Category: ANR

~ It’ll be half day here at GC today, resuming a regular schedule on Monday. We suggest you do the same.

80-Year-Old Ex-UBS Client Given 2 Years Probation In Tax Case [Dow Jones]
An 80-year-old one-time UBS AG (UBS) client was sentenced to two years probation for hiding $4.9 million from the IRS, the Department of Justice said Thursday. Ernest Vogliano was also ordered to pay a civil penalty of $950,381 and a $10,000 fine for five counts of filing false federal income-tax returns and conspiring to defraud the IRS. He pleaded guilty to the charges in December. He was one of seven UBS clients charged in a probe into U.S. taxpayers concealing funds through overseas accounts and companies.

FASB, IASB Extend Timetable For Some Accounting Projects [Dow Jones]
Two organizations in charge of U.S. and international accounting standards said they could take until the end of the year to agree on unified bookkeeping rules for publicly traded companies. Officials at the International Accounting Standards Board and the U.S.-based Financial Accounting Standards Board want to see a single set of accounting standards used worldwide. The boards have been working for years on “convergence” projects to eliminate major differences between U.S. and global rules.

Nice Girls Finish Last [FINS]
And they apologize, among other things.

Business Development Skill Builders for Young CPAs [JofA]
Many firm leaders think that young CPAs lack the necessary business development skills to move to the next level or become a future leader of the firm. However, young CPAs are often not given the opportunity to develop those skills on a daily basis. Business development is a difficult thing to teach, and it’s unrealistic to expect the skills to come naturally to many CPAs.

Hatch will oppose any deficit-reduction deal that includes raising taxes [The Hill]
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) poses a significant obstacle to any bipartisan deficit reduction deal in the Senate that would raise taxes, according to Senate aides and activists. Hatch would have significant say over any deficit-reduction as ranking Republican on the Senate Finance panel, which has jurisdiction over taxes, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. He told conservative activists shortly before the April recess that he would oppose any deficit-reduction package that raises taxes, period.

GE Posts Fourth Straight Profit Rise as Industrial Orders Gain [Bloomberg]
General Electric Co. (GE) posted a fourth straight quarter of profit growth, beating analysts’ estimates, as equipment orders increased, and boosted the dividend for the third time since July. First-quarter profit from continuing operations rose 58 percent to $3.58 billion, or 33 cents, excluding pension results, up from $2.26 billion, or 20 cents, a year earlier, GE said. That exceeded the average estimate of 28 cents a share from analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Regulators Serve Up Alphabet Soup [WSJ]
The financial overhaul of the 1930s first brought in a slew of acronyms now part of today’s financial fabric—FDIC, SEC, FHLB and FHA. But the acronyms created by the recent Dodd-Frank Act means anyone hoping to understand the biggest financial overhaul in almost 80 years will need a language tutor.

Wells’ Stumpf Mum on CFO Departure [TSC]
Wells Fargo […] CEO John Stumpf wouldn’t answer questions Wednesday on the departure of Howard Atkins, the bank’s former financial chief, preferring instead to focus on the bank’s dividend and buyback. “That is so yesterday. We have a terrific CFO; we are going forward and we are looking to the future,” said Stumpf in the bank’s conference call Wednesday.

Treasury pays IRS a backhanded compliment on its tax-season performance [WaPo]
“On the one hand, the IRS is to be commended for its sharpened focus on fraud interception and prevention,” said Inspector General J. Russell George. “On the other, its efforts to prevent improper credits still leave much to be desired, and customer service problems continue.”

Supreme Court cancels bail to former Satyam auditors [NDTV]
The Supreme Court has cancelled the bails granted to PricewaterhouseCoopers partner Subramani Gopalakrishnan and Satyam’s internal auditor V. S. Prabhakar Gupta, directing them to surrender by April 30. A bench comprising Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice B. S. Chauhan cancelled their bail and directed them to surrender within this period, failing which, the central investigative agency will take steps to arrest them.

