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Non-Tech : Auric Goldfinger's Short List -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: StockDung who wrote (11413)	3/25/2003 4:36:37 PM
From: afrayem onigwecher	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 19428

Boots & Coots nets Iraq oil fires contract HOUSTON, March 25 (Reuters) - Boots & Coots International Well Control Inc. <WEL.A> said on Tuesday it has been hired to fight oil well fires in Iraq and supply well control services. The subcontract comes from Halliburton Inc.'s <HAL.N> engineering and construction subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root, also known as KBR. That unit said Monday it was awarded a U.S. government contract to assess and extinguish oil well fires in Iraq. KBR, which developed a contingency plan to battle oil fires at the request of the U.S. Department of Defense, also hired Superior Energy Service Inc.'s <SPN.N> Wild Well Control Inc. to perform similar services, it said on Monday. Boots & Coots, which performed similar work on 240 burning wells in Kuwait after the last Persian Gulf War in 1991, did not say how much the contract would be worth. Houston-based Boots & Coots, which has been flirting with the possibility of bankruptcy, already had people assessing the well fires currently burning in southern Iraq. But they were pulled back after the sites were found to be not quite as secure as previously thought. The contract has helped pull the firm's stock higher. In trading on the American Stock Exchange on Tuesday, Boots & Coots was up 11 cents, or 10 percent at $1.20 a share. Superior Energy's shares also rose 22 cents, or 2.5 percent, to $9.02 on the New York Stock Exchange. Halliburton, formerly headed by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, has a long history of involvement in military logistical support for the U.S. government. The company is the second-largest oilfield services firm in the world. Its stock rose 78 cents, or 3.9 percent, to $20.88 on the NYSE. 03/25/03 13:06 ET

To: StockDung who wrote (11413)	5/15/2003 7:58:41 AM
From: RockyBalboa	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19428

Grassley Would Halt Tax Refunds From Overstated Earnings Wednesday May 14, 7:53 pm ET By Rob Wells, OF DOW JONES NEWSWIRES WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--The Senate's top tax writer wants to prevent companies that overstated their earnings from subsequently seeking tax refunds based on the inflated income. Senate Finance Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, proposed an amendment Wednesday to the $350 billion tax bill that would increase criminal penalties for what Grassley described as a form of tax fraud. ADVERTISEMENT The amendment will raise the criminal penalties for "tax fraud" to the amount of tax at issue in case of overpayment due to misreported earnings. The penalty isn't retroactive; it's based on a company's activity after enactment of the tax bill. "The con men pay a little tax to help hide their fraud, bump up their stock price and cash in with their stock options," Grassley said in a statement. "They have basically made the IRS an unwitting accomplice to their fraud." The Senate is scheduled to vote on the measure, along with numerous other amendments, during a lengthy session Thursday. Final passage of the bill is expected Thursday, said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that MCI and Enron Corp. are in the process of collecting or filing for tax refunds or credits from the Internal Revenue Service because of tax payments on billions of dollars they falsely claimed to have earned. Qwest Communications International Inc. (NYSE:Q - News) , which plans to restate $2.2 billion in revenue, also is likely to seek a refund, the newspaper reported. HealthSouth Corp. , accused of overstating its earnings by more than $2 billion, said it is considering a refund. In another development, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Don Nickles, R- Okla., unveiled a plan to expand the dividend tax cut in the Senate bill. Grassley's bill would exclude the first $500 in dividend income from taxes, and raise that exclusion by another 20% in 2007. Nickles said he'll propose an amendment that would allow stockholders to exclude from taxes 50% of dividends in 2003, and 100% of dividends from 2004 through 2006. The proposal would save investors about $143 billion - compared to the $81 billion stock dividend proposal currently in the plan. "What we're proposing will have a significant increase in the value of the stock market," Nickles said. "If this is not a positive thing (on the economy) after three years, then we will know it." To offset the cost of the plan, Nickles said he would follow the House's lead and cut short a tax break for small businesses. It would increase from $25,000 to $100,000 the amount of capital purchases a small business could expense, but only through 2007.