Obama Moves Jobs Speech After Skirmish With Boehner [NYT]
In a surreal volley of letters, each released to the news media as soon as it was sent, Mr. Boehner rejected a request from the president to address a joint session of Congress next Wednesday at 8 p.m. — the same night that a Republican presidential debate is scheduled. In an extraordinary turn, the House speaker fired back his own letter to the president saying, in a word, no. Might the president be able to reschedule for the following night, Sept. 8? For several hours, the day turned into a very public game of chicken. By late Wednesday night, though, the White House issued a statement say Obama “is focused on the urgent need to create jobs and grow our economy,” he “welcomes the opportunity to address a joint session of Congress on Thursday, Sept. 8.”

More Accounting Transparency May Distort Markets [Bloomberg]
In the post-crisis regulatory environment, companies are under pressure to disclose more. The Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board have been trying to improve both U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and the International Financial Reporting Standards, and make the two sets of accounting rules fully compatible. The goal is to produce a single set of international conventions that achieve a high degree of reporting transparency. The benefits of more transparent reporting seem obvious: Companies with a high degree of disclosure would allow outsiders to exercise better market discipline, which, in turn, would improve resource allocation in the economy. However, the view that greater transparency enhances market discipline and therefore economic efficiency holds true only in a “Robinson Crusoe” economy, that is to say one in which a single decision maker is learning about a company whose decisions are taken as given and whose future cash flows or economic fundamentals are therefore fixed.

Natural Disasters and Your Taxes [Smart Money]
Apparently there’s a bit of flooding going on.

AICPA Asks IRS to Extend Tax Deadline after Hurricane [AT]
“Many of our members are currently actively engaged in preparation of corporate, pass-through entity and trust tax returns with extended filing deadlines of September 15, 2011,” wrote AICPA Tax Executive Committee chair Patricia Thompson in a letter Tuesday to IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman. “The provision of these services has been drastically affected by the aftermath of Hurricane Irene. We are hearing reports of members who have limited Internet connectivity and power outages, both at their offices and at their personal residences. Our members have experienced massive transportation disruptions and flooding of their residences and offices. Also we have heard from members who are having difficulty communicating with their taxpayer clients who are located in the affected areas, including difficulty obtaining information necessary to prepare the return.”

U.S. Self-Employed Struggle to See Opportunities [Bloomberg]
More than 1 million self-employed Americans are no longer in business almost four years after the last recession began, as the economy constrains entrepreneurial activity and small-business job creation. The 18-month contraction that started in December 2007 initially resulted in more would-be business owners, as the number of people who work for themselves grew to 16.3 million in July 2008 from 15.7 million at the end of 2007, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Since then, the total has fallen about 10 percent to 14.7 million in July, the data show.

Parmalat Judge in U.S. Reaffirms Ruling to Dismiss Grant Thornton Cases [Bloomberg]
A U.S. judge reaffirmed his ruling to take jurisdiction over two suits by Parmalat SpA (PLT) against accounting firm Grant Thornton LLP, which he later dismissed. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan today ruled that he was correct in taking the two cases, which were originally filed by Parmalat and its Parmalat Capital Finance Ltd. unit in Illinois state court in 2004 and 2005. Kaplan dismissed the suits in 2009.

Some companies pay their CEOs more than Uncle Sam, study says [WaPo]
It has become a bipartisan article of faith in some quarters that the income tax on U.S. corporations must be lowered. But for many large U.S. companies, the burden of U.S. taxation pales in comparison with what they pay their chief executives, according to a study released Wednesday by the Institute of Policy Studies, a liberal think tank. Of last year’s 100 highest-paid corporate executives in the United States, 25 earned more in pay than their company recorded as a tax expense in 2010.

[Bloomberg]
Memo to Grover Norquist.

GOP Tax Expert to Lead Deficit-Committee Staff [WSJ]
The panel’s co-chairmen chose as their staff director Mark Prater, a senior aide and chief tax counsel to Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee. “Mark has a well-earned reputation for being a workhorse who members of both parties have relied on,” said the committee’s co-chairmen, Sen. Patty Murray (D., Wash) and Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R., Texas).

SEC Lawyer Blew Whistle Before [WSJ]
Darcy Flynn, who started in the SEC’s enforcement division in 1995, earned the large payout after reporting alleged Medicare fraud in 1993 as an insurance-claims auditor in Michigan, according to public records and people familiar with the case. Nearly two decades later, Mr. Flynn is again accusing his employer of misbehavior. This time, Mr. Flynn is targeting the Wall Street regulator, which hired him to ferret out wrongdoing. He was initially asked to probe accounting scams, insider trading and other financial frauds. Since early 2010, Mr. Flynn has been supervising record-keeping related to enforcement cases that have been closed.

Auditors under fire over Greek debt [FT]
Auditors and regulators have come under fire for allowing European financial institutions to take wildly divergent approaches to Greek government bond writedowns. The criticism comes amid claims that some banks and insurers should have reported bigger Greek losses than they had acknowledged in recent first-half results announcements. “Auditors have not enforced a consistent approach among their clients,” said analysts at JPMorgan Cazenove in a report drawing attention to the way that some significant financial institutions had written down Greek sovereign debt holdings by half, while others had cut their value by only a fifth.

SEC recovers bonus from ex-Beazer CFO [Reuters]
The former finance chief of Beazer Homes USA (BZH.N) has agreed to reimburse the company for over $1.4 million that he earned in bonus payments and stock sale profits when the Atlanta-based homebuilder was committing accounting fraud, the SEC announced on Tuesday. The Securities and Exchange Commission said James O’Leary had not been charged with misconduct, but was still required under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to pay back the money he received while the fraud was going on.

Ex-Rite Aid exec Franklin Brown freed after resentencing on accounting scandal charges [PN]
Brown, 83, of Susquehanna Twp., had served 71 months of a 7 1/2-year prison term that Rambo imposed last September, but that was overturned by a federal appeals court in May. In 2003, a federal jury convicted Brown of multiple conspiracy and other charges for an accounting fraud that prosecutors said cost East Pennsboro Township-based Rite Aid more than $18 million.

Bellevue accountant stole nearly $1 mil. from elderly couple, police claim [SPI]
A Bellevue accountant swindled an elderly couple – his clients of more than 15 years – out of nearly $1 million through a fake investment, King County prosecutors claim. Filing securities fraud and felony theft charges, prosecutors contend Shawn Eric Stoller bilked a 90-year-old man and an 88-year-old woman to pay off his own house and motor home.