Tax Plan Aims for 25% Cap [WSJ]
The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee wants to cut the top U.S. tax rate to 25% for individuals and corporations, and cut or eliminate many popular deductions. The odds of quick action appear slender. But the move, from Rep. Dave Camp (R., Mich.), is significant as a marker in what will likely be a multiyear debate over revamping the tax code. The plan also provides Republicans with a position to pitch in the 2012 election, a campaign that promises to focus heavily on the economy and jobs.

Moral for CEOs Is Choose Your Fraud Carefully [Jonathan Weil/Bloomberg]
Of all the stories to come out of the 2008 collapses of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, this one may be the most incredible: To this day, neither company has admitted that any of the numbers on its financial statements that year were wrong. It seems the Securities and Exchange Commission won’t be doing anything to challenge that pretense, either, and that this may be by design. The SEC for years has been bending over backward to avoid accusing major financial institutions of cooking their books, even when it’s obvious they did.

A Long, Painful Reckoning [WSJ]
The number of dead and missing after Japan’s twin earthquake and tsunami stood late Wednesday, officially, at 12,920. In reality, Japanese widely agree, the toll of last week’s disaster is likely much higher. In Miyagi, a coastal prefecture that bore some of the tsunami’s worst destruction, officials estimate the toll there alone will be in the tens of thousands.

The Ten Worst Things to Put on Your Resume [FINS]
Your experience as a lifeguard in high school won’t do much good.

Accountants gone bad… [AW]
The latest batch of bad apples.

Congress Deliberates on Taxes and Abortions [AT]
Stamping tax provisions into the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” doesn’t make a lot of sense.

How do tax forms get their names? [MSN]
Some trivial information to distract your clients when they’re about to fire you.

Economic hit from Japan quake seen up to $200 billion [Reuters]
Japan’s devastating earthquake and deepening nuclear crisis could result in losses of up to $200 billion for the world’s third largest economy but the global impact remains hard to gauge five days after a massive tsunami battered the northeast coast. As Japanese officials scrambled to avert a catastrophic meltdown at a nuclear plant 240 km (150 miles) north of the capital Tokyo, economists took stock of the damage to buildings, production and consumer activity.

Two Obsolete Models: Global Financial Reporting and Audit — And Pimping Spam Viagra With AOL’s Rogue E-Mail [Re:Balance]
[F]or the last twenty-five years, nothing but in-bred regulatory inertia and supine user acquiescence have propped up the standard auditor’s report on a financial reporting model that is no less obsolete than that of AOL.

US audit reform debate not as raucous as in UK? [Accountancy Age]
Francine McKenna looks at the U.K.’s attempts at reforming the audit biz versus the U.S.’s attempt to…well, never mind.

Morale at SEC Remains High Despite Obstacles [FINS]
Morale at the SEC is high despite a frozen budget and staunch Republican opposition to increasing funds, according to deputy director of enforcement Lorin Reisner. “Morale is high because we continue to bring important enforcement actions,” he said. “We have empowered our staff with greater responsibility, more tools and more streamlined decision-making.”

IRS pays Enron whistleblower $1.1 million [WaPo]
Before Enron was publicly exposed as a financial house of cards, a whistleblower tipped the Internal Revenue Service that the company was using abusive tax shelters to generate fictitious income, a law firm representing the informant said Tuesday. Now, more than a decade later, the IRS has paid that whistleblower a $1.1 million reward, the law firm said.

Top 50 Companies for Executive Women 2011 [AOL]
Accenture #2; KPMG #25.

In Lehman’s Demise, a Dwindling Chance of Charges [DealBook]
Can it be that the largest bankruptcy ever will simply pass into history with no one held accountable for the losses inflicted on investors and the market?

Afghan Contract for Deloitte Suspended [WSJ]
The U.S. government has suspended Deloitte Consulting LLP’s contract to advise Afghanistan’s central bank ahead of the release Wednesday of an investigation into the regulator’s failure to stem corruption at the country’s largest private lender. An investigation by the inspector general for the U.S. Agency for International Development, which issued the contract to Deloitte, is expected to be highly critical of the firm’s failure to flag corruption at Kabul Bank, saddled with losses estimated to be as high as $900 million.