Category: ANR

Obama’s State of the Union: What I Heard, And What I Did Not [TaxVox]
Howard Gleckman levels with us, “[W]e are policy wonks here at the Tax Policy Center, and from a wonk point of view, the speech was disappointing.”

CNN Fact Check: 16,500 IRS agents to police health care? [CNN]
The short answer: no.

No Audit At All: Deloitte and Bear Stearns [Forbes]
Francine McKenna takes a closer look at the lawsuit that was given the green light earlier this week.

IRS slaps lien on Goldman derivatives partnership [Reuters]
A Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) partnership that specializes in selling derivatives to U.S. municipalities owes $1.55 million in unpaid federal taxes. The U.S. Internal Revenue Service filed a federal tax lien against the Goldman partnership earlier this month for an unpaid balance of taxes from 2009. Although the tax assessment is a drop in the bucket for Goldman, which earned $8.35 billion in 2010, it’s another dose of unwelcome attention for a partnership that has already attracted unwanted scrutiny over its dealings with municipalities and state agencies.

Yahoo CFO Says Revenue Headwinds ‘At Their Worst’ In 1Q [Dow Jones]
Translation: you people shouldn’t expect much, “[Tim] Morse said he had previously cautioned investors about the impact of the search deal and suggested that Wall Street analysts had perhaps gotten ahead of the curve. ‘Some of the (financial) models I’ve seen out there were a little odd,’ he said.”

TUI saga continues: PwC reinstatement ‘unacceptable’ [AWUK]
In the latest twist of the TUI Travel saga, PIRC is opposing the appointment of PwC because it was the incumbent auditor when “fundamental flaws in internal controls” led to the discovery by KPMG of reporting inaccuracies. In a circular to shareholders, PIRC said: “The company is now seeking to reinstate PwC as auditor of the continuing entity which we regard as unacceptable.”

Baucus: Tax reform bill ‘hopefully’ in 2012 [On the Money/The Hill]
Maximus sounds tepidly optimistic.

UK not planning competition probe into auditors [Reuters]
Don’t hold your breath if you’re expecting anti-trust hearings.

A 2nd I.R.S. Amnesty for Offshore Accounts [NYT]
The Internal Revenue Service said on Monday that it would soon announce a new amnesty program aimed at encouraging wealthy Americans with hidden offshore bank accounts to come forward, declare their money and pay taxes owed. An I.R.S. spokesman, Frank Keith, said that the program would be formally announced “very shortly” and would not offer terms as generous as those put forth in a similar initiative last fall. Senior tax lawyers said on Monday that the announcement would most likely come within several weeks, ahead of the 2011 tax filing season. “The government wants to encourage people not to lie on their said Robert Katzberg, a white-collar criminal defense lawyer in New York with offshore bank clients.

Finance Hiring Outlook 2011 — Most Active Sectors [FINS]
This year the finance industry will continue bouncing back from a dismal 2008 and 2009 that saw hundreds of thousands of jobs disappear from the business. Wealth management firms, commercial banks and firms that extend mezzanine financing are just some that plan to add staff. Here are the five areas projected to make the most hires.

IRS Announces Tax Refund ‘App’ for iPhone [WSJ]
The free IRS2Go phone app, which works with iPhone or Android phones, allows taxpayers to check the status of their tax refund and obtain tax tips. “As technology evolves and younger taxpayers get their information in new ways, we will keep innovating to make it easy for all taxpayers to access helpful information,” IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said in a statement Monday.

Auditors Under Pressure In The UK: Or Are They? [Re: The Auditors]
Francine McKenna breaks it down.

Healthcare Locums suspends CFO; probes accounting flaws [Reuters]
British medical staffing firm Healthcare Locums Plc (HLO.L) suspended its chief financial officer and another top executive as it investigates serious accounting irregularities at the company. “Serious accounting irregularities have been brought to the attention of the board as a result of which the company will be carrying out an immediate investigation to consider the financial implications,” Healthcare Locums said in a statement. CFO Diane Jarvis and Executive Vice Chairman Kate Bleasdale had been suspended pending the outcome of the investigation, it said.

Satyam fraud not an accounting failure: ICAI [Business Standard]
The Satyam scam was not an accounting or auditing failure, but one of corporate governance, said Amarjit Chopra, president, Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI). Speaking on the sidelines of an international taxation conference here on Monday, Chopra said, “There were promoter shareholders, executive directors and directors, and the auditors were the last rung. On the other side, there were independent directors, one of whom was a dean of the Indian School of Business, but nobody questions the role of independent directors.” Chopra also wanted the government to look at the role played by independent directors, saying one worthwhile suggestion by them could prevent such frauds.

