Category: ANR

Strauss-Kahn Quits IMF, Kicking Off Succession Contest [Bloomberg]
Dominique Strauss-Kahn resigned as the 10th leader of the International Monetary Fund, kicking off a contest for his successor as Europeans seek to retain the job amid a lack of unity among emerging-market nations. “I want to devote all my strength, all my time, and all my energy to proving my innocence,” Strauss-Kahn said in a statement released by the Washington-based IMF four days after his arrest on sexual-assault charges. The fund said it will comment “in the near future” on the succession. Strauss-Kahn, 62, had beeFrance’s 2012 presidential election.

U.S. watchdog sees cross-border audit deal with China this year [Reuters]
James Doty, chairman of the PCAOB told Reuters, the breakthrough came during the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue that took place in Washington last week. “Both sides have agreed to accelerate efforts, including undertaking a process for negotiations and engaging in technical assistance activities, to reach a bilateral agreement governing cross-border audit oversight,” Doty said in an emailed statement.

Beyond the Balance Sheet: Redefining the Role of Today’s CFO [CFO Journal]
The role of the CFO is not what it used to be. Traditional control, financing and compliance are still important aspects of the job. But in a hypercompetitive world, the best CFOs have a much broader set of skills, insights and experiences.

In defense of Gen – Y (aka the millennials) [CPA Success]
Tom Hood is here for you.

Baby Names for Accountants [The Summa]
After the “Baby Like” craze, Dave Albrecht has taken things a step further.

The Quandary of Coburn’s Exit [WSJ]
The remaining members of the Gang of Six met without Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and agreed to press on in their effort to craft a long-term pact that could include controversial proposals to raise revenues and curb Social Security. But the departure of Mr. Coburn, a conservative known as a deficit hawk, could prove a fatal blow to hopes that an ad hoc set of senators could crack the code of deficit-reduction politics and find a compromise that has escaped party leaders.

California Court Compels Overstock.com to Turn Over Contact Information of Former Employees to District Attorney Investigating Consumer Fraud [WCF]
You can practically see Sam Antar wringing his hands in glee (like a convicted criminal would do) over this.

G.O.P. Senators Question I.R.S. Scrutiny of Donors [NYT]
A group of Republican senators wrote to the head of the Internal Revenue Service on Wednesday seeking internal correspondence and other information about the agency’s heightened scrutiny of donations to some nonprofit advocacy groups that are playing a growing role in political campaigns.

McDonald’s Under Pressure to Fire Ronald [WSJ]
More than 550 health professionals and organizations have signed a letter to McDonald’s Corp. asking the maker of Happy Meals to stop marketing junk food to kids and retire Ronald McDonald. The letter, slated to run in the form of full-page ads in six metropolitan newspapers around the country on Wednesday, acknowledges that “the contributors to today’s (health) epidemic are manifold and a broad societal response is required. But marketing can no longer be ignored as a significant part of this massive problem.”

Madoff liquor cabinet sells for $41,500 [CNN]
Among other items, a bottle of “mysterious brown liquid” went for $950.

Senate Refuses to End Tax Breaks for Big Oil [NYT]
The Senate on Tuesday blocked a Democratic proposal to strip the five leading oil companies of tax breaks that backers of the measure said were unfairly padding industry profits while consumers were struggling with high gas prices. Despite falling eight votes short of the 60 needed to move ahead with the bill, top Democrats said they would insist that eliminating the tax breaks to generate billions of dollars in revenue must be part of any future agreement to raise the federal debt limit.

Hooray for More Restatements? [CFO Journal]
Financial restatements rose 7.6% last year, according to a new study. And that’s a good thing, says Audit Analytics about its findings. The trouble is, one could also reach the opposite conclusion from the same study. […] Its counter-intuitive to conclude that more accounting do-overs are a good thing, of course, but the research firm says it’s the latest sign that SarbOx is working by improving companies’ internal financial controls.

States Pass New Laws Governing the Accounting Profession [AT]
California accountants are grappling with a series of legislative proposals designed to address concerns sparked by a recent series of high-profile cases of fiscal malfeasance by municipal governments throughout the state. In addition to bills authorizing the state controller to audit the financial records of local governments, the legislature is considering the creation of a “multi-disciplinary fiscal ‘SWAT team’” of auditors and law enforcement personnel to investigate municipal waste and corruption.

