Category: ANR

Bob Lutz: I’m Not an Anti-Finance Guy [CFO Journal]
The former General Motors vice chairman has got a knack for numbers, and claims he even put a brake on unnecessary costs occasionally. But he’s got a beef with executives who focus solely on budgets and spreadsheets, instead of focusing on the product and on consumers. And he thinks that’s the biggest cause of Detroit’s downfall – and that Detroit is now back on the right track.

Pandora Prices Its I.P.O. at $16 a Share [DealBook]
Pandora Media on Tuesday priced its initial public offering at $16 a share, above its recently raised target range. The company, whose shares will start trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday under the ticker “P,” has raised $234.9 million, valuing the business at $2.6 billion.

Firms Squeezed on Tax Bills [WSJ]
During the financial crisis, hosts of small companies fell behind on their taxes for the first time, accountants and lawyers say. Their timing couldn’t have been worse.

Detroit bomb squad detonates suspicious package left outside IRS building [NYP]
Bomb squad officers in Detroit blew up a suspicious package early Wednesday outside a building that houses the Internal Revenue Service, the FBI and other federal offices. A black backpack that was found on the steps of the building around 4:30 am was blown up by bomb squad agents outside the building at around 6:45am after an X-ray unit showed it contained a power source.

What Happened to Barry Minkow? [Grumpy Old Accountants]
Zebra. Stripes. Or is it a tiger?

Happy Flag Day! 14 States Exempt Flags from Their Sales Taxes [Tax Foundation]
FYI for next year.

Crooked accountant rips off £450,000 from Coatbridge firm in just four months [Daily Record]
Sue Sachdeva is not impressed.

S.E.C. Seeks to Halt Sales of Stocks of 2 Chinese Companies [NYT]
Investigators say that China Intelligent Lighting and Electronics and China Century Dragon Media failed to disclose that their independent auditors had quit after questioning the accuracy of financial statements, according to separate orders released Monday. The S.E.C. is seeking a so-called stop order to keep the firms and shareholders from selling stock under the faulty statements, the agency said in a statement.

High Court Denies Suit Against E&Y Over Time-AOL Deal [Law360]
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal brought by an AOL Inc. investor alleging that Ernst & Young LLP approved tainted financial statements related to Time Warner Inc.’s merger with AOL. In rejecting the petition for certiorari, the high court dashed AOL investor Dominic Amorosa and co-petitioner attorney Christopher Gray’s claims that the Second Circuit failed to properly apply the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998 when it dismissed the fraud suit in February. The decision brings an end to 2003 suit claiming that Ernst & Young, the independent auditor for AOL, Time Warner and the merged company, engaged in fraud and abetted the companies’ fraud when it issued audited financial statements approving the companies’ allegedly faulty accounting.

The Importance of Being Audited [NYT]
When a company’s auditors resign and disclose that prior financial statements “should no longer be relied upon,” investors should head for the hills because there is a very good chance fraud has been discovered. Unfortunately if that company is a Chinese operation that obtained an American listing through a so-called reverse merger, then it is probably too late to salvage much if anything from the investment.

Candidate Johnson: I’d abolish the IRS [DMR]
“I think the biggest issue facing this country right now is that we are bankrupt and on the verge of a financial collapse,” Johnson told about 75 people at an Iowa Tea Party event at the Elks Lodge here. Johnson, who announced in April that he would seek the Republican nomination, predicted the nation’s financial troubles will be manifested in a bond market collapse. He vowed to fight for a balanced federal budget to avert such a calamity, adding he would replace federal personal and corporate income taxes with the so-called Fair Tax, in essence a national sales tax.

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley “Clings Tightly” to His State’s Ethanol Subsidies [JDA]
As Adrienne might say, “WTFC?”

Is Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Fudging Its Reserve Numbers? [WCF]
Maybe! Or it’s simply that math isn’t someone’s strong suit.

LarsonAllen buys Seattle accounting firm [MBJ]
Lockitch Clements & Rice PS joins Club LA.

Richest Americans Get $1.4 Million Tax Cut in Pawlenty Plan [Bloomberg]
The top 0.1 percent of U.S. taxpayers would save an average of $1.4 million in taxes under the economic plan of Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty, according to an independent analysis. Pawlenty’s $11.6 trillion tax-cut plan, which reduces rates on income, capital gains, interest, estates and dividends, is almost three times larger than the proposals endorsed by House Republicans.

