Category: ANR

The Shadow of Enron Still Lingers [WSJ]
The beginning of the end for Enron Corp. came exactly a decade ago. Yet the energy giant’s colossal collapse casts a long shadow over the government’s efforts to punish wrongdoing during the financial crisis. In October 2001, the highflying Houston company jolted investors with a big loss. Less than two months later, Enron was bankrupt, and the scandal led to 42 civil enforcement actions by securities regulators and criminal charges against 33 people and the company’s auditor, according to a tally by law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP. More than a dozen peoFormer Enron President Jeffrey Skilling, now 57 years old, is serving a 24-year sentence in a Colorado federal prison following his 2006 fraud conviction. Some people who helped untangle the Enron mess say the results show how regulators and prosecutors are coming up short as they work on cases tied to the financial crisis. So far, no high-profile executive has been sent to prison for crisis-related wrongdoing.

Lessons From Auditor’s Fall [WSJ]
Joseph F. Berardino says he “turned the page” on an accounting career that lasted more than 30 years. “Fate has given me an opportunity to do something different.” Mr. Berardino was chief executive of Andersen Worldwide, the parent company of Arthur Andersen, when the accounting firm was hit with a criminal charge in March 2002. He soon resigned, watching from the outside as a jury convicted Arthur Andersen of obstructing justice by shredding documents relating to its botched audit of Enron. The conviction meant Arthur Andersen was banned from auditing public companies. It was a death sentence. By the time the Supreme Court overturned the conviction in 2005, the 89-year-old firm was essentially out of business. At its peak, the firm employed 28,000 people around the world. “It’s left us with just four big accountancy firms, and I don’t know anyone these days who thinks that’s a good outcome,” Mr. Berardino says now.

Cain defends ‘9-9-9’ tax overhaul plan [WaPo]
Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain acknowledged Sunday that some Americans would see a tax increase under his “9-9-9” plan, but he insisted that “most people will pay less” under his proposal to overhaul the country’s tax code.

Zynga’s Profits Get Zyngier [GOA]
The Grumpies take on Farmville: “Zynga, Inc. filed another amendment to its registration statement. The fourth-amended S-1 for Zynga involves a change in the revenue recognition, which fortuitously turns a semi-annual loss into a semi-annual profit. Ain’t accounting great!”

Accounting Gain Boosts Citigroup Profit [WSJ]
Citigroup booked a $1.9 billion gain tied to a change in the valuation of its own debt, and continued improvement in losses from soured loans allowed the bank to reduce its loan-loss reserve by $1.4 billion. Even without the accounting gain, Citigroup’s $3.74 billion profit exceeded analysts’ expectations.

How California Was Diminished by 1978 Tax Revolt [Bloomberg]
California voters approved Proposition 13 to rein in property taxes that had doubled in 10 years. More than three decades later, that rebellion has mortgaged the state’s future, saddling it with the nation’s highest debt and lowest credit rating. The measure led to reductions that dropped per-student school spending from seventh to 29th nationally, prompted cities to pursue sprawling retail development to compensate for lost revenue, and pushed the state into budget gridlock, including a $705 million revenue shortfall announced Oct. 10, by requiring two-thirds approval for any tax increase. “Proposition 13 set up an unfair and dysfunctional two- tiered system of property taxes,” said Kevin Starr, a history professor at the University of Southern California and the author of a series of books on the state. “It choked off a source of revenue, and the lack of that revenue has brought California to the edge.”

Olympus Adviser Payments Should Be Probed, PWC Report Says [BBW]
Olympus Corp. may face regulatory and legal scrutiny because of payments made to advisers in a 2008 transaction, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers report commissioned by ousted president Michael C. Woodford. Potential offenses include false accounting, financial assistance and breaches of duties by the board, according to an Oct. 11 report that Woodford provided to Bloomberg News. Chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa said at an Oct. 14 press conference that the board fired Woodford, a 30-year veteran of the Japanese company, because he “wouldn’t listen” to warnings from Kikukawa. The British executive, who is now back in the U.K., said he was fired after he challenged the transactions.

‘Capitalists of the World Unite!’ [WSJ]
You don’t have to be camped out with the protesters to be angry at Wall Street. Contrary to what you may hear, actual capitalists—those providing capital—get a raw deal down on the Street of Shame.

