“Congress has gone since 2002 without dealing with the December 31, 2010 expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts. What’s another week or two?”
~ Joe Kristan hasn’t considered the risk of tryptophan hangovers.
Category: Quote of the Day
GAO: SEC Basically Needs to Replace Their Entire Accounting System
“These material weaknesses are likely to continue to exist until the SEC’s accounting system is either significantly enhanced or replaced, key accounting activity in other systems is fully integrated with the accounting system at the transaction level, information security controls are significantly strengthened, and appropriate resources are dedicated to maintaining effective internal controls.”
~ From a report issued by the Government Accountability Office
Spreading the Sacrifice Around
“Everybody must sacrifice so this quiet killer won’t eat us alive before we have a chance to fix what was our doing.”
~ Former Senate Budget Chairman Pete Domenici who, along with Alice Rivlin, rolled out their fiscal deficit solution today that includes a 6.5% national sales tax.
We’ll Drag Them Kicking and Screaming if We Have To
“Then what we’ve done is lay a predicate for this next Congress to deal with where we have $3 of spending cuts for every dollar of revenue increase.”
Nancy Pelosi Will Have You Know That She Wasn’t Responsible for the New 1099 Requirement Sneaking into Healthcare Reform
“One item that I think we all agree on that was in the Senate bill, not in the House bill, but became part of the law was 1099, which affects small businesses and small contractors and how they report their transactions. They know what it means, and they know they’d like to see it go. I think that’s probably the first place we could go together.”
~ The soon-to-be former Speaker of the House is willing to talk about this one.
This Is How Email Scandals Start
“At work, but not much to do.”
~ The status message of an accountant in China who was fired a few days later, thus preventing her from ranking any of her attractive co-workers.
Dick Durbin Isn’t Buying This Fiscal Commission Report
“I told them that there are things in there that inspire me, and there are things in there that I hate like the devil hates holy water. I’m not going to vote for this thing.”
~ The Illinois Senator doesn’t like the sales pitch from Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson.
Congress: Come Hell, High Water or Spiteful Democrats, We’ll Patch the AMT in the Lame Duck Session
“We plan to do everything possible to enact AMT relief legislation in a form mutually agreeable to the Congress and the president. We urge the Internal Revenue Service to take all steps necessary to plan for changes that would be made by the legislation.”
~ One of those “letters” that legislators write to bureaucrats as a form of grandstanding. This particular letter was from Max Baucus, Chuck Grassley, Sandy Levin and Dave Camp to Doug Shulman
New Jersey Should Send a ‘Thank You’ Note to California and New York
“In the recently-released 2011 State Business Tax Climate Index, New Jersey finally moved out of its last-place ranking on that list, in part due to Christie’s veto of the millionaires’ tax he mentioned during his interview. While it still ranks a pretty dismal 48 out of 50, it proves that improvement is possible, even in a state with a tax policy legacy as historically abysmal as New Jersey’s.” [Tax Foundation]
Keeping the SEC Out of Our Hair Is Always on the Table
This all started when a shareholder asked Michael about this, and he said that we’re looking into it. Well, of course we’re looking into it.
~ Brian Gladden, CFO of Dell, comes off a little sassy discussing the possibility of the company going private.
Washingtonians Mind Their Own Wallets
“Antitax voters clearly won a victory on Tuesday. But it would be a stretch to say that they don’t want higher taxes on the wealthy. More likely, they just didn’t want higher taxes on the nonwealthy.”
~ Robert Frank, on Washington’s rejection of Initiative 1098.
Wanted: Big Brothers, Big Sisters for Accountants
One of the main reasons [for dissatisfaction] is a lack of role models. Half of female respondents said there aren’t enough women at the top to look up to in top management, while only a third of men complained that there aren’t enough males. On the topic of mentors, however, both sexes feel there aren’t enough of them. More than two thirds of both genders said they haven’t had or currently do not have a mentor to support their career. [FINS]