty they need.”

See how she slipped in the “farmers”? “Small Businesses”? You sure this doesn’t have anything to do with a certain savvy billionaire who figured, “Yeah, 80 is a nice round number. Let’s do this.”

But they’ve got a plan! “The Lincoln-Kyl proposal provides an election for deceased taxpayers to either retain this year’s estate tax rate, which is zero percent with “carry over basis,” or file under the provisions of the new bill.”

[h/t TaxProf]