How the Taxpayer Protection Pledge helps push tax reform [WaPo]
Red rover, red rover, send Grover right over: “The 238 members of the House of Representatives and the 41 senators who have signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge to their constituents stand ready to vote for pro-growth, revenue-neutral tax reform that simplifies the tax code and brings rates down for all citizens and businesses. The pledge is a barrier to tax increases. And that protection makes real tax reform possible today, just as it did in 1986.”

Cain Plan’s Reagan-Era Roots [WSJ]
Herman Cain’s “9-9-9” plan might have been called the “Optimal Tax.” The Republican presidential candidate’s economic adviser, Rich Lowrie, thought the plan’s broad sweep and ultra-low 9% rates made it an ideal tool to revamp the tax code and encourage growth. Mr. Cain liked the idea, but not the name Mr Lowrie came up with. “We can’t call it that,” Mr. Cain said during a cab ride through Nashville in July, according to Mr. Lowrie. Instead, the former pizza-chain executive, tapping his instinct for marketing, concluded: “We’re just going to call it what it is: 9-9-9.” (“What kind of nerd am I?” Mr. Lowrie says now.)

Can Tax Cuts Pay for Themselves? [NYT]
Can tax cuts “pay for themselves,” inducing so much additional economic growth that government revenue actually increases, rather than decreases? The evidence clearly says no. Nevertheless, a version of this idea, under the guise of “dynamic scoring,” has apparently surfaced in the supercommittee charged with deficit reduction — the joint Congressional committee with 12 members. Dynamic scoring sounds technical or perhaps even scientific, but here the argument means simply that any pro-growth effect of tax cuts should be stressed when assessing potential policy changes (e.g., reforming the tax code). For anyone seriously concerned with fiscal responsibility, this is a dangerous notion.

Bethenny Frankel’s $120 Million Skinnygirl Lie That Wasn’t [Fraud Files]
Tracy Coenen debunks a HuffPo wannabe debunker.

TIGTA: 10,300 Businesses (Not Projected 25,000) Paid 10% ObamaCare Tanning Tax [TaxProf]
New Jersey, rejoice!

Tax Holiday Backers Emphasize Big Picture [Bloomberg]
Faced with criticism that companies didn’t use proceeds of a 2004 tax holiday to create jobs directly, advocates for repeating the policy are emphasizing the indirect economic effects of repatriating more than $1 trillion. Whether the money is used for hiring or stock buybacks, “I would much rather have their foreign earnings here rather than in, say, France,” said Kenneth Kies, a tax lobbyist at the Federal Policy Group in Washington whose clients include Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and Pfizer Inc. Those companies, along with Apple Inc., Google Inc., and Qualcomm Inc., are part of a coalition urging Congress to temporarily reduce the tax rate on profits held overseas. They want a repeat of a 2004 law that let companies pay 5.25 percent, instead of 35 percent, when they bring that cash to the U.S.

PwC has earned £400m from Lehman Brothers so far [Telegraph]
In total, the accountancy firm has billed Lehman Brothers International (Europe) £403m and still has about 250 staff working on the complex resolution of the bank. This fee does not take into account the cost of continuing to pay 495 former Lehman Brothers staff as well as contractors who are helping with the winding up work. In the six months to the end of June alone the payroll bill came to £33m. Completing the work is expected to take at least 10 years, though the costs are expected to fall as the main parts of the administration are completed and the number of staff required to work on the project falls. An application will be made to the UK High Court next month to extend the administration period for a further five years.

ICAEW: Pass/fail audit report is best [Accountancy Age]
Auditors’ Reporting model should not be extended to disclose company information that is not already in the public domain, the ICAEW has argued. US regulator the PCAOB has proposed extending the audit report template to offer investors more detail on risks and business models, but the ICAEW has warned if management has not disclosed the information, the auditor should not do so.

Buffett’s Son Defends Occupy Wall Street [Bloomberg]
“I think it takes that to make things happen sometimes,” Howard Buffett, 56, said of the demonstrations in an interview yesterday in Des Moines, Iowa. Over the past 15 years, “we saw large corporations really screw people.”

