Category: ANR

Goldman Flooded With Facebook Orders [WSJ]
Inundated with demand, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. plans to stop taking orders for shares of Facebook Inc. on Thursday, and has told some would-be investors to expect just a small fraction of the shares they requested, according to people familiar with the situation.

Malloy signs order calling for GAAP accounting principles [Norwich Bulletin]
This guy means business, “As his first official act, Gov. Dan Malloy signed three executive orders this afrder instructs all state agencies adopt GAAP accounting principles from this point on.”

Momentum Builds for Corporate-Tax Overhaul [WSJ]
The White House and congressional Republicans are moving from different directions toward a consensus that the U.S. corporate tax code needs a fundamental overhaul, a goal high on corporate leaders’ agenda. Specific proposals for retooling the complex corporate-tax system aren’t on the table and the debate over the issue is sure to be lengthy and difficult. But President Barack Obama and Republican congressional leaders are separately sounding the same broad theme that corporate tax rates should be lower. “Tax reform could be a significant boost to our competitiveness,” Rep. Eric Cantor (R., Va.), the new House majority leader, said this week. “I’m hopeful and expect the president to put some action behind his statements.”

LivingSocial: Groupon’s Not The Only Company That Can Hire A CFO [TechCrunch]
John Bax, an E&Y alum and most recently the CFO of RecycleBank, is in now in the big chair at LivingSocial.

Aronson & Company Changes its Name to Aronson LLC [PR Newswire]
Effective last Saturday.

LinkedIn Plans to Pursue an IPO [WSJ]
No Goldman needed, “Social-networking company LinkedIn Corp. intends to file for an initial public offering within months, another sign that the market for high-tech companies is heating up. The Mountain View, Calif., company, whose members include more than 85 million business professionals, will likely file its S-1 registration statement during the first quarter, according to a person familiar with the matter. The three underwriters are Bank of America Merrill Lynch, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley, this person said.”

Wise, Blue accounting firms merge [Business First]
Douglas R. Wise & Co. PSC, a Louisville-based public accounting practice, has merged with Blue & Co. LLC, an accounting and advisory firm based in Carmel, Ind.

Deaths, Disasters and Diseases Make For Satisfying Career [FINS]
Or debit and credit mavens, which comes in at #12.

Ponzi scheme sends Maui accountant to prison [Hawaii News Now]
Maui accountant Lloyd Kimura pleaded guilty Wednesday to nine counts of bank and mail fraud and theft in an elaborate ponzi scheme. Kimura, 61, admitted to defrauding more than 50 clients who invested in his business, the Maui Industrial Land and Finance Company. His crime may have amounted to as much as $20 million.

Facebook Deal Spurs Inquiry [WSJ]
The Securities and Exchange Commission has begun examining whether disclosure rules for privately held firms need to be rewritten as a result of recent deals allowing investors to buy shares in Internet companies such as Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc., according to people familiar with the situation. The review is at an early stage, these people cautioned, and SEC officials looking at the recent deals haven’t concluded that any of them run afoul of the 47-year-old rules governing private companies. The rules require firms with 500 or more shareholders of record in a given type of stock to puain financial information. The requirement is designed to protect investors from risking money on companies that say little about their operations and performance.

Fed May Keep Easing at `Full Throttle’ Until Jobless Rate Falls [Bloomberg]
Federal Reserve officials signaled they’ll probably push ahead with unprecedented stimulus until the recovery strengthens and many of the 15 million unemployed Americans find work. The jobless rate hasn’t fallen below 9.4 percent since May 2009 and will probably average that figure this year, according to a Bloomberg News survey of economists. Unemployment probably declined to 9.7 percent last month from 9.8 percent in November, according to the average estimate of a Bloomberg poll prior to a Labor Department employment report on Jan. 7.

Former AIG employee sues PwC, board over audits [Reuters]
A former employee of American International Group has filed a lawsuit claiming that PricewaterhouseCoopers was negligent in its audits of AIG and that the board of the bailed-out insurer failed to pursue a claim against the accountants. The suit, filed in federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday by Wanda Mimms, was brought as a derivative action on behalf of the AIG Incentive Savings Plan. PwC and AIG’s board are named as defendants.