Chinese investors shrug off U.S. accounting scandal fallout [ two dozen Chinese retail investors gathered at the dimly lit public hall of a brokerage firm in Shanghai, the accounting scandals involving U.S.-listed Chinese companies are far from the hot topic of the day’s trading as they swap strategies over tea and cigarettes. Many of the investors, mostly retirees, have not even heard about the saga over fake numbers among some Chinese firms that has shaken U.S. investors and stunned regulators there.

Stray Cat Strut: Woman Beats IRS [WSJ]
When Jan Van Dusen appeared before a U.S. Tax Court judge and a team of Internal Revenue Service lawyers more than a year ago, there was more at stake than her tax deduction for taking care of 70 stray cats. Hanging in the balance were millions of dollars in annual tax deductions by animal-rescue volunteers across the nation—and some needed clarity on the treatment of volunteers’ unreimbursed expenses for 1.55 million other IRS-recognized charities. Early this month, Ms. Van Dusen learned she had won her case. “I was stunned,” she said. “It feels great to have established this precedent.”

Fuzzy Accounting Enriches Groupon [NYT]
Groupon, the Internet coupon company, had an operating loss of $420 million last year. But it thinks investors in its initial public offering should instead look at “adjusted consolidated segment operating income,” or adjusted C.S.O.I. It is easy to see why Groupon wants prospective shareholders to view its accounts this way. Strip out marketing expenses, acquisition-related costs, stock compensation, interest expense and payments to the tax man and, presto, the start-up earned $60.6 million.

VF to Buy Timberland for $2 Billion in Cash [WSJ]
Branded-apparel company VF Corp. agreed to buy Timberland Co. for about $2 billion, taking advantage of the footwear company’s beaten-down stock price to boost its outdoor and action-sports businesses. VF’s offer of $43 a share represents a premium of 43% to Friday’s close. Shares of Timberland, which specializes in boots and outdoor apparel, traded above $45 as recently as late April, but a first-quarter report that fell well short of estimates sent the stock tumbling. Its earnings in the period fell 30% as it spent more on planned initiatives and saw higher product costs.

$90 million accounting mistake costs county official his job [WBEZ]
The former worker, Faisal Abbasi, 36, of Prospect Heights, accidentally made double entries for county cigarette and sales tax revenue from 2009, said Cook County Chief Financial Officer Tariq Malhance. “It was really a human error that one person booked it, and then, not realizing that it had been booked before … he [duplicated it], and booked again,” Malhance said. But Abbasi, who was laid off from his county job when the Preckwinkle administration took office in February, said he is simply a scapegoat for the mistake. The idea that he alone could have caused such an error is “a bunch of hogwash and smoke and mirrors,” Abbasi said. “You can’t just put in a $20 million or $30 million dollar entry without the external auditors looking at it.,” he told WBEZ on Friday.

Vote to end ethanol subsidies revives Coburn-Norquist tax revenue battle [The Hill]
Coburn successfully pushed for a Tuesday vote on a measure to cut subsidies for ethanol, a proposal that the Oklahoma Republican and Norquist, the anti-tax crusader, feuded over earlier this year. Both Coburn and Norquist have said they opposed a tax credit that gives refiners and gasoline blenders 45 cents for every gallon of ethanol bought and combined with gasoline – a policy the Government Accountability Office says cost about $5.4 billion in 2010.

Troubled Audit Opinions [NYT]
On one side is an assessment of a company with a clean audit opinion from the Toronto office of Ernst & Young, and with bonds rated just below investment grade by Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s. It has raised billions in capital markets. On the other is an investment research firm using the name Muddy Waters Research. It says the company, the Sino-Forest Corporation, is a fraud, and that its shares are worthless. As this is written, there is no definitive answer as to who is right. But the initial reaction of the markets seemed to be that they had more trust in the short-seller — a company whose Web site gives no the auditor’s opinion.

Auditors face suits over Chinese blowups in U.S. [Reuters]
Investors who have suffered a drubbing from accounting scandals at U.S.-listed Chinese companies are starting to sue the auditors who blessed their financial statements, but it will be tough for them to win in American courts. Shareholders already have sued a string of China-based, U.S.-listed companies for fraud, saying they lost money when stocks tanked after financial scandals emerged. They contend companies invented sham businesses, inflated revenue or gave vastly different information to U.S. and Chinese regulators.