Oversight board proposes plan to make accountants more accountable [WaPo]
Auditors are supposed shareholders, but from Enron and WorldCom to the Wall Street meltdown of 2008, they have often been criticized for not barking. They are hired and paid by the companies they audit, and policymakers have struggled for decades to strengthen incentives for them to stand up to corporate management when appropriate.

With Just Three 9s, Cain Refigured Math for Taxes [NYT]
Mr. Cain, a former pizza chain chief executive, wanted a proposal to jolt the economy and give his candidacy some definition. “I said, ‘The first fundamental, guys, is we have to throw out the tax code,’ ” Mr. Cain said Wednesday in an interview. “How do we come up with a bolder plan?” he pressed two of his close advisers. From that exchange emerged the plan that Mr. Cain calls 9-9-9: a flat 9 percent individual income tax rate, a 9 percent corporate tax rate and a 9 percent national sales tax. He has uttered the triple digits repeatedly, metronome-like, in speeches and debates, until they have acquired the catchy power of a brand.

JPMorgan Earnings Fall Less Than Expected on Accounting Change [Bloomberg]
JPMorgan would have reported a loss for its investment bank without the debt-valuation adjustment, which added 29 cents a share, under U.S. accounting rules allowed when the market value of a company’s liabilities declines. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon, 55, said in the statement that the gain “does not relate to the underlying operations of the company,” which suffered from a 13 percent decline in investment-banking revenue from the prior quarter.

Buffett Builds His Tax-the-Rich Case [WSJ]
The biggest mystery is the nearly $23 million gap between Mr. Buffett’s adjusted gross income and his taxable income. Without having his tax return it is impossible to know the reason for the gap for sure, tax experts say. One possibility for the gap is that he made large charitable contributions, itemized deductions that are subtracted from adjusted gross income. Another possible element is interest expense. Mr. Buffett is known for not selling investments but rather borrowing money against them. To the extent that he has investment income, any interest paid on such loans would be deductible.

‘Buffett Rule’ May Be Broken by 25% of Millionaire Taxpayers, Study Finds [Bloomberg]
Preferential treatment of investment income and the reduced impact of payroll taxes on high earners lets about 94,500 millionaires pay taxes at a lower rate than 10.4 million “moderate-income taxpayers,” representing about 10 percent of those making less than $100,000 a year, according to the report by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service dated Oct. 7. The findings put the U.S. tax system in conflict with the so-called Buffett Rule, which says households making more than $1 million annually shouldn’t pay a smaller share of their income in taxes than middle class families, says the report, which analyzed 2006 Internal Revenue Service data.

IRS Auditing How Google Shifted Profits Offshore to Avoid Taxes [BBW]
The agency is bringing more than typical scrutiny to how the company valued software rights and other intellectual property it licensed abroad, said the person, who requested anonymity because the audit isn’t public. The IRS has requested information from Google about its offshore deals after three acquisitions, including its $1.65 billion purchase of YouTube, the person said. The transfer overseas of these kinds of rights rights has enabled Google to attribute earnings to foreign units that pay lower taxes, Bloomberg News reported a year ago.

No. 1 Financial-Strength Ranking Spells Doom [Bloomberg]
Jonathan Weil: “Less than three months ago the European Banking Authority said Dexia SA (DEXB) had passed its so- called stress test with ease. The French-Belgian lender’s July 15 news release carried this headline: “2011 EU-wide Stress Test Results: No Need for Dexia to Raise Additional Capital.” Then last weekend, 86 days after getting its clean bill of health, Dexia took a government bailout to avoid collapsing. Nobody was surprised this happened. Nor should anyone have been.”

Cain ‘9-9-9’ Tax Plan Captures Debate Spotlight as Perry Recedes [Bloomberg]
“9-9-9 will pass,” the former Godfather’s Pizza chief executive said, “because it has been well-studied and well- developed. It starts with — unlike your proposals — throwing out the current tax code. Continuing to pivot off the current tax code is not going to boost this economy.” Other Republican candidates criticized or ridiculed the idea. “I thought it was the price of a pizza when I first heard it,” former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman Jr. said.

