tagged w/ Tax Cheats
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As Obama demands rich Americans pay more in taxes, the IRS reveals 36 White House staff are far behind in their own taxes. That's an average of $23,138 per staff member!
How embarrassing this must be for President Obama, whose major speech theme so far this campaign season has been that every single American, no matter how rich, should pay their "fair share" of taxes.
Because how unfair -- indeed, un-American -- it is for an office worker like, say, Warren Buffet's secretary to dutifully pay her taxes, while some well-to-do people with better educations and higher incomes end up paying a much smaller tax rate.
Or, worse, skipping their taxes altogether.
A new report just out from the Internal Revenue Service reveals that 36 of President Obama's executive office staff owe the country $833,970 in back taxes. These people working for Mr. Fair Share apparently haven't paid any share, let alone their fair share.
Previous reports have shown how well-paid Obama's White House staff is, with 457 aides pulling down more than $37 million last year. That's up seven workers and nearly $4 million from the Bush administration's last year.
Nearly one-third of Obama's aides make more than $100,000 with 21 being paid the top White House salary of $172,200, each.
The IRS' 2010 delinquent tax revelations come as part of a required annual agency report on federal employees' tax compliance. Turns out, an awful lot of folks being paid by taxpayers are not paying their own income taxes.
The report finds that thousands of federal employees owe the country more than $3.4 billion in back taxes. That's up 3% in the past year.
That scale of delinquency could annoy voters, hard-pressed by their own costs, fears and stubbornly high unemployment despite Joe Biden's many promises.
The tax offenders include employees of the U.S. Senate who help write the laws imposed on everyone else. They owe $2.1 million. Workers in the House of Representatives owe $8.5 million, Department of Education employees owe $4.3 million and over at Homeland Security, 4,697 workers owe about $37 million. Active duty military members owe more than $100 million.
The Treasury Department, where Obama nominee Tim Geithner had to pay up $42,000 in his own back taxes before being confirmed as secretary, has 1,181 other employees with delinquent taxes totaling $9.3 million.
As usual, the Postal Service, with more than 600,000 workers, has the most offenders (25,640), who also owe the most -- almost $270 million. Veterans Affairs has 11,659 workers owing the IRS $151 million while the Energy Department that was so quick to dish out more than $500 million to the Solyndra folks has 322 employees owing $5 million.
The country's chief law enforcement agency, the Department of Justice, has 2,069 employees who are nearly $17 million behind in taxes. Like Operation Fast and Furious, Attorney General Eric Holder has apparently missed them too.
As with ordinary people, the IRS attempts to negotiate back-tax payment plans with all delinquents, whose names cannot be released. But according to current federal law, the only federal employees who can be fired for not paying taxes are IRS workers.As Obama demands rich Americans pay more in taxes, the IRS reveals 36 White House... more
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This is from Reuters....Please somebody pass this on to Keith!
Special Report: A Little House of Secrets on the Great Plains
by Kelly Carr and Brian Grow
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
At a single address in this sleepy city of 60,000 people, more than 2,000 companies are registered. The building, 2710 Thomes Avenue, isn't a shimmering skyscraper filled with A-list corporations. It's a 1,700-square-foot brick house with a manicured lawn, a few blocks from the State Capitol.
Neighbors say they see little activity there besides regular mail deliveries and a woman who steps outside for smoke breaks. Inside, however, the walls of the main room are covered floor to ceiling with numbered mailboxes labeled as corporate "suites." A bulky copy machine sits in the kitchen. In the living room, a woman in a headset answers calls and sorts bushels of mail.
A Reuters investigation has found the house at 2710 Thomes Avenue serves as a little Cayman Island on the Great Plains. It is the headquarters for Wyoming Corporate Services, a business-incorporation specialist that establishes firms which can be used as "shell" companies, paper entities able to hide assets.
