An SUV reported stolen late Monday afternoon in Montgomery County was recovered about 3-hours later, in Nebraska. The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office was notified at around 7:33-p.m. by officials with the Nebraska State Patrol, that authorities in Nebraska has located a 2003 Ford Escape that had been reported stolen in Iowa at around 4:30-p.m., Monday.

The SUV was found on Highway 75 in Douglas County, NE., and the owner (Richard McAlpin), was informed of its locating. An investigation into the incident was on-going.

The Ankeny-based Casey’s convenience store chain announced Monday an inadvertent accounting error that caused them to miss paying more than 31-million dollars in tax during a 31-month period.
Casey’s chief financial officer, Bill Walljasper, talked about the issue during a conference call with reporters.”The error pertained to excise taxes owed since January 1st of 2012 on ethanol the company purchased separately, and then blended with gasoline. Commonly known as splash blending,” Walljasper explained. He says a tax credit for splash blending expired and was not updated in the company’s accounting process.

“This credit of 45 cents per gallon of ethanol more than offset the excise tax of 18-point-four cents per gallon,” Walljasper says. “Casey’s was correctly accounting for the excise tax on form 720, and the credit up to the point in time when the blending credit expired on December 31st, 2011.” Walljasper says the company immediately reported the failure to pay the proper taxes once it was discovered.

“The aggregate impact of the unrecorded excise taxes from period of January 1st of 2012 through July 31st of 2014 — including accrued interest — is approximately 31-point-five million. During over that period, the impact on Casey’s fully diluted share is approximately four-and-a-half cents in each of the affected quarters,” Walljasper says.

Casey’s has paid the I-R-S paid 30-point-four-million dollars in taxes due, along with one-point-one million dollars in interest to resolve the issue. Casey’s Chairman and C-E-O Robert Myers, says the company is modifying its information technology system to be sure something like this does not happen again. “The company does not believe that there has been a default of the note promise agreements relating to our outstanding senior notes. Additionally, our long-term growth plans remain intact,” Myers says. “Moreover, this does not impact our financial goals. As such, we remain committed to achieving our 2015 goals, including the margin on our fuel gallons sold.”

The fiscal year goals for Casey’s include increasing same-store fuel gallons sold by one percent with an average margin of 15point-three cents per gallon; increasing same-store grocery & other merchandise sales by five-point-three percent, with an average margin of 32-point-one percent; increasing same-store prepared food & fountain sales nine-point-five percent with an average margin of 60-percent, and building or acquiring 72 to 108 stores and replacing 25 existing locations.

“We want to emphasize that Casey’s business remains fundamentally strong as evidenced by our October same store sales numbers,” according to Myers. Casey’s operates roughly 18-hundred stores, with three of them here in Atlantic.

(Radio Iowa)

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has resigned after serving as the Pentagon chief since early 2013 when he succeeded Leon Panetta. Hagel is a former Republican U-S Senator from Nebraska. Iowa Republican Congressman, Steve King, says Hagel and the president appear to have been at odds over handling military policy in the middle east. “Chuck Hagel might have spoken out a little too boldly about what we needed to do beef up our forces against ISIS. And it doesn’t fit very well with the president’s no boots on the ground promise,”King says. “And it doesn’t fit so well with the deconstruction of the U-S military, the weakening of the military that the president has pushed so hard for.”

King says it looks like there is a significant disagreement at the root of Hagel’s resignation. Hagel was the third person to serve as President Obama’s defense secretary following Robert Gates and Panetta. King says there has been a pattern of politics in defense briefings since President Obama took office, going back to some staffers who were holdovers from the Bush administration.

“They would be sitting there briefing us and it changed dramatically one president to the next. Same faces of the briefers, it became political responses instead of tactical and factual classified briefing. And that is very troubling if you are going to push your military into a political operation,” according to King. Hagel has agreed to remain in office until his successor is confirmed by the Senate. King made his comments during an appearance on K-S-C-J radio in Sioux City.

(Radio Iowa)

Officials with the Iowa Dept. of Natural Resources say the Smithfield Farmland plant in Denison reported a small spill Monday, at around 1:15-p.m. About 50 gallons of process wastewater from the plan flowed into a storm drain, which empties into the Boyer River after a small fire in the electrical room at 11
a.m. Plant operators shut down the power and pumps to prevent further potential damage.

The power outage caused the spillage of untreated wastewater. The DNR says it will follow up with the facility.