LATE NIGHT

via Between the Hedges
Bloomberg:
- The Federal Reserve asked a judge to delay enforcement of her decision requiring the central bank to identify companies in its emergency lending programs. Chief U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska in Manhattan said on Aug. 24 that the Fed had until Aug. 31 to disclose daily reports on borrowing by banks and other financial institutions. The central bank wants Preska to stay her order, made in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, until the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York can act on an appeal that the Fed said it intends to file. The Fed and U.S. banks would suffer irreparable harm if details of the loan programs were made public, according to the central bank’s senior counsel, Yvonne Mizusawa. The Fed has refused to name the financial firms it lent to or disclose the amounts or the assets put up as collateral under 11 programs, saying that doing so might set off a run by depositors and unsettle shareholders. Bloomberg LP, the New York-based company that’s majority- owned by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, sued on Nov. 7 on behalf of its Bloomberg News unit. Bloomberg News opposes the Fed’s request for a stay.

- A federal court rejected an attempt by two Ohio residents to use the so-called TurboTax defense that Timothy Geithner relied on to help win Senate confirmation as U.S. Treasury Secretary. The U.S. Tax Court in Washington rejected an appeal of accuracy-based penalties assessed by the Internal Revenue Service on Kenneth and Linda Hopson, who claimed they relied on tax-return preparation software that failed to detect income they had omitted from their 2006 federal tax returns. “Petitioners were not permitted to bury their heads in the sand and ignore their obligation to ensure that their tax return accurately reflected their income,” the court said in an opinion issued yesterday. “In the end, reliance on tax return preparation software does not excuse petitioners’ failure to review their 2006 tax return.” Geithner, who now oversees the IRS, testified during his confirmation hearing in January that he prepared his own returns when he worked at the International Monetary Fund in 2001 and 2002, using TurboTax, an Intuit Inc. product. He said his failure to pay taxes owed on some income during those years was not flagged by the software.

*the fed can give away my money but not tell me who, what or where it's going. And Geithner and Bernanke can help create the worst financial crisis in history yet just go on as if nothing ever happened while suffering sinking stinking americans can't get a credit card company to lower their interest. What's the world coming to. -Tradebum