Wyoming Corporate Services will help clients create a company, and more: set up a bank account for it; add a lawyer as a corporate director to invoke attorney-client privilege; even appoint stand-in directors and officers as high as CEO. Among its offerings is a variety of shell known as a "shelf" company, which comes with years of regulatory filings behind it, lending a greater feeling of solidity.
CASTING THE FIRST STONE
All the activity at 2710 Thomes is part of a little-noticed industry in the U.S.: the mass production of paper businesses. Scores of mass incorporators like Wyoming Corporate Services have set up shop. The hotbeds of the industry are three states with a light regulatory touch-Delaware, Wyoming and Nevada.
Yet on U.S. soil, similar activity is perfectly legal. The incorporation industry, overseen by officials in the 50 states, has few rules. Convicted felons can operate firms which create companies, and buy them with no background checks.
No states license mass incorporators, and only a few require them to formally register with state authorities. None collect the names and addresses of "beneficial owners," the individuals with a controlling interest in corporations, according to a 2009 report by the National Association of Secretaries of State, a group for state officials overseeing incorporation. Wyoming and Nevada allow the real owners of corporations to hide behind "nominee" officers and directors with no direct role in the business, often executives of the mass incorporator.
"In the U.S., (business incorporation) is completely unregulated," says Jason Sharman, a professor at Griffith University in Nathan, Australia, who is preparing a study for the World Bank on corporate formation worldwide. "Somalia has slightly higher standards than Wyoming and Nevada."
An estimated 2 million corporations and limited liability companies are created each year in the U.S., according to Senate investigators. The Treasury Department has singled out LLCs as particularly vulnerable to being used as shell companies, as they can be owned by anyone and managed anonymously. Delaware, Nevada and Wyoming had 688,000 LLCs on file in 2009, up from 624,000 in 2007.
A growing niche in the shell business is shelf corporations. Like paper-only shells, which enable the secrecy-minded to hide real ownership of assets, shelf companies are set up by firms like Wyoming Corporate Services, then left "on the shelf" to season for years. They're then sold later to owners looking for a quick way to secure bank loans, bid on contracts, and project financial stability. To speed up business activity, shelf corporations can often be purchased with established bank accounts, credit histories and tax returns filed with the Internal Revenue Service.
THE UKRAINE CONNECTION
Gerald Pitts and his own incorporation firms have never been sued or sanctioned, according to federal and state court records. Wyoming officials said Wyoming Corporate Services operates legally. "If they do it by cubby holes and they are really representing each person, they meet the law," said O'Brien, the deputy secretary of state.
But clients of his have run into trouble.
Among those registered at the little house in Cheyenne are two small companies formed through Wyoming Corporate Services that sold knock-off truck parts to the U.S. Department of Defense, according to a Reuters review of two federal contracting databases and findings from an investigation by the Pentagon's Defense Logistics Agency. The owner of those firms, Atilla Kan, awaits sentencing on a 2007 conviction for wire fraud in a related matter.
Also linked to 2710 Thomes is former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, who was once ranked the eighth-most corrupt official in the world by watchdog group Transparency International. He is now serving an eight-year jail term in California for a 2004 conviction on money-laundering and extortion charges. According to court records, that scheme used shell companies and offshore bank accounts to hide stolen Ukrainian government funds.
Court records submitted in Lazarenko's criminal case and documents from a separate civil lawsuit, as well as interviews with lawyers familiar with the matter, indicate Lazarenko controls a shelf company incorporated in Cheyenne that owns an estimated $72 million in real estate in Ukraine through other companies.
The U.S. government continues to seek more than $250 million from bank accounts in Antigua, Barbuda, Guernsey and other countries that it says were controlled by Lazarenko and his associates, according to a forfeiture action filed by the Department of Justice.
The paper trail linking Lazarenko to the real estate in Ukraine is labyrinthine. At the heart of it is a shelf company called Capital Investments Group, registered at 2710 Thomes Avenue.
