Groupon IPO: Revenue Corrected for ‘Error’ [WSJ]
Now, what Groupon counts as “revenue” is the amount of money it takes in from the daily-deal offers, MINUS the money Groupon shares with merchants. Before, the revenue number included the merchant’s share ony’s revenue figure. “We consistently have stated that the amount we retain—rather than bill or collect—from the sale of Groupons is the key measure of the value we create,” Groupon said in its amended IPO filing. “This change in presentation is consistent with that belief.”

Were Groupon’s and Overstock’s Management and Auditors Stupid or Did They Condone Improper Accounting Practices? [WCF]
Sam Antar: “I believe that the managements of both companies simply chose to avoid following applicable accounting rules and their auditors condoned those practices. Seriously, can they be so stupid? If so, their audits are nothing but window dressing.”

Groupon: Restated Numbers Reveal Failure of Business [Fraud Files Blog]
And Tracy Coenen: “By reporting revenue properly (much smaller revenue numbers!), Groupon’s precarious financial position and operating strategy are exposed. Simply put: The business of Groupon does not work. And I suspect that merchants and consumers are losing interest in the Groupon type of gimmick, which puts even more financial strain on the company.”

EU to propose audit-only firms and mandatory rotation [Accountancy Age]
New European regulation looks set to turn auditing upside down, potentially forcing the biggest firms to choose between audit and non-audit services and ushering in mandatory rotation. A draft of the European Commission’s green paper on audit seen by Accountancy Age indicates a tough line is being pursued by internal markets commissioner Michel Barnier.

Facebook ‘Likes’ Small Business [WSJ]
In a push to gain more small-business users, Facebook Inc. is expected on Monday to reveal plans to launch a new program that includes giving away $10 million of advertising credits. The initiative is being launched in partnership with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Federation of Independent Business, a small-business group. It is intended to educate small businesses on how to promote themselves on the social-networking site, like buying display ads targeted to specific markets, but also through cost-free measures to engage more with customers.

Shutdown looms: Spotlight now on Senate after Boehner wrangled House GOP votes [WaPo]
With time running out, Congress returns Monday to try to pass a short-term funding measure to avert a government shutdown and avoid yet another market-rattling showdown over the federal budget. The Democratic-led Senate, which on Friday blocked a GOP House measure to fund the government through Nov. 18, will vote late Monday on its own version of the bill.

US tax authorities target bank deals [FT]
US tax authorities are targeting cross-border finance deals worth billions of dollars between leading US and UK banks as they step up efforts to clamp down on abusive tax avoidance, a joint investigation by the Financial Times and ProPublica, a non-profit news organisation, has found. Four US banks – BB&T, Bank of New York Mellon, Sovereign (now part of Santander of Spain), and Wells Fargo – are in turn suing the US government over more than $1bn in tax credits that the Internal Revenue Service has disallowed over the past decade. Washington Mutual has settled a similar dispute and Wachovia is pursuing an administrative complaint over a deal. The UK’s Barclays emerges as a pivotal promoter of the complex cross-border deals, which the IRS claims were designed to generate artificial foreign tax credits.

Crocs to Counter Slowdown With New Styles [Bloomberg]
Crocs Inc. (CROX) plans to counter any global slowdown by pushing consumers to shift to new, higher- priced shoe styles from the plastic clogs for which it’s better known, Chief Executive Officer John McCarvel said. “Our whole desire is to go upscale,” McCarvel said in an interview at the World Retail Congress in Berlin today. “This is many years in the making. It has evolved constantly, upgrading the line, trying to stretch the consumer up to 40, 45 euros, pounds or dollars.”

KPMG LLP Names Lynne M. Doughtie Vice Chair – Advisory [KPMG]
Replacing Mark Goodburn who’s now the global head of advisory.