Deloitte a Leader Among SAP ERP Implementation Service Providers in North America [PR Newswire]
You can ask Marin County about it.

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters: Calling a Bean, a Bean [White Collar Fraud]
Counting beans. Well! That’s a whole other matter entirely.

No Accountability: Goldman Sachs Wants You To Invest In Facebook [Forbes]
Francine McKenna’s latest, “Facebook wants the public’s money – and their trust – with none of the disclosure and none of the regulatory scrutiny of a public company. Goldman Sachs strategy to raise $1.5 billion for Facebook from ‘sophisticated investors’ and invest another $450 million of their own money is an example of wanton disregard for accountability to the securities markets. But it’s more a function of Facebook’s ‘have your cake and eat it too’ attitude towards the markets than any subterfuge on Goldman’s part. The investment bank and Facebook’s lawyers get paid to make their client happy.”

Roger Milliken Died on Dec. 30, Beat Estate Tax on $1 Billion Fortune by 48 Hours [TaxProf Blog]
Close call!

Cantor hopes Obama moves forward on tax reform [OTM/The Hill]
It only took Eric Cantor three years to get on the hope train.

Tax Vox’s Fearless Predictions for 2011 [TaxVox]
You can probably sum it up with: lots of talk.

Accounting, Computer Science Among Most Desirable Majors [HuffPo]
FYI.

Brown Says Calif. Budget He Proposes Next Week Will Be `Painful’ [Bloomberg]
Jerry Brown said the budget he’ll propose as California’s new governor, 36 years after he first stepped into the job, will be “painful.” Brown, 72, a Democrat who served two terms as governor from 1975 to 1983, faces a self-described “day of reckoning” over a $28 billion budget gap that promises battles with lawmakers, unions and investors threatening to shun the bonds of the most- indebted state. “The budget I present next week will be painful but it will be an honest budget,” Brown said at his inauguration today in Sacramento, the state capital. “It is a tough budget for tough times.”

Loud Noise Likely Caused Birds’ Deaths in Arkansas [WSJ]
Can we get an auditor up in this mofo? The Times had the number of red-winged blackbirds at “more than 4,000” but now the Journal reports, “Between 1,000 and 5,000 birds died during the incident, which happened in Beebe, a town northeast of Little Rock.” Is there not a single human capable of getting a hard number of dead avians in all of the Natural State. We realize it involves counting but come on.

Time Management for Young Professionals [AW]
Admit it, this was your resolution, wasn’t it?

Coast Guard CFO takes blame for $138M in misspending [FCW]
Awfully big of you boss, “The Coast Guard’s chief financial officer is taking sole responsibility for the apparent misuse of $138 million despite federal auditors’ assertion that other Coast Guard officers and executives also ought to be considered responsible, according to a report.”

Skype 5 beta is horrible [AccMan]
An unmitigated review.

IRS pursues ‘Little Fockers’ star Teri Polo [Tax Watchdog/Detroit News]
Paying the $450k owed should be a snap now.

IRS forced to put some tax filings on hold [On the Money/The Hill]
Attention homeowners: “The Internal Revenue Service announced in December that it needed to reprogram some of its processing systems after a few provisions were extended during the recent lame-duck session — meaning that some taxpayers will have to wait until mid- to late February to file their returns. Taxpayers who itemize their deductions on a Schedule A form are among those who will have to bide their time before filing. (Itemized deductions include, among other things, charitable deductions and mortgage interests.)”

Pet Airways Appoints Andrew Warner as President and Chief Financial Officer [PR Newswire]
Yes, the company does what you think it does.

~ Happy New Year Capital Market Servants. Like many of you, we’re easing into 2011 like Warren Buffett eases into a hot bath. Accordingly, we’ll be on an abbreviated publishing schedule today, returning to a full slate tomorrow. If you’ve come back to some pleasant news (e.g. boss orders you to take the day day off) or something less welcome (busy season hours start now!) we’ll be around, so feel free to email us.

Goldman Invests in Facebook at $50 Billion Valuation [DealBook]
This could be considered a ‘Like,’ “The new money will give Facebook more firepower to smployees, develop new products and possibly pursue acquisitions — all without being a publicly traded company. The investment may also allow earlier shareholders, including Facebook employees, to cash out at least some of their stakes.”