Calif. court freezes assets of TV’s ‘tax lady’ [AP]
A California court froze the assets and appointed a receiver Wednesday to run the business operated by Roni Deutch, a nationally known tax lawyer who gained a measure of fame on late-night television commercials. Sacramento Superior Court Superior Court Judge Shelleyanne Chang ordered Deutch to appear in court June 10 for a hearing to decide if she should be fined and jailed for criminal contempt of court. She acted after the California attorney general said Deutch shredded documents and failed to promptly repay her clients in violation of a court order.

FASB, IASB Want Feedback on Convergence Burden, Timeline [JofA]
FASB and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) posted a survey online to collect views from users about the time and effort that will be involved in adopting several new standards and when those standards should be effective. The boards are seeking further input on these issues because, they said in a press release, a request for comments in a document released last October drew a “limited number of responses” from users and, for FASB, private entities.

Ex-Taylor Bean Chairman Farkas Found Guilty on All 14 Counts in Fraud Case [Bloomberg]
Lee Farkas, the ex-chairman of Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Corp., was found guilty of 14 counts of conspiracy and bank, wire ann what prosecutors said was a $3 billion scheme involving fake mortgage assets. A federal jury in Alexandria, Virginia, yesterday returned the verdict after one day of deliberations. Farkas, who was free during the trial, was taken into custody. He faces a maximum sentence of 30 years on the conspiracy and bank-fraud charges and 20 years or more on the wire-fraud and securities-fraud counts when he’s sentenced on July 1.

Auditors ‘could have missed fraud’ at Lloyds and RBS [Accountancy Age]
Auditors might not have picked up on financial mismanagement at Lloyds and RBS, so great was the confusion surrounding the banks’ assets in 2008. So concluded the Public Accounts Committee, which today called it “alarming” that neither lender was able prove their assets were not linked to fraud or criminality when they entered the Treasury’s Asset Protection Scheme in January 2009.

Yahoo CFO Says ‘Investments Starting To Pay Off’ [Dow Jones]
Yahoo Inc.’s (YHOO) first quarter-results show that investments the Internet giant has been making are “starting to pay off,” Chief Financial Officer Tim Morse said Tuesday. In an interview with Dow Jones Newswires, Morse noted that Yahoo beat the midpoint of its revenue guidance and topped analysts’ earnings-per-share forecasts by 1 cent. He also noted that that number of users of Yahoo’s branded properties was up 15% over last year and the minutes they spent on the sites rose 17%.

Facebook Seeking Friends in Beltway [WSJ]
Facebook is still trying to find a path to Washington, where the company has only a fledgling lobbying operation, even though it finds its privacy policies under increasing scrutiny and is trying to navigate a politically sensitive expansion into China. In seven years, Facebook has risen from a tiny start-up to an Internet power with a potential market value estimated at more than $50 billion. Now an online forum with more than 600 million users, Facebook faces growing pressure from lawmakers and regulators concerned about the way it uses personal information shared by its users.

State launches probe into campaign to provide superhero capes to jobless [Orlando Sentinel]
Dubbed the “Cape-A-Bility Challenge,” a $73,000 public-relations campaign by Workforce Central Florida features a cartoon character named “Dr. Evil Unemployment” and includes handing out about 6,000 red superhero capes to jobless Central Floridians. The campaign, revealed Saturday in a report in the Orlando Sentinel, was met with derision by many unemployed who questioned spending more than $14,200 on capes and $2,300 on foam cutouts of “Dr. Evil Unemployment.” They said the campaign’s tone risked minimizing the severity of the region’s labor problems.

Subotnik: Why All Students in the Basic Tax Course Should Prepare a Return [TaxProf Blog]
Novel idea.

What Not to Say in a Job Interview [FINS]
Job interviews should not be therapy sessions.