Deloitte reports record 2011 revenue of $28.8 billion [Reuters]
Deloitte’s member firms worldwide reported a record $28.8 billion in revenue, up 8.4 percent from 2010. In local currency terms, not accounting for fluctuations in the value of the dollar, revenue grew 7.7 percent for the fiscal year that ended May 31, 2011. Deloitte will likely post similar growth in fiscal 2012, despite a challenging economic picture, the firm’s global chief executive, Barry Salzberg, said on Thursday. “Our first quarter (fiscal 2012) results are very much in line with what we’ve achieved in the prior year,” Salzberg said in an interview.

[AT]
On Thursday, the AICPA released a sampling of comments in support of creating a separate standard-setting board for privately held companies, and said that 99 percent of the 2,800 comments received so far support the establishment of an independent standard-setter. The Institute has organized a letter-writing campaign urging the Financial Accounting Foundation, which oversees FASB and the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, to create a separate board for private company standards […]. The FAF has set up a trustee working group to review the recommendations of a report released in January by a Blue-Ribbon Panel on Standard Setting for Private Companies, which backed the creation of a separate board under the oversight of the FAF. The working group is expected to release its proposals by early October[…].

SinoTech Says Ernst & Young China Arm Resigns As Auditor [Dow Jones]
-Nasdaq-listed SinoTech Energy Ltd. […] said Friday that Ernst & Young’s China unit has resigned as the company’s auditor, citing concerns over a SinoTech financial transaction with SinoTech’s chairman. The Chinese oil-field service provider said in a statement that Chief Financial Officer BoXun Zhang has resigned. It added that Jing Liu has resigned as chairwoman of the company’s audit committee.

Candor by SEC Cheered in House [WSJ]
Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro said Thursday she had apologized to the other members of the commission for not informing them that the agency’s former top attorney had a potential conflict in the agency’s investigation of the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme. Her remarks, at a joint hearing hosted by the House Financial Services and House Oversight subcommittees, came as some Democratic lawmakers dismissed the idea that the SEC’s former general counsel, David Becker, committed criminal acts.

House approves spending measure opposed by Senate; shutdown possible [WaPo]
Washington lurched toward another potential government shutdown crisis Friday, as the House approved a Republican-authored short-term funding measure designed to keep government running through Nov. 18 that Democrats in the Senate immediately vowed to reject. In an after-midnight roll call, House Republican leaders persuaded conservatives early Friday morning to support a stop-gap bill nearly identical to one they had rejected just 30 hours earlier.

Obama Takes Aim at Tax ‘Targets,’ Fires Blanks [Bloomberg]
Two weeks ago, President Barack Obama unveiled his $447 billion plan to put Americans back to work. Eleven days later, he told us how he’d pay for it: $1.5 trillion in tax increases over 10 years and $3 trillion in spending cuts — on top of the $1 trillion already agreed to in last month’s Budget Control Act. He outlined the principles of a comprehensive tax reform that would lower rates, broaden the base, cut “inefficient and unfair” tax breaks, encourage job creation and reduce the deficit. In other words, every economist’s dream.

Meg Whitman Is Named Hewlett-Packard Chief [NYT]
Hewlett-Packard replaced its embattled chief executive on Thursday with the former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman, saying that the company’s strategy to transform its business was sound, but that it needed new leadership to carry out the plan. The upheaval at H.P. came after several weeks of mounting concerns among board members, senior executives and investors about how the former chief, Léo Apotheker, had handled a major strategy shift at the company announced last month, according to interviews with several people briefed on the board’s discussions.

14 indicted in massive tax refund scam [KCS]
A three-year scheme that allegedly tried to defraud the Internal Revenue Service out of millions in inflated tax refunds unraveled Thursday in Kansas City as authorities announced charges against 14 defendants from around the country. U.S. Attorney Beth Phillips described it as the largest false tax claims case ever prosecuted in Missouri. “Kansas City was the hub of a nationwide conspiracy that attempted to receive nearly $100 million in fraudulent tax refunds,” Phillips said.

Obama’s Buffett Rule: Keep Your Eye on Capital Gains [TaxVox]
President Obama didn’t quite get around to saying so when he rolled out his latest deficit reduction plan on Monday, but his Buffett Rule—that no one making more than $1 million should pay a lower tax rate than those in the middle-class—is mostly about investment income.