Congress Targets Spending [WSJ]
But first, they are going waste everyone’s time, “The incoming House majority will start by offering two measures this week that carry more symbolism than substance. One will be a motion to repeal the health bill that President Barack Obama signed last year, and the second will be a measure to trim the cost of running the House itself. The health-care repeal isn’t expected to go anywhere in the Senate, where Democrats retain the majority, and the package of cuts to the House budget will only save about $25 million from a federal budget that exceeds $3 trillion.”

What’s Going to Happen to Financial Reporting in 2011? [Accounting Onion]
Tom Selling says you shouldn’t get your hopes up, “I predict that 2011 will be a year full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing to advance the cause of high quality financial reporting. You can take it to the bank – by which I mean any one of the banks fighting accounting reform tooth and nail.”

Did Orange Bowl Abuse its Tax Exemption With Caribbean Cruise? [TaxProf Blog]
Man, these Playoff PAC people really hate the bowl system.

Welcome to tax season. Let’s get busy! [CPA Success]
Unlike us, they’re bright-eyed and bushy-tailed over in Maryland for this year’s tax season.

Five New Year’s Resolutions That Will Help You Avoid the Mistakes of 2010 [FINS]
Before tearing off into the 2011 horizon, maybe do a little reflecting on 2010 first.

Orbitz names new CFO [Crain’s]
Former Crocs (yes, those Crocs) CFO Russ Hammer officially took the big seat on January 1.

Jobless Claims in U.S. Fall to Lowest Level Since July 2008 [Bloomberg]
Initial U.S. jobless claims fell last week to the lowest level since July 2008, a sign that the labor market is improving heading into 2011. First-time filings for unemployment insurance decreased by 34,000 to 388,000 in the week ended Dec. 25, compared with the median forecast of 415,000 in a Bloomberg News survey, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. There were no special factors behind the drop, an official at the agency said as the data were released.

Xzibit no longer enjoying a pimped lifestyle [Tax Watchdog]
Pimp My Ride getting cancelled was a serious blow.

Better information, better decision-making [WaPo]
A new comptroller general for Congress to ignore.

Glassdoor.com Reveals Top 25 Oddball Interview Questions of 2010 [PR Newswire]
From Deloitte, “How many ridges [are there] around a quarter?”

Don’t Try This, Governor Brantstad (or Governor Culver) [Tax Update Blog]
Looney excuse of the day for not paying taxes.

Tattoos, body piercings, and accounting firms [AW]
Will sleeves soon be allowed year-round at the Big 4?

Eight questions for planning to grow in 2011 [CPA Success]
Tom Hood. Doing his thing.

Looking into the Crystal Ball for Tax Policy in 2011 [Tax Foundation]
Because President Obama and the Congress extended the Bush era tax cuts, taxpayers will wake up on January 1st without the hangover of higher taxes. There will be no increase in tax rates, the marriage penalty relief will remain, the child credit will be the same, and the lower rates on dividends and capital gains will all be the same.

Going for the auditors [The Economist]
The Economist finally gets into the act, “One possible outcome is a settlement in which E&Y agrees to co-operate with the prosecutors in cases they may bring against Lehman’s former executives. If so, the fines and sanctions suffered by the auditing firm and its partners may be stiff but not ruinous. After all, no one wants to cause the fall of another big accounting firm.”

Groupon Seeks to Sell Shares [WSJ]
Flying high with cash and confidence after snubbing Google Inc.’s reported $6 billion purchase offer, daily deals company Groupon Inc. has set its sights on raising nearly $1 billion in private funds. The Chicago-based company has filed a certificate with the State of Delaware, where it is incorporated, seeking authorization to sell up to 30.1 million preferred shares of stock at $31.59 per share, or a little more than $950 million.

Digimarc changes auditor after clash [Portland Business Journal]
Grant Thornton fired for KPMG. Have we heard this story before?

PE Outlook: KPMG’s Hessing On Private Equity’s Changing Seasons [Private Equity Beat/WSJ]
Things are looking up!

Tax Reform Won’t Happen in 2011 (or 2012) [TaxVox]
And everyone seemed so serious about it pre-November.