Alterra Investors Should Oppose KPMG Reappointment, ISS Says [Bloomberg]
Alterra Capital Holdings Ltd. (ALTE) investors should reject the insurer’s plan to reappoint KPMG- Bermuda after a government accounting board faulted the auditor’s work, said Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. The proxy-advisory service joins Glass Lewis & Co. in advising shareholders next month to vote against a proposal by Alterra’s management to keep the Bermuda affiliate of the Big Four accounting firm as the company’s auditor.

Obamas Earned $1.7 Million, Paid $453,770 in Taxes; Bidens Made $379,178 [Bloomberg]
President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, reported $1.7 million in adjusted gross income last year and paid $453,770 in federal income taxes, according to tax returns released yesterday by the White House. The Obamas’ adjusted gross income for 2010 dropped about 69 percent from the previous year, when it was $5.5 million, and 2010 was the couple’s lowest-earning year since 2006, before Obama’s presidential campaign generated interest in books he wrote. Their total federal income tax liability for 2010 dropped about 75 percent from 2009, when it was $1.8 million.

ASU 2011-2: The Accounting for Troubled Debt Restructurings Still Leaks Oil [Accounting Onion]
How accounting standards and Hondas are not alike.

Testy 9th Circuit Hears Whistleblower Case [CNS]
Two Boeing employees who were fired after providing a newspaper reporter information about alleged ethics violations asked the 9th Circuit to reconsider a federal judge’s ruling that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act does not prohibit termination for disclosures to the media. No court has yet addressed whether employees can be fired under federal whistleblower laws for providing non-confidential information about potential fraud to the press.

Arguments Have Loopholes, Too [CFO]
The debate over GE’s taxes has as many holes as the IRC.

Gary Busey Endorses Donald Trump for President in 2012 [YouTube]

Greenspan Says U.S. Should Let Bush-Era Tax Cuts Expire [Bloomberg]
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said tax cuts put in place by former U.S. President George W. Bush should be allowed to expire and the U.S. should return to tax rates that were in effect under former President Bill Clinton to help address the budget deficit. We should “allow the Bush tax cuts to expire,” Greenspan said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” today, calling the economic crisis “imminent and dire.” We should “put the rates back to where they were during the Clinton administration,” he said.

$1.1 Billion Error in Australian MNC? Yes, Says Mum PwC Partner [inAudit]
In the latest development concerning the debt classification error in Australian MNC Centro Properties Group, a PricewaterhouseCoopers partner admitted he was silent on the matter on the belief that he needed not to say again what the firm’s accounting manager has already raised at a “high level.”

Pricewaterhouse-Coopers (PWC) to pilot electric cars with London-based staff [EB]
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) will pilot electric cars with London-based employees as part of its sustainable travel strategy. The electric cars, which will be made available at the firm’s locations in Southwark and Westminster, can be charged onsite and through the Hertz and Source London charging network.

Prom Night Tax Tip [Tax Update Blog]
“Textbooks” has a funny definition in Iowa.

Top 10 tax tips from CPAs, also known as Letterman’s annual spoofing of taxes [DMWT]
6. H. Block, good guy. R.Block, complete greaseball.

PwC: U.S. Companies Pay World’s 6th-Highest Effective Tax Rate [TaxProf Blog]
However some people are calling this study “extraordinarily disingenuous.”

ANOTHER ONE: Chili’s Serves Alcoholic Mudslide To A Four-Year-Old [BI]
Maybe these casual dining restaurants are too casual.

Where Have All the Bank C.F.O.’s Gone? [DealBook]
CFOs seems to be a bit of a rest stop at some of the world’s largest banks.

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. Blames iPad For American Unemployment [HuffPo]
On Friday, Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) addressed the United States’s current unemployment crisis and claimed the iPad was “probably responsible for eliminating thousands of American jobs.” Jackson, himself an iPad owner, expanded on his statement by pointing to the recent bankruptcy of Borders Books. “Why do you need to go to Borders anymore? Why do you need to go to Barnes and Noble? Just buy an iPad and download your book, download your newspaper, download your magazine,” the Congressman said.