E&Y plans ‘dramatic’ Middle East investment, says CEO [Arabian Business]
No numbers from JT but he is quoted as saying, “We will invest what we need to have the leading practice on the ground.”

KPMG International Launches Annual Review 2010 [PR Newswire]
Available for your iPad.

Auditors seek to ease fears over risk [FT]
The Big 4 is pitching the EC, “The four biggest auditors have denied that their dominance of the market for large company audits had created a systemic risk akin to that posed by leading banks. Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PwC have told the European Commission that they are willing to help draw up contingency plans addressing the possible scenario of a collapse of parts of their businesses.”

Bear Stearns court action given the green light [Daily Mail]
You can open your eyes now, Deloitte.

10 Ways to Avoid a Tax Audit [WSJ]
Don Dunklee would probably take issue with #2 – Reporting all your income.

E&Y CEO on what makes global leaders successful [Fortune]
Jim Turley gets his blog on while making his way to Davos (surely he’s there by now).

Floyd Norris on Joe Lieberman’s Views on Accounting [The Summa]
Professor Albrecht takes on Floyd Norris.

Stock Option Accounting, Again [Floyd Norris]
Floyd Norris responds.

Sullivan: The Mortgage Deduction Heavily Favors Blue States [TaxProf Blog]
FYI – red staters.

Jack Donaghy Talks Estate Planning with Tracy Jordan [Tax Docket]
He’s a savvy one, that Jack.

Oprah Hates Writing Checks to the IRS [AT]
Oprah is just like us!

Lawyer Asks: Why Is National Hot Rod Association Tax-Exempt? [Forbes]
Perhaps you’ve asked yourself this question.

Omaha Accountant Accused of Embezzling from Firm [AP]
OH NO! NEBRASKA!

RadioShack Says Julian Day to Retire as Chairman, CEO [BBW]
CFO Jim Gooch will take it from here.

IRS Says It Will Start Processing Delayed Income Tax Returns on Feb. 14 [Bloomberg]
The Internal Revenue Service said it will start processing on Feb. 14 tax returns claiming itemized deductions, including for home-mortgage interest, charitable donations and state and local taxes. The delay also affects tax filers claiming deductions for college tuition fees and for teachers’ out-of-pocket expenses. In all, about 9 million households filed returns claiming itemized or other affected deductions before Valentine’s Day last year, the IRS said in a release.

Verizon sees $600 million accounting change charge [Reuters]
Verizon Communications Inc plans to report a $600 million charge for the full year 2010 due to a change in the way it accounts for retirement benefits, following the lead of rival AT&T Inc. Like AT&T, Verizon said Friday it is looking to make its financials easier to understand by changing its pension accounting to recognize gains and losses in the year they are incurred, rather than amortizing them over time.

Fed changes accounting rules [FT]
Paging the Fed basher, “The US Federal Reserve has changed its accounting rules in a way that means it will never have to report negative capital on its weekly balance sheets unless it suffers catastrophic losses. The Fed’s accounting is in the spotlight because of the possibility that it could suffer losses when unwinding its programme of quantitative easing that overwhelms its capital base of $53bn.”

Lieberman’s Legacy on Accounting [Floyd Norris]
Stock options, anyone?

Time for Smaller Companies to Learn XBRL [AW]
Drag them kicking and screaming.

Why Small Business Owners Need a Blog [BBW]
When a website simply isn’t enough.

Ways and Means expected to discuss 1099 provision in a hearing next week [On the Money/The Hill]
“As each committee begins its oversight of the Democrats’ health care law, Ways and Means will be having a hearing next week to examine the impact that the law is having on employers,” a Ways and Means spokesperson told The Hill on Thursday night. “Given the strong concerns about the 1099 mandate that have been voiced throughout the employer community, we would expect that employers will raise the issue and reiterate their calls for repeal.”

Twitter Is a Great Tool. What Happens When It’s Wrong? [BBW]
Pitfalls to real time.

Ernst files to move Lehman suit to federal court [Reuters]
Accounting firm Ernst & Young LLP is moving a lawsuit by New York’s attorney general over its audits of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc to federal court from state court, saying the case depends on questions of federal auditing standards. Ernst & Young was sued last month by then-Attorney General Andrew Cuomo over allegations it helped hide Lehman’s financial problems before the investment bank filed for bankruptcy protection in September 2008.

Sage delays full iXBRL release [Accountancy Age]
Accountancy Software giant Sage has delayed the release of its updated iXBRL software until after the mandatory HM Revenue & Customs deadline. HMRC has mandated that from 1 April all corporation tax must be filed using the new tagging technology, but while Sage has said it will have a basic iXBRL “template” available before the deadline, the full release will not be made available in time.

Four Reasons CPA Firms Can’t Keep the Lid on Pay Raises for Much Longer [CPA Trendlines]
There are only four reasons?