Dodging Repatriation Tax Lets U.S. Companies Bring Home Cash [Bloomberg]
At the White House on Dec. 15, business executives asked President Obama for a tax holiday that would help them tap more than $1 trillion of offshore earnings, much of it sitting in island tax havens. The money — including hundreds of billions in profits that U.S. companies attribute to overseas subsidiaries to avoid taxes — is supposed to be taxed at up to 35 percent when it’s brought home, or “repatriated.” Executives including John T. Chambers of Cisco Systems Inc. say a tax break would return a flood of cash and boost the economy.

Ernst & Young’s Liability For Lehman Larger Than Claimed [Forbes]
Don’t forget the 10-Q’s in 2008! “EY’s claim of an arbitrary cutoff for responsibility for the audit after the 2007 10-K is intended to fool the casual reader of media reports. Lehman remained an EY client until the bankruptcy in September 2008. This period included two more 10-Qs.”

Woman in disbelief that pastor broke into her home [Salon]
The tithe in the offering plate obviously wasn’t cutting it.

GAO will be able to audit Fed [On the Money/The Hill]
Somebody has an opinion on this, “The GAO under the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill is now required to audit the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending program instituted in the wake of the financial crisis.”

H&R Block Shares Drop as U.S. Decision Scuttles HSBC Tax-Refund Loan Deal [Bloomberg]
H&R Block Inc. fell almost 10 percent after saying U.S. regulators blocked funding for its tax-refund loans and that alternative products mahe 2011 season. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency told HSBC Holdings Plc not to make refund-anticipation loans, according to a statement H&R Block released after business hours on Dec. 24. The order scuttled a deal the two companies reached after H&R Block, the biggest U.S. tax preparer, sued to force HSBC to offer the loans under a contract that was set to expire in 2013.

“Texodus” Is Now A Thing According to IRS, NY Post [Gothamist]
All those New Yorkers are moving to…Texas?

Oscar Nomination Ballots Mailed Monday to 5,755 Academy Members [Hollywood Reporter]
FYI for any Academy voters – PwC will not be counting any ballots returned after 5 PT on January 14th, so you best not fuck with the protocols.

What Took California So Long to Release CPA Exam Scores? [JDA]
Di-rectly from the mouth of a hipster chick CPA exam maven, “If you’re a CPA exam candidate in California who sat the last testing window of 2010, you might still be waiting for your score. If this is your first exam, get used to it. If you’ve been around the block at least once, you are probably used to the waiting game but wondering what the hell is taking so long. Comments from the Peanut Gallery are that candidates have never had to wait this long for their scores, with the Board pretty quiet on what’s holding things up. Since they won’t tell you, I will.”

Stranded Travelers Face `Long’ Wait After Winter Storm [Bloomberg]
Passengers stranded when airlines canceled more than 6,000 flights amid a winter storm in the eastern U.S. may face lengthy waits to rebook their trips as carriers move aircraft and search for seats on crowded planes. “It’s a mess,” Jay Sorensen, president of consultant Ideaworks and a former airline marketing executive, said yesterday. “It takes a long time for this to sort out. With every day of cancellations, the problem just compounds itself.”

Long Finger Linked to Cancer Risk, Study Finds [WSJ]
Rejoice if your your pointer is longer than your ring finger.

Val Kilmer facing ‘Heat’ from feds [Tax Watchdog]
Ice Man is getting his tail ridden by the IRS.

Riverside to drop auditors after problems in Bell [AP/SFC]
Mayer Hoffman McCann’s association with Bell isn’t helping their business in California.

AMD Shifts GlobalFoundries Accounting Method [DJ]
For those of you interested in the technical stuff.

~ Attention GC faithful, please let it be known that we’ll be on an abbreviated publishing schedule this week, with roundups, periodic updates and the occasional ranty rant from Adrienne. We still want to hear from you this week, so if anything worthy of these pages crops up, such as last-minute inventory assignments, holiday party pictures or Andrew Cuomo showing up at 5 Times Square demanding a snowball fight, email us the details.