Cain: ‘The problem with that analysis ict’ [WaPo]
Cain couldn’t seem to answer any debate questions without at least mentioning his tax code overhaul plan, which would include a flat nine percent tax on businesses, a nine percent tax on individuals and a nine percent national sales tax. Bloomberg’s Julianna Goldman, one of the debate’s co-moderators, said Bloomberg’s analysis found the plan would not be revenue neutral. Instead, the media company found that it would actually raise less money than the current tax code. Cain responded with what is sure to become a useful catchphrase throughout the rest of the primary season. Cain said: “The problem with that analysis is that it is incorrect.”

NY judge: Home confinement in Arthur Andersen case [AP]
A former managing partner at the Arthur Andersen accounting firm was ordered Tuesday to serve three months of home confinement after admitting he engaged in insider trading. U.S. District Judge Robert Patterson praised the good deeds H. Clayton Peterson has done as he decided not to impose the yearlong prison sentence Peterson, 65, had agreed to during his guilty plea. Peterson, of Denver, was awarded the Bronze Star for his service in Vietnam. Defense attorney Steven Glaser had argued for leniency, citing Peterson’s work on behalf of adopted children and efforts to help find employment for 600 Arthur Andersen employees who lost jobs when the Chicago-based company closed.

Why Do Accounting Academics Blog Less Than Other Academics? [Accounting Onion]
Tom Selling would like to know. He has a theory but would entertain others.

Financial Statement Fraud: How It Is Done [Fraud Files]
Tracy Coenen: “One of the most innocent-sounding terms used to describe financial statement fraud is “earnings management.” Such a phrase minimizes the seriousness of the crime. “Management” almost makes it sound like something good! But earnings management isn’t a noble effort. It is, in fact, financial statement fraud. The degree and seriousness can vary, but it is fraud nonetheless. It is the purposeful manipulation of account balances in order to make the financial statements conform to some predetermined template.”

For Funds, a Groupon Deal Could Disappoint [WSJ]
When four well-known U.S. mutual funds invested $450 million in Groupon Inc. last December, it looked as though they might reap a windfall when the online discount-deal service went public. Now, however, expectations that the funds might triple their money or more have come back to earth. And current estimates of the company’s value suggest some funds may find themselves marking down the value of their holdings in the Chicago online coupon company.

IRS Employees Charged $80 Million on Credit Cards [AT]
The IRS provides credit cards to some of its employees to make purchases of under $3,000. The purchases are supposed to be used for low-cost items such as office supplies and training. The Federal Acquisition Regulation prohibits splitting high-cost procurements into multiple credit card purchases and requires, whenever possible, the use of existing contracts. Cardholders are also required to seek approval for purchases and verify that funding is available prior to using the credit cards. However, the TIGTA inspectors found 2,955 purchases that were potentially split into two or more transactions to circumvent micro-purchase limits; and purchases made from improper sources.

Report: Repatriation Tax Holiday a ‘Failed’ Policy [WSJ]
The 15 companies that benefited the most from a 2004 tax break for the return of their overseas profits cut more than 20,000 net jobs and decreased the pace of their research spending, according to report from the Democratic staff of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released Monday night. The report warned against repeating the tax break, calling the 2004 effort “a failed tax policy” that cost the U.S. Treasury $3.3 billion in estimated lost revenues over 10 years and led to U.S. companies directing more funds offshoretionals often defer bringing back profits earned abroad to avoid paying U.S. taxes on them.

Sky China shares plunge in Singapore after auditor quits [Reuters]
Shares of Singaporelisted Sky China Petroleum Services Ltd slumped as much as 32 percent to a record low on Tuesday after the company said its auditors, Ernst & Young LLP, had resigned. This is the latest in a string of auditor resignations that have hit Chinese stocks listed in Singapore and the United States, sending investors running.

Protest Gets Green Light [WSJ]
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday the city would allow an anti-corporate protest to remain in a Lower Manhattan park indefinitely, his strongest affirmation that authorities would tolerate the demonstrations—as long as they remained law-abiding. “The bottom line is—people want to express themselves. And as long as they obey the laws, we’ll allow them to,” said Mr. Bloomberg as he prepared to march in the Columbus Day Parade on Fifth Avenue. “If they break the laws, then we’re going to do what we’re supposed to do: enforce the laws.”