$100 Million Claim Against Deloitte & Touche [CNS]
SBP Capital, formerly known as Ameriquest Capital, claims Deloitte & Touche cost it $100 million by giving it bum advice on “tax issues related to Ameriquest’s securitizations” of mortgage lending and “related activities.”

Is Groupon’s Business Model Sustainable? [DealBook]
In its less than three years of existence, Groupon has established itself as the king of social buying sites. As feverish speculation mounted about its impending initial public offering, analysts and investors could only await further details of how much money it was minting. But with its I.P.O. filing now public, Groupon faces significant questions about the sustainability of its business model. A look at the company’s overall financials shows a steep decline in how much money it is wringing from its fast-growing subscriber base.

Bill Aims at Tax-Strategy Patent [WSJ]
U.S. patent No. 7,698,194 isn’t an ingenious new machine or a break-through medical treatment. It is a method of analyzing taxes related to college-savings plans. It also is one of 144 patented tax strategies and 162 pending applications, as of late May, that tax preparers say have burdened their job and made it harder for citizens to pay their taxes. Consumer and tax groups have pushed since 2007 to get such patents banned. When it returns from recess this week, the U.S. House is expected to vote on an overhaul of the patent system that would effectively prohibit patenting tax strategies.

Leona Helmsley’s rich dog is dead [DMWT]
No more Trouble.

Retief Goosen Birdies at FedEx St. Jude Classic, Bogeys in Tax Court [TaxProf]
Swapping a caddy for a CPA could be an option.

Payroll-Tax Break Said to Be Discussed by Obama Aides Amid Slowing Economy [Bloomberg]
President Barack Obama’s advisers have discussed seeking a temporary cut in the payroll taxes businesses pay on wages as they debate ways to spur hiring amid signs that the recovery is slowing, according to people familiar with the matter. The idea, which is in preliminary stages of discussion, is among several being talked about at the White House as the economy holds center stage for the administration and Congress, the people said on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

What Divorce Means For Your Taxes [SmartMoney]
Divorce has no season.

Corporate Audit Fees Barely Budged Last Year [CFO Journal]
Public companies paid $3.3 million on average for their audit in 2010, up just 2% from 2009, according to an annual survey from Financial Executives Research Foundation on Thursday. Private companies paid their auditors an average of $222,300, which was in line with 2009 figures. Public company audit fees had actually fallen about 2.4% in 2009, according to FERF’s survey last year, so this puts them back near their 2008 levels.

I.R.S. Ends Exemptions For 275,000 Nonprofits [NYT]
The I.R.S. announced on Wednesday that it had revoked the tax exemptions of 275,000 nonprofit organizations after they did not meet legal requirements to file annual tax forms. The action shrinks the nation’s growing nonprofit sector by roughly 17 percent, to about 1.3 million charities, trade associations, membership groups and labor unions.

Dallas’s Secret Weapon: High Fives [WSJ]
Yeah, that’s what it is.

California Voters Balk at Tax Plan [WSJ]
A deadline next week is raising the pressure on talks between Gov. Jerry Brown and lawmakers over his plan to close the state’s $9.6 billion budget gap, but the proposal isn’t gaining traction with voters. The Democratic governor pushed lawmakers for months to approve his plan to ask voters to extend some tax increases in a June special election, in line with his campaign promise to seek voter approval of any tax measure. But they didn’t strike a deal in time, so he now wants them to approve the taxes and later ask voters to ratify them.

That Look, That Weiner-Spitzer-Clinton Look [City Room/NYT]
If caught in a sex scandal, this is the face you’ll make.

Audit: IRS Erroneously Gave Out $151 Million In Auto Tax Breaks [Dow Jones]
The IRS missed 4,257 individuals who claimed more than $151 million in undeserved tax deductions as part of the 2009 stimulus package program designed to boost automobile sales, according to an audit released Wednesday from the Treasury inspector general for tax administration. In 473 cases, the tax agency erroneously allowed 439 prisoners who were in jail the entire year, 16 dead people and 18 children under the age of 15 to claim just over $1 million in deductions.

GM’s Akerson pushing for higher gas taxes [Detroit News]
General Motors Co. CEO Dan Akerson wants the federal gas tax boosted as much as $1 a gallon to nudge consumers toward more fuel-efficient cars, and he’s confident the government will soon shed its remaining 26 percent stake in the once-bankrupt automaker. “I actually think the government will be out this year — within the next 12 months, hopefully within the next six months,” Akerson said in a two-hour interview with The Detroit News last week. He is grateful for the government’s rescue of GM — “I have nothing but good things to say about them” — but Akerson said the time for that relationship to end is coming because it’s wearing on GM.