“Next tier” outline benefits from OFT audit inquiry [Accountancy Age]
The tier of firms that could most benefit from the OFT’s inquiry into audit market competition have outlined some of their wishes from the investigation. Grant Thornton partner Steve Maslin […] said there were a number of measures that could be taken that would open the market to reduce FTSE 350 audit concentration away from the Big Four.

Kroger CFO: Supermarkets Acting Rationally In Price Hikes [Dow Jones]
Retailers are acting rationally in passing along higher prices to consumers, Kroger Co. (KR) Chief Financial Officer Mike Schlotman said Tuesday, with supermarkets unwilling to keep prices low in the face of inflation. “We’re seeing everybody being fairly rational and realistic about the need to pass that inflation along,” Schlotman said at a BMO Capital Markets conference.

Schwarzenegger’s love child raises child support, marital money & tax questions [DMWT]
How did Arnie hide all that diaper money?

UK watchdog suspects auditors restrict competition [Reuters]
Britain’s Office of Fair Trading said problems in the audit market meet the conditions for a referral to the country’s main Competition Commission watchdog. The watchdog said it had “reached the provisional view that there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that there are features of the market that restrict, distort or prevent competition in the UK.

New York Investigates Banks’ Role in Fiscal Crisis [NYT]
The New York attorney general has requested information and docus from three major Wall Street banks about their mortgage securities operations during the credit boom, indicating the existence of a new investigation into practices that contributed to billions in mortgage losses.

Judge Jails IMF Chief in Sexual-Assault Case [WSJ]
International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was ordered held without bail Monday after Manhattan prosecutors charged him with seven counts stemming from allegations he sexually assaulted a hotel housekeeper—a decision that sends one of the towering figures of international finance and French politics to a jail cell on New York’s Rikers Island.

LinkedIn Boosts IPO Price to Raise $405.7 Million [Bloomberg]
LinkedIn Corp., the networking website for professionals, increased the price range for its initial public offering, lifting the company’s potential valuation to as much as $4.25 billion. The company is selling shares at $42 to $45 each, according to a filing today with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The shares had been offered for $32 to $35 apiece. At the new top end of the range, LinkedIn would raise $405.7 million, about 29 percent more than previously sought.

A Brief Exchange with an IASB Member on Hedge Accounting [Accounting Onion]
You might read this “brief exchange” and conclude that “accounting joust” may be more appropriate.

Bienvenue! French Audit Firm Mazars Arrives In U.S. [Forbes]
Francine takes a look at WeiserMazars as a potential player in the U.S. and is probably taking advantage of “French” as a hot SEO term.

Honda CFO: Earnings Likely To Take Hit From Quake, Strong Yen [Dow Jones]
Honda Motor Co.’s […] earnings are likely to suffer in the fiscal year that started in April due to the negative impact of the March 11 earthquake on the company’s production capacity and persistent yen strength against the dollar, the company’s chief financial officer said Tuesday.

Sen. Kyl: Close Tax Loopholes But Don’t Collect More Money [WSJ]
Sen. Jon Kyl, the No. 2 Senate Republican, went to the Senate floor today to make clear that he is for closing tax loopholes, but he doesn’t want any net increase in tax collections. “I would be very much in favor of taking a look at these tax expenditures, various subsidies, for example, to different groups to see whether we could reduce some of those subsidies and thereby reduce tax rates in a revenue-neutral manner,” he said Monday.

Police Seek Evidence From I.M.F. Chief on Sex Attack [NYT]
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the leader of the International Monetary Fund, spent most of Sunday at the Manhattan Special Victims Unit in East Harlem as prosecutors sought additional evidence, including possible DNA evidence on his skin or beneath his fingernails, to bolster allegations that he had sexually assaulted a maid in a $3,000-a-night suite at a Midtown hotel, officials said.

IMF in Wake of Scandal Turns to Lipsky [Bloomberg]
The International Monetary Fund turned to John Lipsky when it was ordered to develop an early- warning system to prevent a repeat of the 2008 financial meltdown. Now, the IMF is calling on him to guide it through its own crisis.

