In close race for No 1, Deloitte, PwC grow apace [Reuters]
The world’s two largest accounting and consulting firms are bulking up with acquisitions and combing the globe for new hires. Head-to-head in a race for the title of world’s largest private professional services firm, Deloitte and PwC are on a major expansion drive. With audit revenues leveling off in developed markets, the firms have been making a push in growing countries such as China and India and plowing ahead with investments in consulting, where business is growing after a recessionary slump. More is at stake than bragging rights. Just as important is cementing tssional service supermarkets, able to help clients in almost any market where commerce transpires.

Obama offers stark choice to Republicans [FT]
Barack Obama has laid out a stark choice to Republicans that he will take to voters in next year’s presidential election, saying that their policies would starve health and education of funds unless they agreed to higher taxes on the wealthy. In a speech on Monday, Mr Obama said the principle that wealthy Americans earning more than $1m a year should not pay a lower tax rate than that levied on middle class incomes was at the heart of his deficit reduction programme. However, the president did not provide any details on how to meet what the White House is calling the “Buffett rule”, named after the billionaire Warren Buffett’s assertion that his tax rate was lower than his secretary’s.

‘Buffett Rule’ for Millionaire Tax Seen as Easier Said Than Done [Bloomberg]
For now, the Buffett rule is less of a concrete legislative proposal and more of a political talking point that has elicited Republican cries of “class warfare.” Democrats defended the idea and urged Congress to adopt it in designing a new tax system. “We’re not going to give the Congress a detailed proposal for how to meet that principle because we think there are a bunch of different ways to do that,” said Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, adding that the details of the rule would depend on the rest of the structure of a revamped tax code.

‘Angry Birds’ May Slingshot Into Starbucks [Bloomberg]
Rovio, whose smartphone game has been downloaded more than 350 million times, is in discussions with Starbucks about in- store promotions, Wibe Wagemans, a senior vice president at the Espoo, Finland-based company, said in an interview. Rovio may offer virtual goods and set up electronic leader boards in stores to tout top-scoring “Angry Birds” players.

The Netflix to Qwikster Shift Smells More Like Creative Accounting than a Good Business Move [FC]
When Netflix announced that they were separating their mail and streaming services into two different companies, there was a lot of effort put into focusing attention on the mistakes they made recently rather than the future of the companies. While it makes for great sound bytes and headlines, was it done in a way to hide their true intentions?

California to tax scofflaws: Pay up or lose your driver’s (or CPA) license [AWEB]
The California State Assembly has approved Assembly Bill 1424, the Delinquent Taxpayer Accountability Act, aimed at the state’s worst tax debtors. The bill delivers a clear message: pay your back taxes or we’ll suspend your driver’s license and/or professional licenses.

Obama’s debt-reduction plan: $3 trillion in savings, half from new tax revenue [WaPo]
President Obama will announce a proposal on Monday to tame the nation’s rocketing federal debt, calling for $1.5 tue as part of a plan to find more than $3 trillion in budget savings over a decade, senior administration officials said.

The proposal draws a sharp contrast with Republicans and amounts more to an opening play in the fall debate over the economy than another attempt to find common ground with the opposing party. Combined with his call this month for $450 billion in new stimulus, the proposal represents a more populist approach to confronting the nation’s economic travails than the compromises he advocated earlier this summer.

Obama Tax Plan Would Ask More of Millionaires [NYT]
Mr. Obama, in a bit of political salesmanship, will call his proposal the “Buffett Rule,” in a reference to Warren E. Buffett, the billionaire investor who has complained repeatedly that the richest Americans generally pay a smaller share of their income in federal taxes than do middle-income workers, because investment gains are taxed at a lower rate than wages.

Rep. Ryan: ‘Buffett Rule’ an example of ‘class warfare’ [OTM/The Hill]
“You tax something more, you get less of it,” Ryan said. Obama is trying to “raise the tax on capital,” he said.

UBS says trader hid loss with fake deals [FT]
Kweku Adoboli, the trader charged with blowing a $2.3bn hole in the books of UBS, allegedly disguised huge lossmaking positions with fictitious counter-trades, the bank has stated, the same tactic used by Jérôme Kerviel who caused €4.9bn of losses at France’s Société Générale in 2008. As one senior UBS executive likened the trading scandal to “a terrorist attack” that was impossible to prevent, the group revised upwards its estimate of the loss caused by Mr Adoboli from an earlier estimate of $2bn and attempted to shore up the position of chief executive Oswald Grübel.