Call for News Corp vote against Murdochs [FT]
News Corp faced intensifying pressure for corporate governance changes on Monday as the biggest investor advisory group in the US recommended shareholders vote against the re-election of 13 of the media company’s 15 directors, including Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive. The ISS advisory group said that the phone-hacking scandal at News Corp’s London-based newspaper group had “laid bare a striking lack of stewardship and failure of independence” by the board that had led to enormous financial and reputational costs to shareholders.

Taxing Millionaires Casts Obama as ‘Warrior’ for Middle Class Americans [Bloomberg]
Democrats have turned to an agenda that Republicans are calling class warfare, as President Barack Obama presses a “Buffett Rule” to tax the rich, Senate Democrats offer a millionaires’ tax instead and party leaders fulminate against Bank of America’s $5 debit-card service fee. Campaigning for re-election, Obama welcomes the charge. “Then guess what? I’m a warrior for the middle class,” he declared Sept. 22, standing at a Cincinnati bridge linking the home states of the Republican leaders of the House and Senate and setting a new course for his own party.

NBA’s First Two Weeks of Season Canceled [WSJ]
NBA Commissioner David Stern canceled the first two weeks of the season after two straight days of last-ditch negotiating sessions failed to resolve the labor dispute. Mr. Stern said both sides were “very far apart on virtually all issues….We just have a gulf that separates us.” The cancellation came after a seven-hour meeting at a Manhattan hotel on Monday. There are no further meetings scheduled and no timetable for when more games could be axed. Mr. Stern said that any financial losses incurred in the stretch will be factored in as negotiations move forward. The league has said it stands to lose hundreds of millions of dollars.

At Long Last, Facebook Releases an iPad App [Bits/NYT]
Trite status updates including “Loving this fall weather!” coming to a tablet near you.

They fuck you up, accountants [AccMan]
Indeed they do.

Ernst & Young employees get dirty, entertain kids at annual day of service [WaPo]
“I came home exhausted and filthy,” said Kevin Virostek, Ernst & Young’s Greater Washington managing partner. “But I never had a better day at Ernst & Young.”

Quarter of KPMG new partners are women [Accountancy Age]
Quite ironic that the article doesn’t quote any women.

Corporate audit fees up? Beware of trouble ahead [Reuters]
A high or rising audit fee can indicate one of two things, experts say. Either the auditor is charging a risk premium, aiming to cover future legal costs to them of something going awry, or they may just be doing more work on the audit, digging into areas where results are uncertain. The studies’ findings come at a moment when regulators are considering requiring auditors to give out even more information. A proposal under consideration by the U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board might have auditors disclosing more than the current minimal thumbs up or down. seem to be telling a valuable story.

U.S. Corporate Profit Rebound Loses Steam [Bloomberg]
Earnings per share for the Standard & Poor’s 500, excluding financial companies, rose 14 percent in the third quarter, the smallest gain since the end of 2009, analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg show. That compares with 19 percent in the second quarter and 20 percent in the first. Analysts have begun reducing forecasts for the current quarter and beyond. S&P 500 futures rose today, indicating the index will extend last week’s rally.

Judge puts brakes on SEC’s Deloitte case [Reuters]
A federal judge on Friday put the brakes on the government’s attempt to quickly get documents related to possible accounting fraud at Chinese companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges. U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson questioned whether she could force a Chinese unit of accounting firm Deloitte & Touche to hand over records to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In September the SEC asked the court to enforce a subpoena it sent to Deloitte seeking information about its Chinese unit’s audits of Longtop Financial Technologies Ltd, a Chinese company under investigation by the SEC.

Qwikster Is Gonester: Netflix Kills Its DVD-Only Business Before Launch [ATD]
While Netflix had to use some strained logic to explain its decision last month, this one is straightforward: It’s not going to force customers to use two different services to rent DVDs and streaming video, because customers hated that idea.

Surrey accountant completes two-thirds of run across US [BBC]
A Surrey accountant aiming to run 3,080 miles (4,957km) across the US to raise £10,000 for Help for Heroes is about two-thirds of the way into his route. Chris Finill, 52, of Cranleigh, has been running about 40 miles (64km) a day since he left San Francisco with athlete Steve Pope on 17 August. The pair, who plan to get to New York by 6 November for the city’s marathon, have just run through Iowa. They said gravel surfaces made recent runs a “nightmare” in a Twitter post.

Accountants Outpace CPAs in Job Listings [CPA Trendlines]
This doesn’t mean you can stop studying for the CPA.