Boehner questions Obama’s commitment to tackling debt, deficit [The Hill]
On dealing with major spending issues, including entitlement programs, Boehner invited the president to “lock arms and we’ll jump out of the boat together. “I’m serious about dealing with this, and I hope he’s just as serious,” he said. As both parties haggle over raising the $14.3 trillion debt limit, Boehner insisted that everything was up for discussion — except tax hikes.

The Very Rich Really Are Different [TaxVox]
“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me,” wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald. He wasn’t talking about taxes (the laws were very different back in 1926) but his assertion certainly applies to the way the wealthy fare under today’s tax law.

Gingrich Blasts House GOP’s Medicare Plan [WSJ]
White House hopeful Newt Gingrich called the House Republican plan for Medicare “right-wing social engineering,” injecting a discordant GOP voice into the party’s efforts to reshape both entitlements and the broader budget debate. In the same interview Sunday, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Mr. Gingrich backed a requirement that all Americans buy health insurance, complicating a Republican line of attack on President Barack Obama’s health law.

Gingrich businesses owed unpaid state taxes [AP]
They’re all caught up now.

How did $250,000 become the tax definition of rich? [DMWT]
Obama’s economic team was in a competitive game of darts during the campaign.

A Small, Dubious Company Gets A Moment In The Sun For No Discernable Reason [TFI]
Roddy Boyd’s latest focuses on Kingtone Wirelessinfo Solution Holding Ltd. and their hocus-pocus ride to this morning’s opening bell at the Nasdaq.

California Bar Confirms Disciplinary Proceedings Against ‘Tax Lady’ Roni Deutch [TaxProf Blog]
Roni throws in the towel.

E&Y fails to halt Anglo Irish investigation [Accountancy Age]
Ernst & Young in Ireland has failed in a bid to halt an investigation into its work as auditor of Anglo Irish Bank. The High Court in Ireland ruled on Friday that the firm had no grounds for a judicial review of a probe ordered by the country’s Chartered Accountants Regulatory Board (CARB).

CFOs Hate the Corporate Rate [CFO]
Finance chiefs were in the spotlight on Capitol Hill Thursday as they testified before the House Ways and Means Committee about the corporate tax rate. At a hearing convened by committee chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.), CFOs Greg Hayes of United Technologies, Mark Buthman of Kimberly-Clark, Ed Rapp of Caterpillar, and James Crines of medical-device maker Zimmer Holdings testified that they would like to see the rate lowered and the tax code overhauled to reduce complexity and enable better planning.

Oil Chiefs, Senators Play to Type at Hearing [WSJ]
Oil companies and their profits were reluctant guest stars Thursday in a Capitol Hill melodrama that paired energy policy with the federal deficit. For more than three hours, the chief executives of Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips and the U.S. units of BP PLC and Royal Dutch Shell PLC sparred with Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee who had summoned them to explain why their companies needed tax breaks at a time of surging industry profits and rising gasoline prices.

Big U.S. banks oppose derivatives accounting plan [Reuters]
Wall Street’s biggest banks are urging rule-makers to scrap a derivative accounting proposal that could inflate their balance sheets by trillions of dollars. The draft rules, unveiled by the Financial Accounting Standards Board in January, would force banks to report their full exposure for most derivatives on their balance sheets, instead of net amounts.

I.R.S. Moves to Tax Gifts to Groups Active in Politics [NYT]
Big donors like David H. Koch and George Soros could owe taxes on their millions of dollars in contributions to nonprofit advocacy groups that are playing an increasing role in American politics. Invoking a provision that had rarely, if ever, been enforced, the Internal Revenue Service said it had sent letters to five donors, who were not identified, informing them that their contributions may be subject to gift taxes depending on whether the donations exceeded limits under the tax laws.

Why Iowans for Tax Relief and Grover Norquist are misguided about tax reform [Tax Update Blog]
And Joe likes Ronald Reagan (but manages not to mention him).

Rich Russians Buy Bunkers on Apocalypse Angst [Bloomberg]
Danila Andreyev started building “panic rooms” three years ago, when fears of terrorist attacks and commercial disputes turning violent created demand in Russia. Now he’s selling “survival bunkers” for as much as $400,000 each to capitalize on angst over theories the world will end next year. “I myself am not a believer in doomsday scenarios,” Andreyev, 31, whose Spetsgeoproekt company is completing 15 bunkers at hidden locations across Russia, said at his office in central Moscow. “But when you start hearing clients talking about the end of the world, it gets you thinking.”