Ernst & Young must face class action over Broadcom’s option backdating [LAT]
A lower-court judge had dismissed the case against Ernst & Young after concluding the plaintiffs hadn’t shown that the auditors knew that the value of Broadcom’s stock was probably inflated by the company’s manipulation of its financial statements. Thursday’s ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reversed that dismissal and scolded Ernst & Young for not acting to stop the $2.2-billion backdating scheme.

Obama $1 Trillion Tax Proposal Slams Into Republican Wall [Bloomberg]
President Barack Obama’s call for raising taxes by focusing on spending in the tax code was immediately rejected by top Republicans, signaling that any effort to increase the government’s take from the economy would be difficult to move through Congress.

IRS Watchdog Seeks Overhaul Of Corporate, Individual Tax Code [Dow Jones]
National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson Wednesday told lawmakers the U.S. tax code is “a mess,” and in dire need of simplification, but any overhaul should rework rules for corporate and individual taxes at the same time. “I believe that fundamental tax reform must be made a priority,” Olson said in her written testimony to the House Small Business Committee. “However, in order to be effective and far-reaching, such fundamental tax reform should include both corporate tax reform and individual tax reform.”

BofA Q1 profit lower than expected; names new CFO [Reuters]
Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) posted an unexpectedly sharp decline in first-quarter profit, plagued by losses in the mortgage business, and the bank named a new chief financial officer.

PwC Says “It Gets Better” in Support of GLBT youth [PwC]
As far as work-life balance…well, that’s another question entirely.

Chinese Man Arrested in LA For Creating a Fake Army [JDA]
Wait, that’s a crime?

Zale says SEC not to recommend action against co [Reuters]
Zale Corp said the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission does not intend to recommend action against the company following a probe into the accounting errors that prompted the jewelry retailer to restate results. Zale had restated results for 2008 and some quarters in 2009 due to accounting errors related to prepaid advertising and loss carryforwards. Loss carryforwards are used to cut tax liability by offsetting losses in a certain year against future profits. These carryforwards can be used in one of the seven years following a loss.

IRS Chief Lays Out Vision For Agency’s Future [NPR]
The Commish wants to fosters a more pleasant tax compliance experience.

In Financial Crisis, No Prosecutions of Top Figures [NYT]
It is a question asked repeatedly across America: why, in the aftermath of a financial mess that generated hundreds of billions in losses, have no high-profile participants in the disaster been prosecuted?

Obama Challenges Republicans With Deadline for Deficit Deal [Bloomberg]
President Barack Obama set a June deadline for a bipartisan deal to cut the federal deficit and offered a path to get there that was designed to contrast with a Republican proposal he called unfair to the elderly and overly generous to the wealthy. Obama’s plan, outlined in a speech yesterday at George Washington University, would cut $4 trillion in cumulative deficits within 12 years through a combination of spending reductions and tax increases that draws heavily on recommendations from the chairmen of his bipartisan fiscal commission.

McKenna to Debate GT’s Bailey [The Summa]
The annual conference of the Ohio Region of the American Accounting Association is hosting a debate between Francine McKenna (journalist/commentator on the audit industry) and Andy Bailey (Grant Thornton). It is scheduled for Friday, May 13, 2011, in Dublin (Columbus), Ohio.

The American Tax Cheat [CNBC]
Tonight at 9 pm!

Audit Committee Priorities Remain Risk, Compliance, and Technology [IIA/Norman Marks]
“Eating a good breakfast” is nowhere to be found.

President Obama, GOP still differ on tax reform details [The Hill]
If you can believe it.

Obama, Ryan, and the Parameters of the Budget Debate [TaxVox]
Howard Gleckman explains just how much talking needs to happen, “Imagine for a moment you walk into a dealership to buy the vehicle of your dreams. The salesman asks what you want to pay. You say $50. He counters with $50,000. The good news is you have begun a negotiation. The bad news is, you’ve got a lot of talking to do before you can drive that honey off the lot.”