U.S. lawyers for a Ukrainian businessman named Gennady Korban submitted documents claiming that Lazarenko is the true owner of Capital Investments Group and other U.S. companies.
Lazarenko and Korban are rivals in Ukraine, and for years have traded allegations of corruption and assassination. An organization chart accompanying Korban's submission alleges Capital Investments Group owns 99.99 percent of a Ukrainian firm called OOO Capital Investments Group. That company, the chart claims, is the owner of another company, OOO Ukrainsky Tyutyun, where Pavlo Lazarenko is a director. Each of the firms and several others are used as corporate fronts to control properties in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, the filing alleges.
Seven properties are named in the 2009 filing by Korban, including 55 Pushkin Street and 58 Komsomolskaya Street. The dossier on Capital Investments Group claims that other directors of the alleged front companies include Lazarenko's wife, son and mother-in-law.This is from Reuters....Please somebody pass this on to Keith!
Special Report: A... more
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via: my friends at Ruckus and USuncut!
Flashmob action we did on Friday in San Francisco with US Uncut and Brass Liberation Orchestra. And now the official action video is ready for your viewing pleasure!
Check out our version of Salt-n-Pepa's "Push It" re-mixed especially to tell Bank of America to quit cheating on their taxes and "Pay Up!"
Click the image to watch the video, then share it with all your friends!
And don't forget to join US Uncut or Right to the City for a Tax Day action near you this Monday!
Watch the video from our Flash-mob Action telling Bank of America to "Pay Up!"
Then join a
Tax Day Action near you this Monday!via: my friends at Ruckus and USuncut!
Flashmob action we did on Friday in San... more
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Tax Day is looming, and procrastinating yet law-abiding Americans are scrambling to prepare and submit their income tax returns to the federal government. Let’s face it, no one likes to give a portion of their hard-earned money to a group of people who typically seem to find ways to mismanage it. A couple of demographics in particular — single men under the age of 45 and rich folks — tend to have the most difficult time paying all they owe, even though they can afford it. Go figure that a few of the infamous tax cheats listed below fall under the latter demographic. They ultimately paid the price for their misdeeds, proving that Uncle Sam doesn’t take kindly to those who refuse to do their part.
LINK : http://www.criminaljusticeusa.com/blog/2011/the-10-biggest-tax-cheats-in-u-s-history/Tax Day is looming, and procrastinating yet law-abiding Americans are scrambling to... more
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As Tea Party Koch Brothers Earned An Extra $11 Billion In Recent Years, They Laid Off ThousandsAs Tea Party Koch Brothers Earned An Extra $11 Billion In Recent Years, They Laid Off... more
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Today's NY Daily News suggested a Double House Ethics Trial(http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/2010/09/maybe-they-can-hold-a-double-h.html): Democratic crook Charlie Rangel and Republican crook Michael McCaul. They neglected to mention, that white congressional crooks and black congressional crooks are held to different standards in Washington.
> The ranking Republican on the ethics panel that will decide the fate of Harlem Rep.
> Charlie Rangel is reportedly in a bit of an ethics pickle himself.
> Wealthy Texas Rep. Michael McCaul apparently failed to fully disclose dozens of
> stock transactions worth millions of dollars on his annual federal financial disclosure
> reports for 2008 and 2009, according to the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call
> (http://www.rollcall.com/issues/56_22/news/49707-1.html).
> Rangel faces a trial this fall before the House Ethics Committee for allegedly failing
> to paying taxes (which he has since done) and neglecting to disclose all the property
> he owns. He has already lost his slot as chairman of the powerful House Ways and
> Means Committee.
> With no shortage of irony, McCaul also did not fully disclose the millions of dollars he
> took in from the sale in 2008 of Clear Channel stocks owned by his wife Linda, Roll
> Call reported.
> McCaul’s office issued a statement in which the lawmaker blamed his accountant for
> the error.