Consistency in Accounting and Legal Discourses: The Overtime Cases [GOA]
Grumpies: “For several years battles have raged in several courtrooms concerning whether accounting firms have a legal obligation to pay junior accountants overtime. We are sympathetic to the position of the accounting firms, but worry about the soundness of their legal reasoning and conclusions. Do accounting firms have to be consistent in different domains? For example, does the logic in legal briefs and oral arguments have to be congruent with ethical principles and auditing standards?”

Practitioners Raise Concerns About Fingerprinting Proposal at IRS Hearing [JofA]
“We have serious concerns regarding the level of burden that the user fee regulations will place on CPA firms, particularly small and medium-size CPA firms,” AICPA Tax Executive Committee Chair Patricia Thompson, CPA, told the IRS panel. According to IRS estimates, 70% to 80% of those affected by the fees are operating as or employed by small entities. Thompson’s testimony focused on the fingerprinting requirement for nonsigning staff working under the supervision of a CPA, and she said the IRS should consider an alternative that would allow CPA firms to use a consumer reporting agency instead. Under that scenario, the costs per applicant would be significantly below what the IRS is likely to charge, and less burdensome to implement ,Thompson said.

Cain’s ‘9-9-9’ tax reform plan under fire from both left and right [OTM/The Hill]
Cain’s so-called “9-9-9” plan has liberals and tax analysts worried that the plan would not take in enough revenue, and that it would cause lower- and middle-income families to pay more. But conservatives have a different concern – that Cain’s plan to install a 9 percent national sales tax, paired with income and corporate taxes at that same rate, would give Democrats a brand new tax stream to try to squeeze out more revenue.

An Accountant’s Soul Presides Over the P&L at Apple [ATD]
[O]verlooked in the homages we’ve seen recently to Jobs’s spirit of innovation, his artistry and sheer force of will is one other aspect of the man that made him one-of-a-kind: his fiscal acumen. Jobs was a true visionary, but he was also a businessman as Jim Kelleher of Argus Research reminds us. “Consumers who gush over the beauty and efficacy of Apple products rarely quibble or complain about Apple’s premium pricing,” Kelleher writes in a note to clients. “Behind the tech-weenie veneer on transformative products, there is an accountant’s soul presiding over the P&L ang>World facing worst financial crisis in history, Bank of England Governor says [Telegraph]
FYI.

Obama challenges Republicans to explain opposition to jobs bill [WaPo]
“If Congress does something, then I can’t run against a do-nothing Congress,” Obama said in response to a question at a morning news conference. “If Congress does nothing, then it’s not a matter of me running against them. I think the American people will run them out of town, because they are frustrated, and they know we need to do something big and something bold.”

Britons are driven to doughnuts [FT]
Total sales at the Autocentres division, which Halfords said this year would not meet the targets it set when the business was acquired, increased 9 per cent, with like-for-like revenues up 2.7 per cent. But like-for-like sales in the core retail business fell 1.9 per cent as drivers shunned “car enhancement” products in particular. Cycle sales improved, partly thanks to high petrol prices. Halfords forecast first- half pre-tax profit of £53m-£55m ($82m-$85m), compared with £69m last time. By contrast, Greggs, the bakery chain, said it had sold almost 1.5m “Superstar Doughnuts” since they were introduced five weeks ago. They have been marketed on YouTube and Facebook as talking doughnuts that have their own personalities. “It has captured the imagination,” said Ken McMeikan, chief executive.

It’s Too Hard to Know Who Is Too Big to Fail [Jonathan Weil/Bloomberg]
JW: “Two years ago if you had asked whether the commercial lender CIT Group Inc. (CIT) was too big to fail, the answer would have been an emphatic no. The Treasury Department had rejected its latest bailout plea. In November 2009, after 101 years in business, CIT filed for bankruptcy. Ask that same question about CIT today, though, and the best answer would be: Who knows?

Apple Talked With Police Before Jobs’s Death [Bloomberg]
Apple was supposed to inform the police of Jobs’s death before making a public announcement so the department could prepare, said Brown. Instead, police learned he had died when the company issued a press release at about 4:30 p.m. local time on Oct. 5. As it turned out, Brown said, only about 40 people showed up around Jobs’s home that day. “Here’s a guy who’s a billionaire and lives in a regular neighborhood, not behind a gated estate with all the security guards,” said Bruce Gee, a former Apple employee who drove up from his home a couple miles away. “On Halloween, people go trick or treating there like everyone else.”