Tyco Gets Takeover Offer of $30 Billion [WSJ]
France’s Schneider Electric SA has made a preliminary bid for approximately $30 billion for Tyco International Ltd., according to people familiar with the matter, hoping to draw the Swiss-based conglomerate to the negotiating table. “The board is studying the proposal,” said one person familiar with the matter. The tentative bid “was a surprise,” this person added.

IRS Spared From Budget Cuts as U.S. Agency Seeks Revenue From Tax Cheats [Bloomberg]
The Internal Revenue Service avoided a $603 million budget cut proposed by House Republicans, preventing changes that could have cost the government $4 billion in uncollected revenue. Under the proposed spending bill released today, the IRS budget for fiscal year 2011 would be $12.1 billion, or 0.2 percent less than in fiscal 2010. That level would subject the IRS to the same across-the-board funding cut as all domestic, non-defense agencies.

National Hug-an-Accountant Month [HuffPo]
FINALLY!

Who Cheats on Their Taxes? [Economix/NYT]
There was a study – with a chart! – that shows that a person’s relative importance makes them less likely to cheat on their taxes. So yes, doctors and lawyers rarely underreport their income. Somehow accounting and finance professionals didn’t find their way onto the list since they probably would have bucked the trend.

Taxpayer With Tax LL.M. Lacked Substantial Authority for Tax Return Position [TaxProf Blog]
Having just let lawyers off the tax cheating hook, the TaxProf hands us a rebuttal.

Intacct Joins Forces With the White House, SCORE, the AICPA and the Walmart Foundation [Intacct]
Intacct, a leader in cloud financial management and accounting software, the AICPA, and a whole slew of others joined the FLOTUS at the WH in to announce a initiative that will help US military personnel and their families become entrepreneurs.

81 Cents on the Dollar: Gender Pay Gap Persists [FINS]
The wage gap between men and women shrunk quickly in the 1980s and 1990s, but has been stuck near its current level for about a decade. For all jobs in 2010, the median wage for full-time women workers was 81.2% that of men, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

The Most Dangerous Thing You’ll Do All Day [Yahoo]
I know those Herman Millers are comfy but try to get up every once in awhile.

DOJ Asked to Probe BCS Under Antitrust Law [WSJ]
A group of law and economics professors and practitioners has asked the Department of Justice to investigate college football’s Bowl Championship Series under antitrust law. In a letter, a copy of which was provided to The Wall Street Journal before it was made public, the 21 signatories—who include Richard Thaler of the University of Chicago and Andrew Zimbalist of Smith College—assert that the BCS is a cartel that “secures market access and revenue” for its favored members.

BofA Kept Executives in Dark on Dividend [WSJ]
Bank of America Corp.’s internal auditors are reviewing why two top finance and accounting executives weren’t consulted before the bank disclosed to investors that a dividend increase had been rejected by regulators, according to people familiar with the situation. The March 23 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission was more explicit than an earlier news release. It showed that the Federal Reserve had “objected” to the proposed dividend increase following a “stress test” of all major U.S. financial institutions.

St Joe appoints new CFO [Reuters]
Real estate development company St Joe Co said it had entered into a separation agreement with Chief Financial Officer William McCalmont, and appointed Janna Connolly to succeed him. St. Joe, which owns about 574,000 acres, mostly in Northwest Florida, said in a filing that McCalmont will remain as an officer and employee through May 20.

How Twitter Could Unleash World Peace [BBW]
Is there anything it can’t do?

Why is Overstock.com obstructing California District Attorney’s investigation into allegations of consumer fraud? [WCF]
Accounting rules > California District Attorney?

The Most Flexible Jobs in Finance [FINS]
With a shortage of accountants in the profession, said Barbara Adachi, national managing principal for the Women’s Initiative at Deloitte, big four firms have taken steps to make accounting as flexible a career choice as possible. At Deloitte, another of the big four firms, employees determine the how they will manage projects and travel each year. They can take up to five years off and still have their accounting licenses renewed by the company. At PwC, employees can change their work schedules every season and a mentor program helps new moms get back to work after having a baby. And at Ernst & Young, another member of the big four, any employee who works 20 hours per week is eligible for full-time benefits.

