Wall Street Geniuses ... NOT!
The Implications for AP Escheatment
Posted by Rakesh Shukla on Tue, Sep 16, 2008 @ 04:15 PM
Lehman Brothers is bankrupt ... Merrill Lynch sold before going bankrupt ... AIG on life support ... Fannie and Freddie in federal conservatorship ... Washington Mutual and Wachovia and [fill in the blank] next?
The financial world has forever changed in the past few days. Historic, once-in-a-generation type of stuff. Just stunning that Lehman has disintegrated - a 158 year old firm which survived the Civil War, the railroad bankruptcies, the Panics, WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, the Cold War and more than a few stock market crashes.
And why? Because of greed. And excessive leverage ... reckless leverage, actually. All of Wall Street was making billions of dollars repackaging bad loans into "innovative" financial products using 30 times leverage (or even more!). At the time, it seemed like pure genius to spread the risk from a few to many. The geniuses were rewarded with billions in bonuses.
Sadly, for us citizens and taxpayers, the rich geniuses weren't so smart after all. They get to keep their bonuses and the average taxpayer has to foot the bill to clean up this mess. How grossly unfair.
Unfortunately, the day of reckoning for Wall Street's mortgage masterminds is here -- the massive unwind of leverage is going to be ugly. Just like you can't turn stone into gold, you can't loan TRILLIONS AND TRILLIONS of dollars to UNQUALIFIED home buyers and expect to eliminate the risks through exotic derivatives, CDOs, SIVs and MBS.
The losses so far have been staggering -- about $500 Billion in write downs. BUT (hold on to your hats here), the total losses could be as high as ... 2 trillion dollars! Yikes!!! As unbelievable as it seems, we may only be ΒΌ of the way through this mess ...
Now, here's an angle you may not have thought about: these ginormous losses are going to wipe out bank profits ... for years and years and years.
No profits = no tax revenues.
Bloomberg reports that:
"Wall Street's mortgage losses have grown so large that some firms may pay little or no taxes for years, widening New York City and state deficits and challenging their ability to provide services, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.
"It will be a number of years before Wall Street starts paying taxes again,'' the mayor said at a press conference yesterday in Manhattan. "They will carry forward all of those losses.''
And, it's not just New York. Other banking regions will also suffer from reduced tax revenues: California, Connecticut, Virginia, Illinois, Massachusetts and other states.
And it's not just tax shortfalls by banks but also individuals. For example, CNBC was reporting this morning that 10-12 thousand Lehman employees will be out of jobs resulting in $50-$100 million in additional lost income taxes.
What is the direct implication for Accounts Payable? In a word: escheatment.
The declining tax revenues will force States to aggressively collect unclaimed property such as uncashed checks. You should be aware that there is no statute of limitations for turning over unclaimed property -- if you get caught, the fines and penalties can be severe. Ideally, you should have an automated system that tracks all uncashed checks on a frequent basis (not just at the end of the year). Not filing or scrambling to file your State Unclaimed Property Forms would be unwise in this environment of severely declining tax revenues.
-Rakesh Shukla