BUSINESS BRIEFS
GM pulls out of long sales slump
Advertiser News Services
CHICAGO — General Motors Corp. snapped out of a six-month sales funk in August, posting its first increase since January.
But it also announced a 12 percent production cut for the fourth quarter. All this while Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. again stole the show, as its sales soared 17 percent, to 240,178, its best August and fourth straight month of double-digit increases.
Toyota rode brisk sales of its Scion models, Prius hybrid and redesigned RAV4, but also got strong performances from older models such as Corolla and the Tundra pickup.
SILICON VALLEY LOSES ITS LUSTER
SAN FRANCISCO — Silicon Valley ranks last in an annual ranking of 12 U.S. technology hubs because of the region's notoriously high housing costs, traffic congestion, unemployment rate and other quality-of-life problems.
According to a survey by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, the nation's top-ranked tech hub is North Carolina's Raleigh-Durham area, which enjoys relatively affordable housing and a thriving job market. The region also wins points for local kids' performance on eighth-grade math tests, as well as comparatively low sales taxes and affordable utility bills.
The No. 2 city is Seattle, home to thousands of well-paid technology professionals who work at Microsoft Corp., in suburban Redmond, Wash. No. 3 was the greater Denver area.
GATEWAY REJECTS UNSOLICITED BID
IRVINE, Calif. — Gateway Inc., the third-largest personal computer company in the United States, said yesterday it rejected an unsolicited $450 million bid for its retail business from eMachines Inc. founder Lap Shun Hui.
Gateway said the Aug. 23 offer for the retail operations is not in the best interest of its shareholders."Gateway's board of directors and management team remain committed to taking the appropriate steps to enhance shareholder value," the company said in a brief statement.
IRS IMPROPERLY REFUNDED $318 MILLION
WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service gave away $318 million in improper refunds this year because a computer program that screens tax returns for fraud wasn't working, according to a report released yesterday.
The estimate by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration is slightly higher than the IRS's own calculation. The tax agency thought it had paid out $200 million to $300 million in improper refunds.
The inspector general plans a future study to look more closely at the amount of money the government lost, along with IRS procedures for detecting fraudulent refunds. In this study, the inspectors found the IRS spent more than $20 million on the failed computer project, which should have delivered a new version of the fraud-detection program early this year.