A Twitter Group Warned About Weiner [NYT]
Calling themselves the #bornfreecrew on Twitter, members of the group closely monitored those whom Mr. Weiner was following, taking it upon themselves to contact young women they believed to be “schoolgirls,” and urging them publicly to stay away from him, according to an analysis of posts on Twitter’s public stream.

IMF urges Japan to triple sales tax to steady finances [Reuters]
The acting head of the IMF urged Japan to reduce its massive debt load to boost public confidence in the sustainability of the economy, which the global lender said could be achieved by tripling the 5 percent sales tax. Japan’s economy should bounce back from a slump after the March earthquake and tsunami, the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday, while urging lawmakers to adopt another emergency budget and start raising the sales tax from next year as the center piece of long-run fiscal consolidation.

Facebook vs LinkedIn vs Twitter vs Blogging [AW]
Place your bets.

Hatch, liberal group respond to Pawlenty tax plan [The Hill]
Oddly, they have different opinions.

Rx for a Double-dip Recession: Cut Government Spending by 15 Percent [TaxVox]
And call me in the next decade.

Sino-Forest independent committee appoints PwC [Reuters] Canada’s Sino-Forest Corp said late on Monday that an […]

CFOs Wary of Auditor Rotation [CFO Journal]
[T]here is currently very little auditor turnover among large companies. As of last year, companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index have on average been with their auditor for 24.5 years, according to data from Audit Analytics. Of that group, only 77 companies have been with their auditor for seven years or less, while seven companies have used the same auditor for over a century.

PCAOB Shifts into High Gear under Jim Doty [Accounting Onion]
[T]he fact remains that PCAOB inspectors have uncovered far too many problems, in far too many audits, to conclude that something short of broad-based change is called for.

Puma take leap towards green accounting [Accountancy Age]
Puma took the brave step of producing the first environmental profit and loss account from a global organisation. It not only put a price on its carbon usage, but also represented the cost of future damage incurred from its emissions and water usage.

BDO in the News! [The Summa]
Professor Albrecht takes a little trip down memory lane in accounting firm failures.

Cat lady’s feline foster care tax deduction slashed from $12,000 to $250 [DMWT]
A house full of feral cats demands some sort of tax planning.

“Sideshow Bob” Marshall Gets His Panties In a Bunch Over Richmond Fed’s Gayness [JDA]
Who knew a rainbow flag could cause so much trouble?

Updating a Résumé for 2011 [WSJ]
In case you’re looking.

Madoff’s underwear fetch $200 at Fla. auction [Reuters]
It was fourteen pairs of boxers.

Learn to Like Your Job [WSJ]
Toxic workplace relationships, failing company fortunes and limited advancement opportunities are just a few compelling reasons to quit a job. But career experts say many workplace problems that employees may think are irreconcilable can be improved or even resolved with some action and a change of attitude.

Companies May Face Rule to Shift Audit Firms [NYT]
Publicly traded companies may be forced to change their audit firms after several years, the chief regulator of the industry said Thursday. James R. Doty, who became chairman of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board this year, said in a speech that he had been disturbed by evidence turned up by board inspectors that many auditors failed to show sufficient independence from their clients. “Considering the disturbing lack of skepticism we continue to see,” he told a conference at the University of Southern California, “the board is prepared to consider all possible methods of addressing the problem of audit quahether mandatory audit firm rotation would help address the inherent conflict created because the auditor is paid by the client.”

Deloitte attacked for appointing former RBS auditor as chairman [Telegraph]
A group of institutional investors has launched an extraordinary attack on Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu for appointing the former auditor of the Royal Bank of Scotland as its new global chairman. The investors are angry that Steve Almond, who was responsible for vetting the accounts of RBS between 2005 and 2009, has been promoted to the head of one of the “Big Four” audit firms.

Virgin America hiring new CFO from Pinnacle Air [AP]
Peter D. Hunt will become CFO and senior vice president effective July 11, replacing Holly Nelson, who is leaving “to pursue other opportunities,” Virgin America said. Hunt has spent six years at Pinnacle, which operates regional flights for Delta, Continental and US Airways through subsidiaries that include Colgan Air and Mesaba Aviation.