U.S.: The New Swedish Tax Haven [TaxProf Blog]
Obviously the Swedes are desperate.

From K-9s to 1099s: Pet-friendly firm boosts morale [AW]
CPA happiness is a wet nose.

IRS Will Not Meet 80% E-File Goal, Oversight Board Says [JofA]
59% in 2010 doesn’t bode well for the 80% for 2012.

Top Auditors Under Pressure to End ’Dangerous Stranglehold’ [Jeremy Newman/CEO Insights]
The BDO International CEO is pret-tay pleased that so many BSDs in the UK are asking for the end of the Big 4.

Myners Urges End to Domination of Audit ‘Big Four,’ Times Says [Bloomberg]
Paul Myners, a former U.K. Treasury minister, called for reform of the audit market, to end the domination of the “Big Four” firms, the London-based Times reported. Speaking at a House of Lords inquiry, Myners said Deloitte & Touche LLP, Ernst & Young LLP, KPMG International and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP should share responsibility for the 2008 banking collapse, the newspaper reported.

PCAOB Publishes Final Standards 8-15 on Risk, Materiality; Staff Practice Alert 7 on Litigation, Contingencies [FEI Blog]
Someone’s overachieving again!

Sallie Mae Appoints Treasurer Clark To CFO Post [Dow Jones]
SLM Corp. (SLM) appointed Jonathan C. Clark to the chief financial officer post, succeeding Jack Remondi, who was named to the newly created role of president and chief operating officer earlier this month.

Parmalat Suits Against Grant Thornton Revived by Court [Bloomberg]
Two suits by Parmalat SpA and its Parmalat Capital Finance Ltd. unit claiming damages from the accounting firm Grant Thornton LLP were revived by a federal appeals court in New York. The appeals court ruled today that U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan, who was assigned to oversee federal Parmalat-related lawsuits from throughout the country, applied the wrong standard in deciding to exercise jurisdiction over the Grant Thornton suits, which were originally filed in Illinois state court in 2004 and 2005.

Accounting Standards: Rules or Principles? Lessons From the UBS Dress Code [Re:Balance]
Jim Peterson takes on red undies and avoiding garlic.

Deadlines Missed on Financial-Overhaul Rules [WSJ]
Regulators have missed or postponed several deadlines to write rules needed to implement the financial overhaul triggered by the Dodd- Frank law. The Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission are straining to keep up with the workload of turning the language in last summer’s law into regulations in time to begin enforcing some of the new rules this summer. SEC officials postponed at least seven of the agency’s self-imposed deadlines related to the law, including revising the definition of an “accredited investor” to whom higher-risk investments can be sold.

Risks to watch in 2011 [Marks on Governance]
Norman Marks has a top ten list that “[is] not nearly as exciting as floods and famine,” but thought-provoking, nonetheless.

Crisis? What Crisis? Don’t Blame The Accounting [Forbes]
Francine McKenna sets a few things straight for the MSM when it comes to their coverage of “accounting” and “accountants.”

SageOne opens new Cloud front [AWUK]
From our British sister, “Two years after its first failed SageLive experiment, Sage UK has returned to the Cloud accounting battleground with SageOne, a three-stage web application catering for microbusinesses and their accountants.”

Calling the IRS? Expect to wait 10 minutes [Federal Eye/WaPo]
A record! “The IRS is keeping taxpayers calling for information about their tax accounts on hold for an average of 10 minutes — the longest wait time in five years, according to a new Government Accountability Office report on the agency’s performance during tax season, which runs from Jan. 1 to mid-April.”

Arizona Joins Corporate Tax Cut Parade [Tax Foundation]
A different approach than Illinois.

Atlanta accounting firms merge [AJC]
In case you hadn’t gotten enough from the M&A beat, “Windham Brannon and Tarpley & Underwood have merged and the combined company will be known as Windham Brannon P.C. CPAs.”

BlumShapiro Merges with Needel, Welch & Stone [PR]
And even more accounting firm fornication, “BlumShapiro, New England’s largest regional accounting, tax and business consulting firm based in Connecticut, has expanded and strengthened its capabilities through the announced merger with the Rockland, MA-based accounting, tax and business consulting firm Needel, Welch & Stone, P.C. (NWS). The merger became official on January 1, 2011.”

Mergis Group A&F Worker Confidence Rises; Nearly Half of A&F Workers Looking to Make a Job Change [PR Newswire]
The Accounting and Finance Employee Confidence Index, a measure of overall confidence among U.S. accounting and finance workers, edged up 2.2 points to 56.1 in the fourth quarter of 2010, according to a recent survey commissioned by The Mergis Group®, the professional placement division of SFN Group, Inc. The survey, conducted by Harris Interactive®, indicates that an increased population of the workforce believes it is likely they will make a job change in the next 12 months.