Sounds kind of like what Rangel has been using as his excuse too. Although McCaul is also blaming one of his children for selling between $1,000,000 and $5,000,000 worth of stock without reporting it. Here's a photo of McCaul and his crooked Clear Channel wife and their children. Can you guess which child is running the stock scam that netted 100 times more cash than Charlie Rangel's did?Today's NY Daily News suggested a Double House Ethics... more
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Recently, the house and the senate have drafted opposing legislation on this matter into the new health care legislation (HR 3962). Black liquor is a toxic by-product of making pulp for paper production. It has been burned by paper companies as fuel for decades.
After mixing it with diesel, it's burned by the paper company as fuel, which qualifies them for a tax credit, enacted in 2007.
According to wikipedia, for one large company (International Paper) this could amount to as much as $3.7 billion in benefits per year.
This is another example of massive tax breaks for large companies that are not in the interest of the American public. Burning black liquor has a major negative effect on the environment, not to mention the additional consumption of diesel fuel. Additionally, smaller companies that produce 100% recycled post consumer paper cannot compete (they don't produce or use black liquor/diesel fuel so they can't get the massive tax break).
I encourage you to contact your representatives on this matter.
more at the article above and here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_liquorRecently, the house and the senate have drafted opposing legislation on this matter... more
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US clients of UBS with more than 250,000 Swiss francs (165,641 euros, 248,040 dollars) in assets could have their details turned over to US tax authorities if there is proof of fraud, Swiss authorities said on Tuesday.
For those who have simply not disclosed their accounts, their records would only be provided to US tax authorities if the account held more than one million francs at any time between 2001 and 2008, the Swiss Federal Office of Justice said here.US clients of UBS with more than 250,000 Swiss francs (165,641 euros, 248,040 dollars)... more
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Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden released the following statement regarding the announcement today by the Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue (IRS) regarding the results arising from previous settlements of civil and criminal cases against Swiss banking giant UBS AG.
The Justice Department and IRS announced that over 14,700 taxpayers have come forward to report previously-undisclosed foreign bank accounts under the voluntary disclosure program the IRS implemented following the settlement. This figure represents almost double the initial numbers the IRS announced in October and dwarfs the number of voluntary disclosures received in 2008.
“The Department of Justice is pleased with the extraordinary results achieved from this landmark settlement,” said Deputy Attorney General Ogden. “The message to American taxpayers is clear: the era of bank secrecy and hidden assets is over. We will continue to work closely with the IRS and our international partners to ensure that our tax laws are enforced fully and fairly, and that the rule of law is vindicated. We congratulate the IRS and the Department’s Tax Division, as well as our partners in the Swiss government, for this achievement.”
These voluntary disclosures, while extremely significant, are but one more step in the IRS and the Department’s efforts to hold those U.S. taxpayers who have undisclosed foreign accounts responsible for their actions. These efforts began in February 2009, with UBS AG’s agreement to enter into a groundbreaking deferred prosecution agreement, admitting guilt on charges of conspiring to defraud the United States by impeding the IRS. As part of the agreement, UBS immediately provided the United States with the identities of, and account information for, a number of U.S. UBS customers and paid $780 million in fines, penalties, interest, and restitution. The Department’s Tax Division worked hand-in-hand with the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Southern District of Florida to obtain these unprecedented results.
To date, the Justice Department has successfully prosecuted six U.S. customers of UBS whose information was provided pursuant to the Deferred Prosecution Agreement, and is conducting investigations of dozens of other UBS customers.
In addition to the deferred prosecution agreement, in August of this year, the IRS, the Justice Department, UBS and the Swiss Government, entered into a similarly landmark agreement, in the John Doe summons action, whereby the IRS was to receive thousands of additional undisclosed UBS accounts.
These criminal and civil efforts have, for the first time, breached Swiss bank secrecy and prevented taxpayers from hiding from the IRS regardless of the cross border nature of their accounts. Within the United States, there has been an unprecedented increase in the number of taxpayers who have come forward to voluntarily disclose the existence of their foreign bank accounts and agree to pay tens of millions of dollars to the treasury.