Yankees Let Fans Take Batting Practice at Stadium; Bring $1,500 and a Bat [Bloomberg]
On June 5, the Yankees and Steiner Sports Collectibles will hold their event that includes batting practice, tours of the stadium, a catered lunch and gifts — all for a cost of $1,500 to $3,000 per batter. “There is no experience like this,” Steiner Sports President Brandon Steiner said in a telephone interview. “People just melt when they get on the field.”

KPMG appoints Michael Andrew as global chairman based in HK [Reuters]
Accounting giant KPMG has appointed Michael Andrew as global chairman to be based in Hong Kong, the firm said on Thursday. Andrew, a 27-year veteran at the accounting firm, was previously chairman of KPMG Asia Pacific and Australia, KPMG said in a statement. He replaces Tim Flynn, who will retire at the end of September.

Oil CEOs on the Hot Seat [WSJ]
With gas prices above $4 a gallon in much of the country, Democrats and Republicans are ether to cut tax credits for oil companies enjoying a banner profit year. Senate Democrats plan to grill the CEOs of Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips and the U.S. units of BP PLC and Royal Dutch Shell PLC about the taxes they pay at a Finance Committee hearing on Thursday. Republicans, who have criticized the Obama administration for not acting faster to approve more offshore drilling, won passage of a House bill Wednesday that would require decisions to be made about offshore-drilling permits within 60 days.

Next Up, a Crackdown on Outside-Expert Firms [DealBook]
With the government securing a conviction against Raj Rajaratnam of the Galleon Group on Wednesday, federal prosecutors will shift their focus to expert networks — the intricate web of money managers, corporate executives and consultants at the center of another wave of insider trading cases.

The $8,000 Credit Cost Some Home Buyers Much More [WSJ]
If you missed out on the $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers that expired just over a year ago, you might be better off for it. Numbers released Monday suggest typical recipients have lost twice as much to falling house prices as they gained from the incentive.

Democrats Embrace U.S. Tax Increase Versus Medicare Cut in Debt Talks [Bloomberg]
Democrats in Congress are gaining new confidence in promoting tax increases to reduce the national debt by presenting them as the alternative to Republicans’ proposed cuts in Medicare health-care coverage for the elderly. Democratic leaders are avoiding any call for tax increases on the middle class, a key voting bloc, and limiting their proposals to those that would affect wealthy individuals, oil and gas companies, and businesses accused of sending jobs overseas.

Google’s Mysterious Retroactive Charge [CFO Journal]
Google’s surprise $500 million charge against first-quarter earnings for an ongoing government investigation related to online advertising raises an interesting question: Why is Google applying the charge retroactively to the first quarter?

H&R Block Tax Services sues Arizona franchisee [KCBJ]
The division of H&R Block Inc. (NYSE: HRB) claims in U.S. District Court in Kansas City that Phoenix-based XL Wealth Management LLC signed an agreement on July 20, 2010, to open franchise locations in Arizona in preparation for the height of the 2011 tax season. But according to the lawsuit, that’s as far as things got in H&R Block’s relationship with XL Wealth Management. Despite H&R Block’s agreement to provide $550,000 in startup money and the company’s subsequent visits to Arizona to check on XL’s progress, the franchise locations never opened.

Why CEOs Avoided Getting Busted in Meltdown [Bloomberg]
“Fraud, it turns out, begets fraud.”

Old Mutual Hedge Fund Group Hires New C.F.O. [DealBook]
Old Mutual Asset Management, the hedge fund arm of the London-based life insurer, is set to name Steve Belgrad as chief financial officer on Wednesday. Mr. Belgrad, a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Business School, is leaving his post as chief financial officer of HarbourVest Global Private Equity, which he joined in 2008. Mr. Belgrad, who previously worked for the Affiliated Managers Group, the Janus Capital Group and Morgan Stanley, will begin at Old Mutual on June 1.

SEC to Form Small-Business Committee [WSJ]
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is forming a small-business committee to review fundraising rules for small private firms that critics say hinder access to capital and are stunting economic growth. Testifying before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Tuesday, SEC Chair Mary Schapiro said the new division will focus on “regulatory questions posed by new capital-raising strategies,” among other issues.