IRS Loosens Aug. 31 Deadline for Offshore Tax Disclosures [Bloomberg]
The Internal Revenue Service will let taxpayers with undeclared offshore accounts apply for a 90-day extension of the Aug. 31 deadline for coming forward. The change, announced on the IRS website today, would let taxpayers seek the extension in writing by showing that they have made a “good-faith attempt” to meet the deadline and explain what information they are missing. “This would be a welcome relief to many taxpayers,” said Barbara Kaplan, an attorney at Greenberg Traurig LLP in New York. “There is difficulty in getting the records together.”

Groupon’s Non-GAAP Measures Raise Questions [CFO Journal]
Beware non-GAAP accounting measures. In the case of Groupon’s IPO filing, at least, they seem to raise more questions than they answer about the company’s earnings prospects.

SEC Probes China Auditors [WSJ]
The SEC has publicly indicated it was examining accounting and disclosure issues regarding Chinese companies that engaged in “reverse mergers,” which allow companies to list on U.S. exchanges without as much regulatory scrutiny as an initial public offering. People familiar with the matter say the investigation also includes auditors, which hadn’t previously been known. As part of its inquiry, the SEC has suspended trading on some Chinese companies, questioning their truthfulness about their finances and operations.

Key Dem: Tax reform should not hurt working families [The Hill]
Rep. Sandy Levin, the top Democrat on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee is set to say Friday that, while there is a need for tax reform, an overhaul of the code should not punish working families. Officials on both sides of the aisle have called tax reform a priority, and Republicans are pushing a plan to reduce both the top corporate and individual rates to 25 percent, down from their current 35 percent.

SEC Still Struggling to Stop Its Porn Problem [ABC]
A new report from the SEC’s inspector general David Kotz details how three employees and a contractor were caught checking out porn at work, the latest string of incidents uncovered by the agency’s watchdog. Kotz only launches investigations after the SEC’s security system flags employees for repeated attempts to access porn websites, but as he outlines in his new semi-annual report to Congress, he recently conducted probes into four workers.

Deloitte Elects New Chairman of the Board, Deloitteited [Deloitte]
Stephen Almond takes the reins from John Connolly.

Key GOP chairman says Geithner might be looking for revenue in tax reform [The Hill]
Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said he got that impression after speaking with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner following Wednesday’s meeting between President Obama and House Republicans. “I think the secretary would like to see revenue as part of any sort of tax package,” Camp said.

India Allows Accounting Firms to Set Up LLPs [WSJ]
The Ministry of Corporate Affairs, through the issue of two notifications, has allowed chartered accountants to form limited liability partnership firms. The circulars have removed the ambiguity around the terms “partnerships” and “body corporates”, which would otherwise have required amendments to the Companies Act, 1956, and the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949.

Auditors in China burned by cash balance scandals [Reuters]
[Q]uestions have been raised about whether auditors need to beef up procedures for confirming bank statements. Cash is the lifeblood of any company, and bank balances have figured in a number of recent Chinese accounting scandals.

The Art and Science of Business Valuation [AW]
Would you know how to value Linked In? Four billion? Ten billion? The real value of LinkedIn has been talk of the business media since its IPO on May 19. Is the company overvalued? Does Wall Street “get it” about valuing social media companies? The controversy over LinkedIn value puts the spotlight on the art and science of business valuation.

Taxpayer-ID Theft Climbs Despite IRS Crackdown [Bloomberg]
Taxpayer identity theft is growing even as the Internal Revenue Service has taken a series of steps to prevent it, according to a Government Accountability Office report. The IRS identified 248,357 instances of such theft in 2010, compared with 169,087 in 2009 and 51,702 in 2008, according to the GAO. Identity thieves cash in on stolen names and Social Security numbers by filing fraudulent tax returns or by using such data to obtain a job.

Speaker Boehner calls for debt ceiling deal by the end of June [The Hill]
In a press briefing with reporters, Boehner said that waiting until later in the summer could negatively affect financial markets. He claimed an agreement “needs to be done over the next month.”

Deloitte Expands Cloud Computing Practice [Deloitte]
Paul Clemmons will lead the new practice.

Studies Fuel Dueling Views on U.S. Corporate Taxes [WSJ]
While Congress duels over whether U.S. companies should pay more in taxes, a pair of reports provided fodder for each side of the debate this week.