The Department of Justice and IRS also made public the criteria set out in the settlement reached in the civil John Doe summons suit against UBS, which governed the selection of account holders to be identified as part of the settlement. The criteria cover accounts of various amounts and types, including bank-only accounts, custody accounts in which securities or other investment assets were held and offshore company nominee accounts through which an individual indirectly held beneficial ownership. These criteria allow the IRS and the Justice Department to target the most egregious foreign account holders.
http://pubrecord.org/law/6080/nearly-15000-citizens-enter-settlement/Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden released the following statement regarding the... more
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Offshore tax shelter? Check. Income hidden from tax authorities? Check. New IRS unit specifically set up to target taxpayers with tens of millions or dollars? Check.
IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman told the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Monday that the agency has set up a unit specifically set up to deal with rich Americans who are hiding assets.
"We will take a unified look at the entire web of business entities controlled by a high-wealth individual," Shulman said. "At least initially, we will be looking at individuals with tens of millions of dollars of assets or income."Offshore tax shelter? Check. Income hidden from tax authorities? Check. New IRS unit... more
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Rangel has been ignoring mounting calls for him to step down from his powerful position as chairman of the House Ways and Means Commission while the various investigations into his allegedly shady dealings take place.(Senser this Dumb Ass)Rangel has been ignoring mounting calls for him to step down from his powerful... more
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synjun
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added this
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2 years ago
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The United States has reached an outline settlement with Switzerland's most powerful bank, UBS, on their long running $20bn (£12bn) tax evasion dispute that has severely damaged relations between the two countries.
It is thought that UBS will be ordered to hand over to US investigators about 5,000 American accounts suspected of tax evasion. Originally the US demanded 52,000 accounts from UBS in a move that forced the Swiss government to intervene.
If Switzerland does hand over accounts, it will in effect end any pretence of Swiss bank secrecy and may prompt an increase in cash withdrawals as the super-rich rush to protect their identities.
The case dates back two years when US tax investigators arrested Florida real estate tycoon Igor Olenicoff for tax evasion. Olenicoff accepted an offer of a reduced sentence in return for information about who organised the tax fraud.
His evidence established that UBS personnel devised sham companies to hide wealth and even smuggled diamonds in toothpaste tubes through customs.
In February, UBS paid $780m to settle criminal charges that it helped wealthy Americans evade taxes on nearly $20bn in offshore accounts. One day later, it filed the civil suit seeking to force UBS to disclose 52,000 client names.
There is no guarantee that an outline agreement will lead to a settlement, however. On Friday US secretary of state Hillary Clinton will meet Swiss foreign minister, Micheline Calmy-Rey.
Andreas Missbach of the Berne Declaration, a Swiss economic justice campaigner, said the increasing involvement of the Swiss foreign ministry in the dispute was a sign that the country's more confrontational ministry of finance had failed to head off the row.
Switzerland has also attracted co-ordinated international action for its role as a tax haven and has pointedly not been invited to participate in G20 meetings to restore the world's economy. UBS, is not commenting on the case.The United States has reached an outline settlement with Switzerland's most... more
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The disgruntled Liechtenstein man who ratted out super-rich tax dodgers and sold the stolen information to the US and a few other countries lives in hiding and has $10 million bounty on his head (that was only to be expected...). Did he pay any tax on the millions of dollars and euros he made selling this information? I seriously doubt it.
American News Project: They hide an estimated $100 billion a year from the IRS, but now the U.S. Senate is turning up the heat on super-rich tax cheats. The man who ratted out some of these tax dodgers now lives in hiding and has a $10 million bounty on his head. This is a story straight out of our new Gilded Age -- one of billionaires, foreign bankers, corruption, secrecy and, of course, greed.The disgruntled Liechtenstein man who ratted out super-rich tax dodgers and sold the... more
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