HSBC Client Pleads Guilty to Conspiring to Hide Indian Accounts From IRS [Bloomberg]
The plea by Vaibhav Dahake, 44, in federal court in Trenton, New Jersey, came four days after a U.S. judge in California gave permission to the Internal Revenue Service to serve a so-called John Doe summons on HSBC for information about Americans who may have banked in India to hide accounts from the IRS.

America Celebrates Tax Freedom Day® [Tax Foundation]
It took only 102 days for most people. If you’re in the tri-state area, you’ll be working for taxes for another two weeks or so.

Level 3 Agrees to Purchase Global Crossing in $1.9 Billion All-Stock Deal [Bloomberg]
Level 3 Communications Inc. (LVLT), the Colorado-based provider of broadband services, agreed to buy Global Crossing Ltd. (GLBC) in a deal valued at about $1.9 billion. Level 3, based in Broomfield, will acquire Global Crossing in an all-stock transaction worth $23.04 a share, based on Level 3’s closing stock price on April 8, the companies said in a statement today. The value of the purchase is $3 billion, including the assumption of $1.1 billion in debt, they said.

Obama to Call for Broad Plan to Reduce Debt [NYT]
President Obama will call this week for Republicans to join him in writing a broad plan to raise revenues and reduce the growth of popular entitlement programs, as the battle over the nation’s financial troubles moves past Friday’s short-term budget deal and into a wider and more consequential debate over the nation’s long-term fiscal health.

More GoogQuake Aftershocks: CFO Patrick Pichette Adds BizOps and HR to His Duties [AllThingsD]
Pichette gets rewarded with more responsibility (and presumably, work) in Google’s managements shakeup.

Tax Indictment for Tax Activist [NYT]
Taxpayers have rights. It says so in the Colorado Constitution in an amendment known as Tabor, which passed in a voter referendum drive in the early 1990s that was led by a man named Douglas E. Bruce. Criminal defendants? Yes, they have rights, too, as Mr. Bruce learned the hard way last week after he was arrested for what prosecutors said was a failure to pay his taxes.

Corporate Governance At Berkshire Hathaway: Maybe It’s Not All That [Forbes]
Francine McKenna pokes around Berkshire’s sterling reputation.

Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne’s Massive IRS Tax Lien [TMZ]
The amount of cursing will be relatively unchanged.

In Praise of Distraction [TNY]
In other words, Going Concern March Madness made you better at your jobs.

Encore Energy Partners Dismisses Ernst & Young [CityBizList]
BDO will take it from here.

Toddler Mistakenly Served Alcohol at Applebee’s [WJBK]
The blood alcohol level in the 15-month old was .10, which is over the legal driving limit.

How Secrecy Undermines Audit Reform [Floyd Norris/NYT]
[T]he Dodd-Frank law did nothing to the auditors. That was in sharp contrast to the previous round of scandals — the Enron and WorldCom accounting frauds that led to the enactment in 2002 of the Sarbanes-Oxley law. That law established the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to audit the auditors. With a second set of eyes looking over their shoulders, it was hoped, auditors would do a better job. While auditors may be doing a better job, that does not necessarily mean they are doing a good one.

Obama Demands Budget Deal to Avert Government Shutdown [Bloomberg]
After meeting with House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Obama said issues remained unresolved and he hoped for a breakthrough that would prevent a shutdown, set to begin at midnight tonight. “I’m not yet prepared to express wild optimism but I think we are further along,” he told reporters. “My hope is, is that I’ll be able to announce to the American people sometime relatively early in the day that a shutdown has been averted.”

Stolen air conditioners are ‘Crime of the Week’ [TCJ]
Someone concluded that it was worth their time to take two five-ton air conditioning units from M&M accounting in Topeka, Kansas.

