SEC Nearing Decision on Accounting Standards [WSJ]
The Securities and Exchange Commission this week cleared the way for a long-awaited decision on whether U.S. companies should switch to using global accounting rules. The SEC chief accountant’s office issued two fact-finding papers Wednesday about the use of the global rules, known as International Financial Reporting Standards. Those papers lay the groundwork for a recommendation from the SEC’s staff to the commissioners, expected by the end of the year, on whether they should move to IFRS and away from U.S. generally accepted accounting principles. The staff’s work “gives me the confidence that lets me know they are moving toward a decision,” said Joel Osnoss, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd.’s global leader for IFRS.

Tax Spat Stymies Debt Panel [WSJ]
Days away from a deadline, Congress’s deficit-reduction supercommittee is stymied, stumped in large part by one of Washington’s seemingly unsolvable problems: What to do with the Bush-era tax cuts? Republicans are digging in against any agreement that does not extend current income-tax rates, which are scheduled to expire at the end of 2012.

Yelp Files for I.P.O. [DealBook, S-1]
Yelp, which makes the bulk of its revenue from advertising contracts with local businesses, is not yet profitable. Though revenue rose 79.9 percent, to $58.4 million for the first nine months of this year, the company recorded a loss of $7.4 million.

Fund Transfers Are Focus of MF Global Probe [WSJ]
Regulators have unearthed new details indicating MF Global Holdings Ltd. shifted hundreds of millions of dollars in customer funds to its own brokerage accounts in the days before its bankruptcy filing, according to people familiar with the matter. Such moves could violate regulations stipulating that commodities brokers can’t mix customer funds with brokerage funds. Brokerage funds often are used to back proprietary trading positions. According to MF Global’s internal records, the transactions were as large as hundreds of millions of dollars at a time, these people said.

Rule of 72? [Tax Update]
Please keep filing tax returns after your 72nd birthday.

Barnier’s audit reforms ‘might be delayed’ [Accountancy Age]
You know how things are.

Olympus Has Enough Cash to Keep Going Amid Probe, Takayama Tells Employees [Bloomberg]
Olympus Corp. (7733) has enough cash on hand to keep the 92-year-old company in business amid a probe of schemes to hide investment losses, President Shuichi Takayama told employees yesterday. “Continue focusing on your job and responsibilities. Our treasury section will take care of financing issues,” Takayama wrote in a posting on the company’s internal website, a copy of which was given to Bloomberg News. In a posting today, Takayama said hospitals are asking for details of the scandal before they ch one hospital canceling its purchase.

Ex-Olympus boss to meet Japanese police [FT]
Michael Woodford, the former Olympus president whose revelations about suspicious acquisitions by the camera maker precipitated a scandal over improper accounting, will return to Japan next week to speak with authorities investigating the case, the Financial Times has learned. Mr Woodford confirmed to the FT that next Thursday he would meet Japanese police, prosecutors and officials from the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission, Japan’s financial markets regulator, in his first trip to Tokyo since Olympus fired him on October 14.

Widespread Protests Planned [WSJ]
The newly homeless Occupy Wall Street activists on Thursday plan a citywide day of demonstrations, an event that will test both the movement’s resilience following its eviction from Zuccotti Park and the city’s ability to deal with the decentralized protests. Protesters plan to start early. At 7 a.m., some say they’ll try to march on Wall Street and disrupt the beginning of the work day. So far, a heavy police presence and a warren of barricades have kept protesters from holding serious protests on Wall Street. Others will gather in Zuccotti Park. In the afternoon, they’re urging people to gather at transit hubs in each of the five boroughs. They’ve also called for student walkouts.

GOP supercommittee members’ tax plan gives party an identity crisis [WaPo]
Growing Republican support for raising taxes to help reduce the deficit has prompted a GOP identity crisis, sparking a clash within the party over whether to abandon its bedrock anti-tax doctrine. Tensions have mounted in recent days as two of the GOP’s most fervent anti-tax stalwarts on Capitol Hill — Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (Pa.) and Rep. Jeb Hensarling (Tex.) — have lobbied party colleagues behind the scenes to forgo their old allegiances and even break campaign promises by embracing hundreds of billions of dollars in tax hikes.

With MF Global Money Still Missing, Suspicions Grow [NYT]
Nearly three weeks after $600 million in customer money went missing from MF Global, the search for the cash has been hampered by the bankrupt brokerage firm’s sloppy record-keeping, an increasingly worrisome situation that has left regulators frustrated and customers in the lurch.

USC Suspends Launch of its Graduate Tax Program [TaxProf]
The University of Southern California Gould School of Law has suspended the launch of its graduate tax program because of declining job prospects for tax LL.M. graduates in the Los Angeles area. USC Dean Robert Rasmussen reports that the school will continue to monitor the employment situation and will begin the program when it is confident that the career prospects of its tax LL.M. graduates would match those of its J.D. graduates. (USC’s business school continues to offer a Masters of Business Taxation.)

Fund-Raiser for Liu Is Accused of Role in Illegal Donations [NYT]
A fund-raiser for the New York City comptroller, John C. Liu, whose campaign finances are under federal investigation, was arrested on Wednesday morning on charges that he helped illegally funnel thousands of dollars into Mr. Liu’s campaign account, according to court papers and people briefed on the case. A criminal complaint unsealed on Wednesday says an undercover agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation posed as a businessman seeking to donate $16,000 to an unidentified candidate for citywide office in New York. That candidate, the people briefed on the case said, was Mr. Liu.

Former Bowl Official Indicted [AP]
Natalie Wisneski faces charges of filing false tax returns for the Fiesta Bowl.

As New Graduates Return to Nest, Economy Also Feels the Pain [NYT]
You selfish brats need to get out there and stimulate the economy.