Economy Adds 163,000 Jobs [WSJ]
U.S. payrolls increased by a seasonally adjusted 163,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said Friday, but the unemployment rate, obtained by a separate survey of U.S. households, ticked up one-tenth of a percent to 8.3%. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires expected a gain of 95,000 in payrolls and an 8.2% jobless rate.
Geithner meets Murray amid fears lawmaker might not to stop fiscal cliff [The Hill]
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner met with Sen. Patty Murray Thursday amid increased fears in Washington that Congress might decide not to act to prevent the nation from going over the so-called fiscal cliff. Murray, (Wash.), the Democratic co-chair of the 2011 deficit supercommittee, recently said that Democrats would allow all of the Bush tax rates to expire and then seek to renew lower rates for the middle class, unless Republicans agree to raise taxes on the nation’s highest income earners.
Facebook slide wipes billions off windfall [FT]
On paper, Facebook’s employees owned stock worth nearly $20bn at the time of the IPO, though most of those shares can only be sold when restrictions are lifted in November. Similar six-month limits also prevent employees at other recently floated internet companies from selling out early. As a result, California’s tax take from the Facebook IPO this year and next could be “hundreds of millions of dollars” less than the $1.5bn it had expected, the state’s Legislative Analysts’ Office warned this week. The outcome will depend on the company’s share price later this year.
Peoria's Schock proposes tax breaks for Olympic medalists [CT]
Congressman Aaron Shcok will see your pointless legislation, Marco Rubio.
FASB Floats Early Ideas on Private Company Accounting [CW]
The “invitation to comment” published by FASB maps out six critical issues that differentiate private companies from public companies, leading to the conclusion that accounting requirements for private companies should differ as a result. FASB says the type and number of users for financial statements are different for private companies than public companies, and they have more direct access to management to ask questions. Private companies have different investment strategies, and different ownership and capital structures. They have thinner resources than public companies to manage the accounting function, and as a result it takes them longer to get up to speed on new accounting pronouncements.
IRS leader's exit worries officials amid tax uncertainty [Reuters]
Doug Shulman, who became IRS commissioner in 2008 under President George W. Bush, has said he is not interested in another five-year term. His term ends in November. If he were to leave then, the IRS would likely have a temporary commissioner in charge just as Congress faces historic tax decisions following the November 6 general elections and as the agency readies for the upcoming 2013 tax filing season. The IRS faces "its most difficult filing season in decades next year," said Mark Everson, a former IRS commissioner, at a U.S. House of Representatives hearing. "The looming change in leadership at the agency does further compound the challenges," he told Reuters.