AllianceBernstein’s CFO Howard to Leave After Less Than a Year [BBW]
AllianceBerstein Holding LP, a New York-based asset-management firm, said Chief Financial Officer John Howard will leave the company in February after less than a year on the job. Howard will return to his former employer, Greenwich, Connecticut-based AQR Capital Management, in his previous role as chief operating officer, AllianceBernstein said today in a statement. AQR runs one of the world’s biggest hedge funds.

BlackBerry Playbook: awesome fail [AccMan]
Once again, Dennis Howlett fails to show any restraint. We’re so thankful for that.

Bankers’ bumper bonuses are the ‘mistake’ of flawed accounting rules [Telegraph]
The House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee, which is investigating the role of auditors in the financial crisis, was told that the controversial International Financial Accounting Standards (IFRS) had allowed banks to hide risks so that profits and bonuses were inflated. The devastating assessment of the accounting rules was articulated for the first time by some of Britain’s biggest institutional investors. Iain Richards, of Aviva Investors, told the Lords that the IFRS system of auditing the banks had had “a material cost to the taxpayer and to shareholders” because “as a result dividend distributions have been made and bonuses have been paid that were imprudent.”

Acela Bob, Meet Acela Jim: Kelley Drye Managing Partner Conducts Confidential Conversation on Packed Train [ATL]
FYI for the loud talkers.

Tsingtao hopes to ditch foreign auditors [FT]
So a brewing company is going to fire its Hong Kong (i.e. foreign auditors) in exchange for a mainland (i.e. pinkos) auditor.

Audits Add Shine to Firms [WSJ]
When do audits really have value? When they’re done for small businesses, “Based on data from more than 10,000 closely held companies—about half of which have less than 500 employees—a study by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business found audited businesses save an average of $6,900 for every $1 million in outstanding debt every year as a result of lower interest rates, which were more than half a percentage point below rates paid by nonaudited businesses. For a loan of $3.3 million, the average size of loans analyzed in the study, the savings was about $23,000.”

PwC Announces Top Ten Questions for Audit Committees Credit Quality Disclosures, Loss Contingencies, Whistleblower Bounty Program and Tax Reform Top List [PR Newswire]
Jesus, that’s a mouthful. And we love rambling headlines.

BDO expands into Kosovo [Accountancy Age]
Your dream international rotation is now a reality.

IRS Oversight Board Releases Latest Taxpayer Attitude Survey Results [JofA]
87% say it’s not acceptable AT ALL to cheat on your taxes, which is a 6% increase from 2003. When you consider the tax policy positions of who was president then and who is president now, it doesn’t make a damn bit of sense.

US Supreme Court Upholds IRS Tax On Medical Residents [Dow Jones]
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld an Internal Revenue Service requirement that medical residents pay Social Security taxes. The ruling would appear to settle a long fight between the IRS and teaching hospitals including Mayo Clinic, and deprives the hospitals of millions they had hoped not to have to pay the government in the future.

Analysis: Goldman’s accounting still hazy, investors say [Reuters]
Goldman Sachs Group Inc is partially pulling back the curtain on a balance sheet some have criticized as opaque, but the change is unlikely to provide all the answers some investors want. On Tuesday, the investment bank — after a review initiated by Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein at the company’s 2010 annual meeting — released a 63-page report with 39 recommendations from its business committee for improving transparency for investors.

Demand Media Gives Price Range for I.P.O. [DealBook]
Much to the chagrin of some, Demand appears to be moving towards an offering, “Demand Media, the controversial online content publisher, disclosed on Wednesday that it hopes to raise a maximum of $138 million in its planned initial public offering. In an amended prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Demand’s set the price range for its I.P.O. at $14 to $16 per share.”

Will Obama Call for Tax Reform in the State of the Union? [TaxVox]
If you don’t hear a peep from the President on this issue in the next couple weeks, writes Howard Gleckman, you can forget anything meaningful happening before 2013.

Accounting networks could take on the Big Four [Accountancy Age]
Guy Jubb, head of corporate governance at Standard Life, told a Lords inquiry into the audit market that eight was a “comfortable number” of competition from which clients should be able to choose an auditor from. Other major accounting networks, which are effectively loose associations of firms across the globe, could be organised to take on the Big Four in running the audits of the biggest companies.

Would You Be the Axe-Man? Sign or Decline [FINS]
Would you fire subordinate to get your dream job? That is, would you sit across from them and give them the Trump treatment yourself?

MetLife Seeks Treasurer After Moving Steven Goulart to Investment Position [Bloomberg]
Get your résumé in now.