UBS probe to be run by Deloitte [FT]
British and Swiss regulators have appointed the international audit firm Deloitte to head an investigation into events at UBS that led to $2bn of losses which may have been caused by alleged rogue trader, Kweku Adoboli. According to the UK’s Financial Services Authority and the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (Finma), the probe, which will be paid for by UBS, will look at “the details of the unauthorised trading activity; the control failures which permitted the activity to remain undetected; and … an assessment of the overall strength of UBS’s controls to prevent unauthorised or fraudulent trading activity in its investment bank”.

Obama’s Muni Tax-Exemption Tweak Is Idea Whose Time Hasn’t Yet Come [Bloomberg]
President Barack Obama’s proposal to reduce the exemption that high earners can claim on interest for their municipal-bond investments is a good example: It should be rejected on the grounds that it only makes sense as part of a sweeping reform. Politicians have been trying to kill the special tax status of muni bonds since Andrew Mellon was Treasury secretary almost 100 years ago. But there are a few good reasons the federal government has wanted to keep the exemption: State and local governments are a (rightly) powerful constituency; capital markets are the most efficient way to match investors with local infrastructure needs, and should be encouraged; and municipal projects tend to be in the public interest.

Lawmakers To Urge IRS To Ease Tax Problems For Same-Sex Couples [Dow Jones]
Even as states increasingly allow same-sex couples to marry, ambiguities in the tax code and administrative tie-ups at the Internal Revenue Service complicate and hinder these couples’ ability to pay their taxes, a bipartisan group of lawmakers will tell the head of the tax agency in a letter to be sent Monday. The IRS should move quickly to clarify the “serious issues” with which domestic partners and same-sex couples grappled while paying their taxes in 2010, urges a letter signed by 74 members of the House of Representatives to IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, to be sent Monday.

Tyco to Split Into Three Companies [DealBook]
As it looks to capitalize on opportunities in its disparate industries, the conglomerate will cleave off its North American residential alarm system unit, its flow control group, and its commercial security business into separate companies.

European Bank Blowups Hidden With Shell Games [Bloomberg]
Today many of Europe’s largest financial institutions are seemingly on the brink again, driven by fears of pent-up losses stemming from the sovereign-debt debacle. Only you don’t hear much criticism of fair-value reporting anymore. That’s probably because the accounting mandarins gutted many of their fair-value rules in response to the financial system’s near-meltdown three years ago. This hasn’t made banks safer. It has given politicians and bankers one less culprit to blame, though.

Amnesty Program Yields Millions More in Back Taxes [NYT]
More than 12,000 American taxpayers have voluntarily revealed their secret offshore bank accounts to the Internal Revenue Service as part of the government’s latest tax amnesty program, agency officials said on Thursday. The move will allow the United States Treasury to collect at least half a billion dollars in unpaid taxes. The voluntary disclosure program, which was in effect from February until last week, is part of an initiative to deter tax evasion via offshore bank accounts. Since the I.R.S. began its previous amnesty program in 2009, more than 30,000 taxpayers have reported their secret overseas accounts, and the federal government has collected $2.7 billion in taxes and penalties.

BofA Keeps Countrywide Bankruptcy as Option [Bloomberg]
Bank of America Corp. (BAC), the lender burdened by its Countrywide Financial Corp. takeover, would consider putting the unit into bankruptcy if litigation losses threaten to cripple the parent, said four people with knowledge of the firm’s strategy. The option of seeking court protection exists because the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank maintained a separate legal identity for the subprime lender after the 2008 acquisition, said the people, who declined to be identified because the plans are private. A filing isn’t imminent and executives recognize the danger that it could backfire by casting doubt on the financial strength of the largest U.S. bank, the people said.

UBS $2 bln loss to trigger investment bank retreat [Reuters]
Swiss bank UBS came under increasing pressure to shrink or sideline its investment bank business — source of a $2 billion rogue trading loss — as ratings agencies warned lax risk management could prompt downgrades. The bank is expected to announce a major restructuring involving the loss of thousands more jobs at an investor day in New York on November 17, the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper said on Friday, as it seeks to reassure private clients.

It’s National Tax Preparer Recruiting Week at Jackson Hewitt [AWEB]
Anyone looking for a new gig?

Chuck Woolery Responds to Warren Buffett [TaxProf]