IRS Demands $6 Million More from Racing Champ Castroneves [AT]
The Internal Revenue Service has filed suit in U.S. Tax Court against three-time Indianapolis 500 champion Helio Castroneves after he won a high-profile victory against the IRS two years ago and paid $5 million in taxes.

The Top 400 Taxpayers: Incomes Fell 21.5%, Tax Rates Rose 8.2% in 2008 [TaxProf Blog]
Are the rich getting eaten?

IRS Asks for Input on Health Care Law [Forbes]
Guess who’s out of ideas?

AICPA Wants IRS to Let Small Businesses E-file S Corp Form [AT]

Sweat Protection Without the Stains [WSJ]

Microsoft to Acquire Skype [WSJ]
Microsoft Corp. agreed to buy Internet phone company Skype Technologies SA for $8.5 billion in cash—the most aggressive move yet by Microsoft to play in the increasingly converged worlds of communication, information and entertainment. “Skype is a phenomenal service that is loved by millions of people around the world,” said Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer in a statement announcing the deal Tuesday. “Together we will create the future of real-time communications so people can easily stay connected to family, friends, clients and colleagues anywhere in the world.”

Boehner Outlines Demands on Debt Limit Fight [NYT]
Speaker John A. Boehner said Monday that Republicans would insist on trillions of dollars in federal spending cuts in exchange for their support of an increase in the federal debt limit sought by the Obama administration to prevent a government default later this year.

Deloitte Makes Acquisition to Strengthen its End-to-End Analytics Portfolio of Services [Deloitte]
Deloitte today announced it has purchased substantially all of the assets of Oco, Inc., a provider of enterprise-class software as a service (SaaS) business analytics solutions.

Being Expedient: PwC Settles Satyam U.S. Class Action [Re:The Auditors]
Satyscam, we barely knew you.

11 Clues a Client is a Loser and 4 Keys to Finding a Winner [AW]
A stripped down version of risk management.

IFRS Adoption is Dead! (I Think) [The Accounting Onion]
Tom Selling is quite ready to call for time of death, “Way back in November 2008 when Christopher Cox was calling the tune, the SEC issued its proposed ‘Roadmap’ for achieving a ‘single set of globally accepted accounting standards.’ That was the point at which the ‘IFRS adoption is inevitable’ pot banging reached deafening levels. Thankfully, however, it has been mostly downhill from there.”

SEC Cracking Down on Foreign Shell Cos. [CFO]
While the Securities and Exchange Commission has recently stepped up its enforcement efforts against allegedly fraudulent U.S. shell companies in greater China, those efforts aren’t limited to that region, according to James Kroeker, the SEC’s chief accountant.

Madoff Trustee, Fairfield Liquidators Join Forces [WSJ]
The trustee for investors hurt by Bernard Madoff’s fraud reached a settlement with liquidators of the Fairfield Greenwich Group funds, the biggest feeders of money into the Ponzi scheme, in which they resolved claims against each other and agreed to jointly pursue the fund owners, including Connecticut financier Walter Noel.

Democrats’ Plan Would Offset Deficit by Ending Big Oil’s Tax Breaks [NYT]
Linking two of the politically volatile issues of the moment, Senate Democrats say they will move forward this week with a plan that would eliminate tax breaks for big oil companies and divert the savings to offset the deficit. With high gas prices and rising federal deficits in the political spotlight, senior Democrats believe that tying the two together will put pressure on Senate Republicans to support the measure or face a difficult time explaining their opposition to voters whose family budgets are being strained by fuel prices.

Debt fund to target gap in lending [FT]
A group of former bankers and the departing global chairman of Deloitte have formed a debt fund manager in an effort to target an expected shortfall in funding to mid-cap European companies. The group is the latest European venture to start up in the wake of the credit crisis to fill a gap created in lending to smaller companies.

The Role and Relevance of Audits: PCAOB Chairman Doty Creates His Own Expectations Gap [Re:Balance]
Jim Peterson wonders if Jim Doty can pull off making real changes to the auditor’s report.

Is Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Shuffling the Beans to Beat Earnings Expectations? [WCF]
Does a negative provision for sales returns sound fishy to anyone?

What Mom should be paid [DMWT]
If you happened to blow off Mother’s Day, this should help you make up for it.