IRS pays $4.5M in 1st award under 2006 whistleblower program for tip worth $20M [WaPo]
An in-house accountant who raised a red flag about a tax lapse that his employer then ignored, leading him to tip off the IRS, has received $4.5 million in the first IRS whistleblower award. The accountant’s tip netted the IRS $20 million in taxes and interest from the errant financial-services firm.

Golfers Goosen, Garcia teed off at IRS [DMWT]
[T]he professional golfers’ tax attorneys are doing their jobs, trying to convince the IRS that the players’ endorsement money was properly reported as royalty income, not payment for personal services.

Ex-Mazars partner wins unpaid expenses claim [Accountancy Age]
Ex-Mazars partner Robin Stevens has successfully won a legal claim against his former firm for unpaid expenses. Mazars was handed down a court order to pay Stevens £1,536.59.

Grant Thornton LLP’s Restructuring Practice oversees landmark transaction to rebuild healthcare at Manhattan’s historic Saint Vincent’s site [GT]
U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York has approved the $260 million sale of Saint Vincent’s Manhattan campus, including the historic O’Toole Building, to the Rudin family and the North Shore-LIJ Health System. Structured with the leadership of Grant Thornton LLP’s Corporate Advisory & Restructuring Services practice, the deal establishes a stand-alone 24-hour emergency center and ambulatory surgery facility in New York’s Greenwich Village area.

Obama Presses for Budget [WSJ]
President Barack Obama emerged from a late-night meeting Wednesday with House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid saying the two parties had moved closer to a spending agreement to avoid a government shutdown Friday, but no deal had been struck. “What [the talks] did was narrow the issues and clarify the issues that are still outstanding,” Mr. Obama said. He was confident a deal could be reached to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year, he said, but “it’s going to require a sufficient sense of urgency from all parties involved.”

IRS Commissioner See Tax Filing Process [Bloomberg]
U.S. Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman outlined a “vision for a more real-time tax system” that would reduce the need for audits after returns are filed. Shulman said the IRS should receive all paperwork such as W-2 and 1099 forms before individuals file their returns. That would allow the agency to flag potential problems before it processes tax returns, instead of sending out refund checks and then starting audits.

Mayor Drops Accident Tax After Criticism [WSJ]
Mayor Michael Bloomberg has decided to drop his administration’s controversial plan to charge motorists involved in accidents for emergency-response services, a coup for City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. A Bloomberg administration official confirmed Wednesday afternoon that the mayor withdrew the proposal in the wake of opposition from Ms. Quinn. “The speaker made a strong case against it,” the official said.

Warren ‘Do-Right’ Buffett Gives Errant Kiss [Bloomberg]
[W]e can admire his talent for securities analysis, and his success at building an empire and making himself and lots of other investors rich. But let’s put to rest the exaltations about his plain talk and his eye for strong character. He’s a corporate chief executive officer, for goodness sake. These are the kinds of dodges we’ve come to expect from many CEOs. Buffett, whose record of reputational hits is long and varied, is no exception.

Price Waterhouse India Settles With Regulators But Satyam Saga Not Over [Forbes]
Settlements with Price Waterhouse (PW) India, the US-registered audit firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), and Satyam, the Indian outsourcing company that blew up in a dramatically public and fraudulent fashion in early 2009, will probably provide significant ammunition to private lawsuits still pending in New York and court hearings in India.

Eliminating opportunities for fraud in companies [Fraud Files]
Fraud prevention policies and procedures sometimes have a tendency to focus on the smaller thefts. While those types of defalcations occur most often, they are not the most expensive. The financial statement frauds are the most devastating monetarily, and therefore must be fought aggressively.

Uncle Sam pummels boxing great Roy Jones Jr. [Tax Watchdog]
Boxers seem to only trail hip-hop artists in tax compliance futility.

Who Benefits From Those Tax Breaks? All of Us. [TaxVox]
“We have met the enemy and he is us,” said the cartoonist Walt Kelly. He was talking about preserving the environment, but he could have been describing our national addiction to tax credits, deductions, and exclusions.