Toward a 21st-Century Regulatory System [WSJ]
The President wants to get rid of regulations across the spectrum of government “that conflict, that are not worth the cost, or that are just plain dumb.”

Swiss bank UBS to change much-mocked dress code [AP]
Red undies may now be allowed!

Kennewick accounting firm Hansen NvO sells to LarsonAllen [TCH]
LarsonAllen gets into the M&A act.

For Work-Life Balance, Be an Accountant [The Juggle/WSJ]
The Journal picks up the Times’s story on work-life balance. Or lack thereof.

Rothstein Kass Issues New White Paper on Fair Value Accounting [PR Newswire]
International professional services firm Rothstein Kass today announced that the company has published a new reference manual pertaining to Financial Accounting Standards Board Accounting Standards Codification Topic 820, Fair Value Measurements and Disclosures (ASC 820).

~ We’ll be taking it easy today to observe Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. We’ll be back to a full slate tomorrow.

Senators seek end to prisoners’ bogus tax refunds [WSJ]
Sens. Charles Schumer of New York, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida said the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the Internal Revenue Service have failed to cooperate and comply with a 2008 law aimed at stopping the practice in federal and state prisons nationwide. Prisoners use their own names or the names of friends and associates to submit false claims to receive and cash refund checks. “It is outrageous to think that convicted felons areayers from a jail cell,” Schumer told The Associated Press. He said the federal agencies’ “failure to share information has not only allowed this fraud to continue to occur, but has allowed it to more than double since 2004.”

Latest career move ‘was a no-lose choice’ [WaPo]
Deloitte alum and current LaSalle Hotel Properties Bruce Riggins participated in the Post’s “New at the Top” series.

The Robot in the Next Cubicle [BBW]
At just five feet tall and 86 pounds, the HRP-4 may be the office grunt of tomorrow. The humanoid robot, developed by Tokyo-based Kawada Industries and Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Sciences and Technology, is programmed to deliver mail, pour coffee, and recognize its co-workers’ faces. On Jan. 28, Kawada will begin selling it to research institutions and universities around the world for about $350,000. While that price may seem steep, consider that the HRP-4 doesn’t goof around on Facebook, spend hours tweaking its fantasy football roster, or require a lunch break. Noriyuki Kanehira, the robotic systems manager at Kawada, believes the HRP-4 could easily take on a “secretarial role…in the near future.” Sooner or later, he says, “humanoid robots can move [into] the office field.”

Ken Cunningham Named Grant Thornton LLP Chief Legal Officer [Business Wire]
Ken Cunningham has been named the new Grant Thornton LLP Chief Legal Officer effective February 1, 2011. Ken succeeds Peggy Zagel as Chief Legal Officer, who will be retiring from the firm July 31, 2011. “We are pleased to have an individual of Ken’s ability leading this critical function at the firm,” said Grant Thornton LLP CEO Stephen Chipman. “Ken is an outstanding legal thinker and an exceptional colleague, and we are confident that he will continue to be an enormous asset to Grant Thornton as the firm sets out on our bold five-year strategy for growth serving dynamic organizations around the globe.”

Deloitte: Choir to perform in festival [Big 4]
John Kerr, Talent partner at Deloitte was understandably thrilled. “Having a Deloitte Choir is a real asset,” he said. “It creates new networks within our firm, and builds relationships with our clients. Our choir members clearly love participating. Deloitte’s reputation rests on quality and excellence. I’d say winning the Office Choir of the Year is a great new way to signal just how far that emphasis on great performance goes at Deloitte.”

Dear PCAOB Board: Your Job Is To Serve And Protect Investors [RTA]
Francine McKenna refreshes your memory.

The FASB’s Proposed Repo Accounting: Loopholes Still Abound? [Accounting Onion]
The short answer is: Yes. Tom Selling has the long answer over at his blog.

Donald Trump & the Deadbeats [Tax Watchdog]
A sordid tax history for many of the the new Trump celebrity contestants.

Filing Your Tax Return is a Snap with New Turbo Tax App [Tax Docket]
Memo to Tim Geithner.

Groupon Talks IPO [WSJ]
Investment bankers have been making proposals to online deals site Groupon Inc. about a proposed initial public offering for the past week through an informal “bake-off,” people familiar with the matter said. Groupon, which turned down a $6 billion takeover offer from Google Inc. last year and said it would raise $950 million in funding, has been planning its public debut for later this year, these people said. An IPO is likely “sooner rather than later,” and most likely to be this fall, one of the people familiar with the matter said.

E&Y named most gay-friendly accountancy firmAccountancy Age]
E&Y ranked third on the UK national list of 100; Deloitte came in at 90. PwC and KPMG were MIA.