House Republican wants IRS answers on tax-exempt groups [OTM/The Hill]
Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.), in a letter dated Thursday, requested a breakdown of how many tax-exempt groups are in good stead with the IRS, what sort of resources the agency dedicates to nonprofit oversight and how many tax-exempt organizations have been audited since 2008. The letter, sent to IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman, comes after Boustany and other House Republicans pressed the IRS to investigate the nonprofit status of AARP, the powerful seniors lobby. AARP rejected GOP claims that it’s more concerned with profits than with its members. But on Thursday, Boustany, chairman of the House Ways and Means subcommittee on Oversight, said the group and others look more like for-profit enterprises than anything else.

Maryland cigarette tax increase of 50% proposed, following alcohol tax hike [DMWT]
Is nothing sacred?

Apple’s Visionary Redefined Digital Age [NYT]
RIP, Steve. Thanks for the fun toys.

Steve Jobs Was Always Kind To Me (Or, Regrets of An Asshole) [The Wirecutter]
Brian Lam: “I just feel lucky I had the chance to tell a kind man that I was sorry for being an asshole before it was too late.”

Historic day online: Twitter reaction to Steve Jobs’s death hits record [The Age]
The death of Steve Jobs has provoked the biggest online reaction of any event in recent history, with social media monitoring firm SR7 expecting official Twitter figures to come in at 10,000 tweets per second.

Steve Jobs’s Best Quotes [WSJ]
“I wish [Bill Gates] the best, I really do. I just think he and Microsoft are a bit narrow. He’d be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger.”

Dems Seek 5% Millionaire Tax for Job Plan [Bloomberg]
Senate Democratic leaders proposed imposing a surtax on people earning at least $1 million a year to pay for President Barack Obama’s jobs plan, an idea immediately rejected by Republicans as lawmakers head for a showdown over how to boost the economy. Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said yesterday the 5 percent tax would generate $450 billion, enough to cover the cost of the administration’s proposal. Democrats dared Republicans, who oppose tax increases, to block the plan. “The addition of this proposal makes it very tough for Republicans to oppose the president’s jobs package,” said Senator Charles Schumer of New York, the chamber’s third-ranking Democrat. “Republicans will be hard-pressed to explain why they’d allow teachers and firefighters to be laid off rather than have millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share.”

Mouchel chief quits after contract error [FT]
Mouchel, which provides services such as road and building maintenance, said on Thursday that it had overestimated the profits from one contract by £4.3m because of an actuarial error. In June, it had predicted that a one-off gain from the contract – believed to be with a local government client – would insulate it from disappointing trading elsewhere. In a second setback, Mouchel also announced on Thursday that it was increasing accounting provisions related to other contracts by a further £4m or so following a review by Rod Harris, its new finance director. It said the larger provisions reflected “the continuing challenging business environment”.

Billionaire Poster Boys For Tax Reform: Mellon, Buffett, Schwarzman…And Koch? [Forbes]
And we don’t want to see them in their Farrah Fawcett versions.

U.S. and New York Sue BNY Mellon [WSJ]
Bank of New York Mellon Corp. was hit by a one-two legal punch that escalates a currency-trading crisis for one of the nation’s largest banks. The Justice Department and New York’s attorney general filed separate civil lawsuits alleging that the bank fraudulently charged clients for currency transactions. Filed within hours of each other late Tuesday, the suits allege that BNY Mellon defrauded or misled state and public pension funds, private companies, universities and banks in a decade-long scheme of overcharging for foreign exchange.

Democrats discuss tax on US millionair=”http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/dc930870-eed7-11e0-959a-00144feab49a.html#axzz1ZuZb93Gd” target=”_blank”>FT]
Democrats in the Senate have discussed a new tax on US millionaires to pay for at least part of $447bn in fresh economic stimulus measures pushed by the White House. According to a Democratic congressional aide, no final decisions were made on Tuesday on whether to present a new tax on the wealthiest citizens, and there were no estimates on how much money it was intended to raise.