Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer, has hired Capitol Counsel, a firm that includes former Ways and Means chairman Jim McCrery, to monitor corporate tax issues. McCrery was also among the lobbyists hired by Renco Group, which hired a slew of lobbyists in its battle with the government of Peru. We reported on Renco here.

Deloitte Tax LLP, part of the audit, financial advisory, tax, consulting and lobbying firm Deloitte, has signed up a pair of international clients, the Investment Funds Institute of Canada and the Life Insurance Association of Japan, opposed to provisions in the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which requires individuals and some foreign institutions to disclose information about U.S. taxpayers with overseas accounts. Deloitte has a whole page on FATCA here.

The Affordable Footwear Act is back, and Sorini, Samet & Associates, which features a former USTR official, is lobbying for it on behalf of the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America. When the U.S. International Trade Commission scored the bill in 2010, it found that lowering duty on shoe imports–mostly from China–would cost the Treasury close to a billion dollars. 

The Ben Barnes Group, an Austin, Texas-based firm that boasts one of the biggest lobbyist bundlers in the United States, signed up two new clients. Pinnacle Financial Group hired the firm to lobby on overdraft protection fee regulations, while the Oneida Tribe of Wisconsin is seeking help with a land claim.

The Growing Jobs and Exports Coalition, whose offices are located in Suite 500, 701 8th St. NW in Washington, D.C., hired Williams & Jensen, whose offices are located in Suite 500, 701 8th St. NW in Washington, D.C., to lobby for it on "tax and trade issues relative to promoting exports by U.S. companies." Bradford, Pa.-based Zippo Manufacturing, maker of the iconic cigarette lighter, will be paying more than $5,000 of the lobbying fees, according to the disclosure form.