FASB Chair Answers Push for Private-Company GAAP [CFO]
Prompted by a proposal earlier this year by a blue-ribbon panel on the future of private-company accounting standards — a proposal that includes giving oversight of those standards to a brand-new board — the Financial Accounting Standards Board has heightened its focus on private-company issues, according to Leslie Seidman, the board’s chairperson.

Is the Chinese Listing Bubble Going Bust? [CFO Journal]
Suddenly the boom in Chinese listings on U.S. exchanges is looking shaky, and two primary reasons were reinforced in separate developments today. On Wall Street, Renren, dubbed the Chinese Facebook, tanked after its shares debuted at a stratospheric multiple on Wednesday, calling into question the appetite for future Chinese IPOs. Meanwhile, at a New York City financial conference, SEC officials were nearly elbowing each other out of the way to express their concerns about reverse mergers that are allowing Chinese firms to back door their way into U.S. markets.

U.S. Economy Adds 244,000 at 9.0% [NYT]
The United States economy added 244,000 jobs in April after a gain of a revised 221,000 jobs in March, the Department of Labor said on Friday, as the unemployment rate rose to 9 percent in April from 8.8 percent in March.

The Grand Illusion: PwC Settles Satyam U.S. Class Action Claims [Forbes]
Oh boy, “The SEC and the PCAOB would not confirm that their enforcement actions regarding the Satyam audit were finished.”

BDO USA Settles Bankest Suit With Former Client Banco Espirito Santo [Bloomberg]
BDO’s statement emailed to Bloomberg: “BDO USA LLP has entered into confidential settlement agreements with Banco Espirito Santo and Barry Mukamal, the bankruptcy trustee of E.S. Bankest LC, pursuant to which the lawsuits against BDO have been resolved,” sounds a lot like what we published yesterday.

The Kabbalah Centre in Los Angeles is the focus of an IRS investigation into tax evasion [LAT]
Sources familiar with the investigation said the criminal division of the IRS is looking into whether nonprofit funds were used for the personal enrichment of the Berg family, which has controlled the Kabbalah Centre for more than four decades, a period in which it expanded from one school of a little-known strain of Judaism to a global brand with A-list followers like Ashton Kutcher and Gwyneth Paltrow and assets that may top $260 million.

New PCAOB Chairman Pushes for Audit Overhaul [AT]
“I do not believe that the global audit firm networks themselves pose a systemic risk to our economy,” said Doty. “Initiatives to shrink the global audit firms would likely weaken their ability to audit large, multinational companies that may be systemically important.” He said governments should instead focus on regulation. “To protect investors, governments should regulate such firms, not cripple them,” said Doty. “There’s no reason to think that if there were more major firms, they would be more likely to stand up to their clients.”

U.S. auditor watchdog hopeful of access to China [Reuters]
U.S. audit watchdogs are hopeful of ending a stalemate that has blocked inspections of auditors in China, the head of the audit oversight agency said on Thursday. With more Chinese companies raising capital in the U.S. markets, “I believe Chinese authorities understand they have a real interest in solving our impasse,” James Doty, chairman of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board said.

Raise Taxes, but Not Tax Rates [NYT]
Reducing the budget deficit and stopping the explosion of our national debt will require more tax revenue as well as reduced government spending. But the need for more revenue needn’t mean higher tax rates.

States Use Tax Breaks in War for Jobs [BBW]
New Jersey is granting Panasonic (PC) a $102.4 million tax credit to move its North American headquarters—nine miles. The incentives, announced on Apr. 20, will help defray the cost of leasing a new high-rise office tower to be built in Newark to replace Panasonic’s digs in Japanese electronics maker has outgrown. The company concedes that its decision to stay in New Jersey, where it employs 800 workers, was swayed by the tax break. Peter Fannon, vice-president of technology policy at Panasonic North America, says the company fielded “quite competitive” offers from Atlanta, San Diego, Los Angeles, and Brooklyn, N.Y., among others. Says Fannon: “We would not be in New Jersey without [this program].”

Accounting Troubles Can’t Stop Renren IPO [CFO Journal]
Shares of Chinese social network Renren soared nearly 50% in their U.S. stock market debut on Wednesday, as eager investors appeared willing to overlook the last-minute resignation of its audit committee chair and disclosures about material weaknesses over accounting.