Khodorkovsky Found Guilty of Oil Theft, Lawyers Say [Bloomberg]
A Moscow judge found Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the jailed former head of Yukos Oil Co., guilty of embezzling crude, adding to a 2005 conviction, in a trial that has raised European concerns about the rule of law in Russia. Khodorkovsky and his former business partner Platon Lebedev, already serving eight-year sentences for fraud and tax evasion, may be sentenced this week or after Jan. 10 when Russia’s New Year holidays end, their lawyers said. The men face six more years in prison, the defense team has said.

Northeast airports, roads shut down by blizzard [MSNBC]
Commuters and long-distance travelers across the Northeast faced snow drifts, stranded and crashed vehicles, as well as hundreds of canceled flights on Monday as a blizzard put a brutal end to the Christmas holiday weekend. New York City was especially hard hit. All three international airports have been closed since Sunday, forcing the cancellation of some 2,000 flights. Stranded travelers got cots and blankets but some said they were not allowed to retrieve their checked luggage and had no extra clothing or toiletries.

Rapper Trick Daddy took ‘Thug Holiday’ from IRS [Tax Watchdog]
“I’m a Thug” probably won’t work as an excuse for owing $157k.

Taking It Back – Santa [The Summa]
A video where Santa saves the accounting world. If you really use your imagination, that is.

AIG Secures New Credit Lines to Replace Fed Funding [WSJ]
American International Group Inc., which is preparing to repay its aid from the U.S. government, said it has obtained $4.3 billion in new credit lines from commercial banks to replace its funding from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The government-controlled insurer said it has established $3 billion in new bank credit facilities, split between a 364-day line and a three-year facility, under which banks have agreed to make loans to AIG. In addition, AIG’s property and casualty insurance subsidiary, Chartis Inc., entered into a one-year, $1.3 billion letter of credit facility.

If You Are Buying Fake Goods In London, It’s a Real Ripoff, Says KPMG [Big Four Blog]
Just London?

Role of Auditors in Crisis Gets Look [WSJ]
Until this week when civil-fraud charges were brought against Ernst & Young LLP for its role in the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., auditors had largely side-stepped blame for the financial crisis.

Yet auditors had to pass judgment on some of the practices that caused the big losses that led to government bailouts. The case against Ernst highlights the roles accounting firms played and raises questions about whether reforms enacted after the last financial crisis went far enough.

Ernst & Young’s jujitsu defense [Colin Barr/Fortune]
The Ernst & Young statement suggests the firm will argue that it can’t be prosecuted under the Martin Act because Lehman, not E&Y, was the outfit actually producing the financial reports, and because it was Lehman, not E&Y, that was peddling billions of dollars of securities just months before its implosion. In this view, E&Y was just a gatekeeper hired to vouch for Lehman’s books, something it will claim it did well within the confines of the law. This strikes lawyers who are familiar with the law as an eminently reasonable approach, if not exactly a surefire recipe for success.

Crocs CFO resigns; shares slip [Reuters]
And the rubber shoes remain.

Monsanto names Courduroux to CFO post [Bloomberg]
And the bizarro food products remain.

Clifton Gunderson Acquires LA Forensic Practice [AT]
CG acquires Durkin Forensic with the deal effective January 1.

Paul Basso Joins PwC’s Risk Assurance Services Practice [PR Newswire]
PwC US today announced that Paul Basso has joined the firm as a partner in the Internal Audit Services practice. Basso joins PwC from Ernst & Young, where he was a principal leading the US Insurance Process and Controls practice. He will be based in Boston and will serve clients in the Northeast, which includes the firm’s offices in Boston, Hartford, Conn. and Albany, N.Y.

BDO signs firm partnership deal in Japan [Accountancy Age]
Toyo & Co and BDO’s existing firm Sanyu & Co will merge to form BDO Japan KK, the new member firm. Sanyu & Co was established in 1986 and joined BDO in 1996, while Toyo & Co was founded in 1971. The combined firm is expected to generate a fee income of €61m (£51.9m) for the year ending 2010.

Entrepreneurs Ask Santa for Loans, Lower Taxes [WSJ]
Loaded quote from the Journal, “Mark W. Smith, a founding partner of New York law firm Smith Valliere PLLC, has just one wish: lower taxes. ‘I lose half of my profits every year to taxes,’ he says. ‘They’re way too high and they’re hurting the growth of my business.’ “