Dennis Kozlowski Talks Jail, Pay [WSJ]
The former chief executive of Tyco International Ltd. was found guilty in 2005 of looting his employer and sentenced to as much as a quarter century behind bars. Now, he’s suing New York state to win work release and awaiting his first parole hearing in April. Meanwhile, Mr. Kozlowski looks out—across razor wire made by Tyco—at a world where the stumbling economy and scorn heaped on big business have a familiar feel.

Audit Flaws Revealed, at Long Last [NYT]
In theory, the board can put a firm out of business, but since the demise of Arthur Andersen reduced the Big Five to what some call the Final Four, there is general agreement that going to three would be unacceptable. So while the board can credibly threaten to close down a small firm that does a dozen or two audits each year, no such threat would be credible for Deloitte or one of the other three major accounting firms.

Groupon’s Loss Narrows, Spending Declines [WSJ]
As Groupon Inc. prepares for a roadshow next week to woo investors, the daily-deals site filed amended initial-public-offering papers that showed a narrower quarterly loss and a decline in its marketing spending. According to an amended S1 filing, Groupon narrowed its net loss for the third quarter to $10.6 million from $49 million in the same period a year earlier. The Chicago company’s third-quarter operating loss shrank to $239,000 from $56 million a year earlier.

Flat Tax Seen as Savings Booster [WSJ]
A consumption tax “has always been popular, but what makes the notion attractive in some circles now is that we’ve just been through a consumption bubble,” said Alvin Rabushka of the Hoover Institution, a co-author of the first major flat-tax proposal 30 years ago. “I think looking long-term, you’d like to have a healthy balance [of incentives] and a system that doesn’t discourage savings and investment.”

US Senate blocks key Obama jobs measure [FT]
US Senate Republicans and Democrats rejected each other’s economic stimulus bills on Thursday, underscoring their inability to craft a bipartisan solution on job creation before next year’s elections. All 47 Senate Republicans, joined by two of President Barack Obama’s fellow Democrats and one independent, stopped a key piece of Mr Obama’s $447bn economic stimulus plan.

IRS Raises Contribution Cap for 401(k) Plans [Bloomberg]
Taxpayers will be able to set aside an extra $500 in 401(k) plans and benefit from an additional $120,000 estate tax exemption in 2012, under cost-of-living adjustments announced by the Internal Revenue Service. The 401(k) contribution cap will be $17,000 in 2012, up from $16,500 this year. The 401(k) limits also affect contributions to similar accounts, including the 403(b) plans for school employees and nonprofit workers and the Thrift Savings Plan for federal employees.

Deloitte’s Quandary: Defy the S.E.C. or China [DealBook]
Not really much of a choice.

Perry Takes Up Flat-Tax Banner [WSJ]
The Texas governor said in a speech Wednesday to the Western Republican Leadership Conference in Las Vegas that he would lay out details of a flat-tax plan that “starts with scrapping the three million words of the current tax code, and starting over with something much simpler: a flat tax.”

Protests Show Capitalism ‘Nearly Broken’ [Bloomberg]
The protesters camping in London in support of the Occupy Wall Street dright and capitalism risks losing its “license to operate,” Generation Investment Management LLP’s David Blood said. Blood, who worked at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) for 18 years before starting fund manager Generation with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore in 2004, said the protesters’ message is that the financial system is “broken” and “unfair.”

Groupon Discounts IPO [WSJ]
The Chicago company and its bankers will begin meeting with investors in the next few days to sell them on a deal that values the daily deals pioneer at less than $12 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. While that would still mark one of the biggest Internet IPOs since Google Inc. in 2004, it is well below the valuations that were bandied about when the company filed to go public in June.

JetBlue Falls After Finance Chief Quits Week Before Earnings [BBW]
JetBlue Airways Corp. fell the most in two weeks after Chief Financial Officer Ed Barnes resigned ahead of the carrier’s earnings report. Barnes’s departure, effective immediately, was announced after the stock market closed yesterday. The resignation was a “personal decision” that had been planned for some time, said Mateo Lleras, a spokesman for New York-based JetBlue.

Certified Management Accountant Exam Offered in Chinese [AT]
“For nearly 40 years, the CMA certification program has been the globally-recognized credential for accountants and financial professionals in business, through an exam assessment, continuing education, and compliance with the highest ethical standards,” said Dennis Whitney, ICMA senior vice president, in a statement. “Following the success of the revised two-part CMA exam curriculum in English, we are pleased to offer the exam in Simplified Chinese.”

Citigroup to Pay $285 Million to Settle Fraud Charges [WSJ]
Wall Street’s total price tag on settlements with U.S. securities regulators for allegedly misleading investors about mortgage bonds churned out ahead of the financial crisis surged past $1 billion with a deal by Citigroup Inc. to pay $285 million. he New York company agreed to the payment to end civil-fraud charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission related to a 2007 deal called Class V Funding III. The SEC claimed Citigroup sold slices of the $1 billion mortgage-bond deal without disclosing to investors that the bank was shorting $500 million of the deal, or betting its assets would lose value.

CPA Horizons 2025: A Road Map for the Future [JofA]
Good news: you won’t be extinct.

Is Class Warfare Justified? [Tax.com/Martin Sullivan]
Maybe!

Grover Norquist defends no-tax pledge [Politico]
Aka: “Dog Bites Man.”