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The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) said it can't provide emails sent between 2009 and 2011 that were requested by congressional investigators because of hard drive crashes. The agency said that emails stored on dead drives were lost forever because its email backup tapes were recycled every six months, and employees were responsible for keeping their own long-term archives. The IRS had a contract with email backup service vendor Sonasoft starting in 2005, according to FedSpending.org, which lists the contract as being for "automatic data processing services." Sonasoft's motto is "email archiving done right," and the company lists the IRS as...

In an exclusive Human Events interview, the senior Republican on the Senate’s Agriculture Committee's Jobs, Rural Economic Growth and Energy Innovation subcommittee discusses his take on the MF Global bankruptcy scandal. “I have heard from several South Dakotans who were affected by the apparent fraud that occurred in the final days of MF Global before its collapse,” said Sen. John R. Thune (R-S.D.), who worked in the Small Business Administration​ under President Ronald W. Reagan. [Video of Thune's December 13 questioning Corzine is at the bottom of the article.] The firm’s Halloween bankruptcy was followed by the November 4 resignation...

Economic Reform: Newt Gingrich may have, to the glee of the left, been written off by everybody who's anybody on the right. But he's put forth one of the most laudable economic plans in memory. The Wall Street Journal's editorial page says the former House speaker has a big mouth and timid policy instincts, and that his best move right now would be to shut down his presidential campaign and donate the cash he's raised to House Republicans. Indeed, no one can understand why Gingrich stuck his foot in his mouth and Paul Ryan's hindquarters at the same time, unfairly...

Silicon Valley is teeming with budding startups whose user bases and valuations are skyrocketing. As these companies seek breathing room to grow, they will face a tough decision: stay private, seek out a buyer or go public. Making this complex choice all the more challenging is government uncertainty. Filing for an initial public offering is harder than ever due to the onerous regulations and burdensome laws Washington has handed down over the past decade. Microsoft's $8.5 billion purchase of Skype surprised analysts, many of whom had predicted Skype would seek an IPO or a deal with Facebook or Google. Meanwhile,...

Big changes are in store for the banking system should Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac be revamped or eliminated—both of which are being discussed by housing experts and government officials to deal with the distressed real estate market. As the system works now with the two entities, Fannie and Freddie , banks write the mortgages, but they rarely hold them. The mortgages are sold off into pools, known as mortgage-backed securities (MBS). Fannie and Freddie guarantee the mortgage payments, so that the MBS buyer, be it the Chinese government or an American pension plan, has the security of the US...

Examiner says legal claims possible against CEO Fuld, J.P. Morgan, Citi, others LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) -- Bankrupt financial giant Lehman Bros.' former top officers, its auditor and several rival brokers could face legal claims, a court-appointed examiner said in a report released Thursday.In a 2,200-page report, examiner Anton Valukas said that while Lehman's directors at the time of the collapse weren't necessarily responsible, some of its top executive management might be held liable, according to reports of the findings. Lehman is currently undergoing court-supervised liquidation to pay off creditors. Valukas mentioned ex-Chief Executive Dick Fuld and chief financial officers Chris...

There was a newsflash this morning on Reuters that "Mark to Market is NOT going to be suspended", allegedly sourced from someone at the SEC. MTM was put into place after ENRON due to the amazing abuses on their balance sheet with asset "valuations" in an attempt to prevent re-runs of that debacle. It has been circumvented to a large part by "Level 3" assets, which are in fact marked to model (same thing as non-MTM eh?) So why the furor? Let's say you are a bank and have $1 billion of some bond issue that was stuffed to the...

Show Me the Money : Repealing Sarbanes-Oxley would really stimulate economy By Tom Patterson, In the race to get credit for averting the recession, last month President Bush announced his economic stimulus plan to give $100 billion in cash rebates to individuals, plus a temporary cut for business investment taxes. The "rebates" aren't really rebates, since many taxpayers aren't getting one while non-taxpayers are. And economists broadly agree that the stimulus plan isn't going to be much of a stimulus. The truth is that economic growth doesn't result from money being moved around, it comes from enhanced productivity and wealth...

Having dug itself into a hole with inept handling of the MoveOn.org ad and its aftermath, the New York Times Company may soon find itself unable to put down its shovel. Few ironies approach the richness of the mess the firm may face with the regulatory requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (Sarbox). The Times has been among the strongest public advocates of Sarbox and has criticized attempts to reform its costly demands. Sarbox was rushed through Congress in 2002 following the Enron and WorldCom scandals. Since then even Nancy Pelosi and Charles Schumer have voiced concerns about its heavy burden...

The gilded world of Wall Street may lose up to 60,000 jobs in just five years unless cumbersome government regulations are dumped and replaced by looser European-style ones, according to a sweeping new study. Mayor Bloomberg and Sen. Chuck Schumer were set today to unveil the bleak report, which warns that the city could lose as much as $25 billion in cash flows that Wall Street now generate unless their blueprint for revising securities regulations is heeded. Among the changes proposed: Setting up a new congressional panel to oversee financial services; cutting Homeland Security red tape to make it easier...

It’s Location, Location, Location in the Sarbox Aftermath The clear winner here is not America. By Mallory Factor ------------------------------------------- America used to boast the most hospitable business climate in the world. Recently, though, U.S. businesses have lost their edge, giving a slight advantage to foreign financial hubs. On July 11, the London Stock Exchange (LSE) affirmed that it drew 50 international initial public offerings (IPOs) from 15 different countries in the first half of 2006. Compare that to the combined 15 international IPOs offered on the Nasdaq and New York Stock Exhange in the similar period. At the root of...

According to critics, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act has caused a litany of ills: Executives are retiring early, public companies are going private, foreign firms are listing abroad and U.S. firms are losing their competitive edge. The sweeping law, written in the wake of the Enron scandal, has served as a scapegoat for all the evils facing corporate America since it was passed in 2002.

Internal Audit's Sarbox Role Institute spells out the tasks internal auditors should perform in a corporation's compliance with Sections 404 and 302 of the act. Stephen Taub, CFO.com August 06, 2004 The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) has trotted out a position paper recommending the role internal auditors should play in a corporation's compliance with Sections 302 and 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. While Sarbox spells out the roles of management, audit committees, and external auditors, it's silent on the parts internal auditors must play, the trade group stresses. The 13-page paper, available on the IIA's Web site, suggests that...