Sherron Watkins and Harvey Pitt on SEC’s Whistleblower Rules [CFO Journal]
Pitt said that paying up to 20% of penalties collected for a securities-law violation to the person who provided the information that led to the case would “undermine corporate governance.” Employees seeking “lottery-like” returns will inundate the SEC with marginal claims, he warned. “There will be two gems within those 10,000 or 20,000 complaints but whether the SEC will be able to pick those two out is a different question.”

Satyam case: HC rejects auditors plea on disciplinary action [Business Standard]
PricewaterhouseCoopers auditors, Subramani Gopalakrishnan and Srinivas Talluri, accused in the Rs 14,000-crore Satyam accounting fraud, today received a jolt as the Delhi High Court today rejected their pleas against the disciplinary proceedings initiated by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI). A Bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Sanjiv Khanna dismissed the petitions filed by the two auditors, who had sought a stay on disciplinary proceedings initiated by the ICAI for their alleged involvement in the Satyam accounting fraud.

Navistar Sues Deloitte Proving No Statute of Limitations On Idiocy [Forbes]
Nearly one hundred years together. Down the drain.

‘Tax Lady’ Roni Deutch faces tax lien of nearly $183,000 [Modesto Bee]
Tax attorney Roni Lynn Deutch has been slapped with a nearly $183,000 federal tax lien, according to Internal Revenue Service filings, another sign of the Tax Lady’s financial woes. Deutch, who built a $25-million-a-year tax resolution law firm promising clients relief from the IRS, was hit with a lien of $182,722, filed May 9 in Placer County Superior Court.

KPMG Executive Poll: 39% Say Anti-Corruption Laws Disadvantage Them [WSJ]
A KPMG LLP poll of 214 executives in the U.S. and the U.K. showed that only 39% believed anti-corruption laws had hurt them competitively, and fewer than 20% though enforcement of such laws was “excessive.” The survey offered a glimpse into the C-Suite as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce intensifies efforts to amend the FCPA on the grounds that aggressive enforcement has held back U.S. business.

Cellphone Cancer Warning [WSJ]
Using a cellphone may increase the risk of a certain type of brain cancer, an international panel of experts said Tuesday, adding to a growing debate about whether a now nearly ubiquitous form of communication poses health risks. The experts said cellphone radio waves are “possibly carcinogenic,” classifying them in the same risk category as lead, chloroform and coffee. The classification from the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer could lead the United Nations health body to look again at its mobile-phone guidelines, the scientists said.

At I.M.F., a Strict Ethics Code Doesn’t Apply to Top Officials [NYT]
Over the last four years, the fund has tightened internal systems for catching ethical misconduct among its 2,400 staff members, establishing a telephone hot line for complaints like harassment; publishing details of complaints in an annual report; and empowering an ethics adviser to pursue allegations, which last year led to at least one dismissal. But the fund’s board members remain largely above these controls. The ethics adviser, for example, is not able to investigate any of them.

Are Taxes in the U.S. High or Low? [Economix/NYT]
In short, by the broadest measure of the tax rate, the current level is unusually low and has been for some time. Revenues were 14.9 percent of G.D.P. in both 2009 and 2010.

Liquidation of Stanford Bank taken over by Grant Thornton [Telegraph]
The accountants were appointed after bank creditors challenged the appointment of Vantis. The listed accountancy firm had itself gone into administration in June last year, at which point the liquidators dealing with the business joined FRP Advisory.

Ryan Says Rich Should Pay More as Sanders Defends Entitlements for Wealthy [Bloomberg]
Bernie Sanders, the U.S. Senate’s only avowed socialist, may be the chamber’s fiercest advocate of taxing the rich to cut the federal deficit. That doesn’t mean he wants to reduce their Social Security and Medicare benefits. Representative Paul Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, wants to give the wealthy big tax breaks to encourage them to invest and create jobs. He also wants to take away many of their retirement benefits.

“Goodwill Impairment” Accounting Could Become Less Costly – and Earnings Management a Lot Easier [Accounting Onion]
Among the “panoply of misnomers in financial accounting,” Tom Selling finds “goodwill” to be the most overt example. Don’t even get him started on trying measure “impairment.”

Memorial Day Tax Resources for U.S. Armed Forces (& Their Families, Employers) [TaxProf Blog]
We didn’t get yesterday off “just cuz.”