MILAN, Italy, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- The Milan stock exchange placed the stock of dairy conglomerate Parmalat on hold Monday as Italian police continued interrogating founder Calisto Tanzi.

Tanzi was taken into custody over the weekend, hours after the firm was declared officially insolvent.

The BBC reported he has yet to be charged in the company's allegedly fictitious $4.8 billion bank account, and his lawyer has insisted that no money was stolen.

"No money disappeared, (there were) just non-existent assets," said the lawyer, Michele Ributti.

Tanzi is among 20 people facing possible criminal charges over alleged fraud and misappropriation of funds, following the company's admission that a Cayman Islands bank account did not in fact exist.

Parmalat is being run by an Italian government-appointed rescue administrator, so it can continue operations and pay its suppliers.

Among them are Italian dairy farmers, to whom the firm owes some $149 million.

The company, which employs 36,000 people worldwide and is Italy's eighth largest company, will also now be able to put financial creditors on hold, while it draws up a recovery plan within six months.

IRS trying to speed business tax audits

WASHINGTON, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- The U.S. Internal Revenue Service has decided to speed business tax audits by simplifying them, the Washington Post reported Monday.

The change from fewer business tax audits that are more in-depth to audits that are less detailed represents a fundamental shift for the agency.

With corporate tax receipts at record lows, IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson recently declared that corporate audits, which now take an average of 38 months, should be completed in less than half that time.

Everson believes that by hastening the audits, the IRS will collect more taxes because more companies will fear that audits are coming.

He said dramatic change is necessary to overcome the agency's "scandalous" complacency in a worrisome deterioration in corporate attitudes toward paying taxes.

Corporate auditors are still finishing work on tax returns from 1997, or even earlier, he said. The IRS was not even a "player" in uncovering the corporate scandals that erupted in the late 1990s because "we were not even near the year these returns were filed, which is inexcusable," said Everson, who took control of the agency in May.

Hollywood's revenues fell in 2003

HOLLYWOOD, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- The U.S. movie industry will record its first decline in annual gross ticket revenue since 1991, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

In recent years, the industry has often counted on rising ticket prices to offset declining admissions.

But according to year-end estimates by box-office data firm Exhibitior Relations Co., domestic gross revenue for 2003 likely will decline, if only by less than 1 percent, to about $9.28 billion.

Because ticket prices rose about 4 percent in 2003, that means that domestic movie attendance actually fell about 4.23 percent, the fourth drop in the past decade.

The main reason for the fall was a glut of expensive films, many of them sequels, that failed to deliver the grand-slam returns Hollywood expected.

Even the occasional box office success, like "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" has not reversed Hollywood's misfortunes.

Many of the big disappointments were $100 million-plus productions that failed to become profitable.

China faces slowed economy in 2004

BEIJING, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- High unemployment rates and increasing pressure to revalue the yuan are likely to force an economic retrenchment in China in 2004, economists predicted Monday.

China Economic Times listed 10 reasons that China's economy, following a boom in 2003, may plunge next year.

An article by Tianyong Zhou of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Institute cited the 18 percent unemployment rate in small to middle-sized cities as the biggest threat to economic growth.

If China bends to pressure from the international community and revalues the yuan, he said, it will drive up export costs, reduce manufacturing, and cut jobs.

Exports, which comprise a major portion of the economy, could suffer as China faces higher tariffs from other countries trying to combat what they perceive as "dumping."

Zhou also cited a loss of confidence among foreign investors due to increased cross-Straits tensions, the possible revaluation of the yuan, and the revision of land use policies that will increase business costs.

All this will mean limited growth in income and buying power for the Chinese people in 2004.

Arizona town offered for sale on eBay

TORTILLA FLAT, Ariz., Dec. 28 (UPI) -- As of Sunday night, no bids were offered for the historic old west town of Tortilla Flat, Ariz., which was being auctioned off on eBay.

Tortilla Flat is in the Superstition Mountains and is the only settlement between Apache Junction and Roosevelt Dam, the Arizona Republic reported Sunday.

A $5.5 million starting bid is sought for the town, which includes a general store, restaurant, a historic ice cream parlor and a post office.

The buyer would also assume the remaining 17 years of a 20-year lease with the U.S. Forest Service, the Republic said.

The realtor handling the sale said the online auction has sparked numerous inquiries but no concrete bids.