Montgomery County Council passes 5-cent bag tax [WaPo]
The Montgomery County Council approved a 5-cent bag tax Tuesday that will go into effect Jan. 1, a move environmentalists hope will revive a stalled effort to pass a similar tax statewide. Montgomery politicians were inspired in part by the District’s bag tax, but they took the idea further by including nearly all retail establishments, not just those that sell food.

Another Guilty Plea In Connecticut Ponzi Case Tied To Venezuela [Dow Jones]
A Venezuelan accountant pleaded guilty in Connecticut federal court Wednesday to one count of conspiracy to obstruct the Securities and Exchange Commission in its investigation into a Ponzi scheme uncovered earlier this year. In that case, Connecticut investment adviser Francisco Illarramendi admitted on March 7 to running a Ponzi scheme involving hundreds of millions of dollars over several years and trying to impede a federal investigation into his activities by fabricating evidence.

PricewaterhouseCoopers hired for Charlotte tourism audit [CBJ]
Hiring the auditor marks the latest development in a controversy over $100,000 in bonuses paid to CRVA staff member Ereka Brim for her work on the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association basketball tournament. The issue was reported first by the Charlotte Observer, raising questions about whether visitors authority executives should have approved the bonuses, which were indirectly paid by the CIAA.

Former Aide to Rangel Pleads Guilty in Tax Case [City Room/NYT]
James Capel, who had been a top adviser to Representative Charles B. Rangel for more than a decade, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to failing to file tax returns, months after Mr. Rangel was censured on the House floor over his own tax problems. Mr. Capel, 67, who rose from a community representative in Mr. Rangel’s office to become his chief of staff, admitted in Manhattan Criminal Court that he did not file tax returns from 2003 through 2009. His failure to file resulted in about $25,000 in unpaid taxes.

SABMiller Names New CFO [WSJ]
SABMiller PLC, the global brewer of flagship brands Grolsch, Peroni Nastro Azzuro and Miller Lite, said Wednesday its chief financial officer, Malcolm Wyman, is to retire by the end of August after 25 years at the company. Mr. Wyman, 64 years old, who will also stand down from the board at the group’s forthcoming annual shareholders meeting on July 21, will be succeeded by James Wilson, finance director for SABMiller’s Europe division, it added in a statement.

PwC reported to accounting regulator after taking out criticism of client from report [Telegraph]
[C]oncerns relate to an independent report that PwC was hired to write for Magellan Aerospace Corporation, a Canadian aircraft parts company. PwC’s brief was to look into a whistleblower’s claims that Magellan’s order book had been inflated. However, criticism of Magellan’s “poor” accounting was left out of PwC’s final version – at the request of the client’s audit committee.

ParenteBeard LLC Announces Combination With McCrory & McDowell, LLC [ParenteBeard]
“McCrory & McDowell has a reputation for excellence and an entrepreneurial spirit that is consistent with the values and principles of our firm,” said Bob Ciaruffoli, ParenteBeard Chief Executive Officer. “This combination capitalizes on the strengths of both firms to create a unique, significant CPA and consulting services firm in the Pittsburgh region, which will benefit our clients, our team members and the larger business community.”

Two Out Of Three Looking To Switch Jobs, Says New Survey [Forbes]
Deloitte predicting a nationwide exodus.

Senators Introduce Bill to Repeal Ethanol Tax Credit [AT]
Senators Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., introduced the Ethanol Subsidy and Tariff Repeal Act, which would eliminate the VEETC and also fully repeal the import tariff on foreign ethanol. Cosponsors include Senators Ben Cardin, D-Md., Richard Burr, R-N.C., Jim Webb, D-Va., Susan Collins, R-Maine, and James Risch, R-Idaho.

Dunkin Brands Files for IPO [WSJ]
Now you can do more than run on it.

Bin Laden Aides Are Said to Have Bought Bulk Orders of Pepsi, Coke [Bloomberg]
The two polite Pakistanis who helped Osama bin Laden hide in the shadow of their country’s army bought bulk food orders, chose major brands and equally favored Pepsi and Coke, neighbors and a local shopkeeper said.

How to Criticize Your Boss — Nicely [WSJ]
How do you the let the boss know that (s)he uses cliched catch phrases way too much?