Tag: POTUS

Some People Aren’t Convinced Nancy Pelosi Wants to Compromise on Tax Cuts

President Obama is darn sure that a deal will get made on the expiring tax cuts before the end of the year despite the ‘logjam’ between the two political parties.

He’s confident because hard-working families need it, the economy is fragile yada yada yada and now that Tim Geithner and OMB Director Jack Lew are on the case, this thing is a shoe-in.

While the next Speaker of the House, John Boehner, is not quite on the same page as the President, he’s pretty much in the same chapter:

“Republicans made the point that stopping all the looming tax hikes and cutting spending would, in fact, create jobs and get the economy moving again,” said Representative John Boehner, who will become Speaker of the House next year.

“We’re looking forward to the conversation with the White House over extending all of the current rates, and I remain optimistic,” he said.

Well, as close as to the two will likely get in public anyway. However, this a slightly more optimistic stance than what some people have for Nancy Pelosi, who would, presumably, rather give up her Armani suits than hand the wealthy a tax cut:

“There is some thought that the last thing that Nancy Pelosi wants to do on her way out of the Speaker’s office is to have Congress approve an extension for tax cuts for the wealthy,” said Brian Gardner, an analyst for investors at Keefe, Bruyette and Woods.

“She could muck things up a little bit.”

Well! This should be fun! Stay tuned.

Obama and Republicans agree to negotiate on taxes [Reuters]

Memo to Washington: Please Consider Tax Reform

“Instead of reprising their partisan, tiresome, and largely unproductive argument about what to do with the Bush tax cuts, President Obama and Congress ought to be asking a very different question: How do we build a tax system capable of generating the revenues we need to fund the government we want in the most efficient and fair way possible?”

~ Howard Gleckman

(UPDATE) The PCAOB’s Statement on the Signing of The Dodd-Frank Act Isn’t Exactly Enthusiastic

~ Includes statement from PCAOB spokesperson

Hey! Did you hear? Dodd-Frank got signed into law yesterday and plenty of people are excited (namely Dodd, Frank, BO) and there are plenty who are not.

The PCAOB, it seems, lands somewhere in the middle. Sure the dopes exempted public companies with market caps under $75 million from complying with 404 but putting things in perspective, the Board is probably just amped that the SCOTUS didn’t kick them off the playground.


To show their gratitude, the PCAOB doesn’t bother mentioning the exemption in their press release from yesterday, instead focusing on…foreign auditor oversight (pretty much a black hole) and authority over auditors of broker-dealers. We understand that playing nice is part of the game but COME ON.

We emailed the nice folks over at the Board to ask them about the 404 exemption but we’re still waiting to hear back from them. Perhaps they’re putting on their smiley faces to address this one since they’ve probably been gritting their teeth for the last 20 or so hours.

A PCAOB spokesperson provided us with the following statement:

The PCAOB believes that the internal control audit report required under SOX Section 404(b) has improved the reliability of financial reporting and audit quality. The Board has taken steps to make sure that the internal control auditing standard is scalable to companies of all sizes and has issued guidance and held educational forums to assist smaller company auditors in understanding how to apply that standard to smaller companies. The internal control audit requirement relates to the content of SEC filings, and SEC Chairman Schapiro opposed the exemption for non-accelerated filers.

So, in other words, the compliance technically falls under the SEC and the PCAOB issues the audit standards but it still has to hit a little close to home.

BPR:

PCAOB STATEMENT UPON SIGNING OF THE DODD-FRANK WALL STREET REFORM AND CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT
Washington, D.C. , July 21, 2010

Today’s enactment of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act facilitates the PCAOB’s ability to share information with foreign auditor oversight authorities and closes gaps in the Board’s authority to oversee audits of brokers and dealers.

While the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 protects the PCAOB’s inspection and investigative processes from public disclosure, it permits the Board, in certain circumstances, to share information with federal and state authorities. However, at the time the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was enacted, very few other countries had audit oversight bodies and, therefore, there was no provision in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act authorizing the PCAOB to share information with foreign authorities. Since that time, many countries have established or are in the process of establishing audit oversight bodies. The Dodd-Frank Act allows the Board, under certain circumstances, to share information with such foreign auditor oversight authorities.

The Dodd-Frank Act also expands the PCAOB’s authority to oversee auditors of brokers and dealers. Under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, auditors of brokers and dealers were required to register with the Board. The Dodd-Frank Act provides the PCAOB with standard-setting, inspection and disciplinary authority regarding broker-dealer audits.

More information about the PCAOB’s plans to implement this authority and guidance for auditors of brokers and dealers will be forthcoming.

Tax Return of the Day | 04.15.10

On a day like today, words alone will simply not suffice. Things like “Thank God it’s over,” “I am getting cop-slugging drunk,” or “If I get asked to prepare one more extension I’m going to have a panic attack” are expected. Instead we’ll present you with the following clip of a certain taxpayer’s haul in 2009:

[Source]

New Obama Proposal Would Invest $30 Billion TARP Funds in Small Banks

One can only postulate that since there was no room in President Obama’s bloated 2010 budget for small business initiatives, he instead chose to apply some TARP money that’s just lying around to get small business working again. I wish Mr President the best of luck on that plan as he’ll be needing it.

WSJ:

President Barack Obama proposed a $30 billion small business lending program Tuesday, the latest in a series of administration efforts to jump-start hiring by the nation’s small businesses.

The program, which Mr. Obama detailed at an appearance in Nashua, N.H., would invest $30 billion from the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program in community banks to encourage them to lend to small businesses. If approved by Congress, the program would incentivize small and midsize banks to provide loans valued at several times that figure.


Didn’t we invest $700 billion in the Too Big to Fail banks for this same purpose? Not that it matters, we’ll try it again with the hopes that community banks will be able to accomplish what TBTF couldn’t.

A proactive sort of administration, White House officials were already prepared to counter the argument that TARP was never intended as a general piggy bank for funding the administration’s whims:

“The law is very clear: The monies recouped from the TARP shall be paid into the general fund of the Treasury for the reduction of the public debt. It’s not for a piggy bank,” [Sen. Judd] Gregg said.

[White House Budget Director Peter] Orszag said new legislation would be required to create the new small-business plan. He said the cost of the plan would depend on the subsidy rate of new activity and wouldn’t amount to a net cost, in terms of the deficit, of $30 billion.

Considering that he’s referring to a deficit of $3.8 trillion, I guess $30 billion isn’t really anything to get stressed out about after all.

Meanwhile, can community banks counter the continued deterioration of commercial real estate weighing on their balance sheets? I guess we’ll have to wait it out and see.