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Senate Committee Takes Aim at Offshore Companies August 1, 2006 The New York Times reports on Congress' latest target: businessmen who (legally) use offshore companies and bank accounts to lessen or avoid paying U.S. income taxes. The Senate Permanent Investigations Committe, headed Senator Levin, has approved a report which basically takes aim at any offshore transactions done in the Caymen Islands, Nevis, the Isle of Man and Panama. In a clear indicator that the joy of doing business offshore is about to become a nightmare, the report suggested that the underlying legal assumption that transactions are legal be overturned. Senator Levin said the law "should assume that any transaction in a tax haven is a sham." That would be a sea change in the tax law, if implemented. So many superrich Americans evade taxes using offshore accounts that law enforcement cannot control the growing misconduct, according to a Senate report that provides the most detailed look ever at high-level tax schemes. Among the billionaires cited in the report are the owner of the New York Jets football team, Robert Wood Johnson IV; the producer of the "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" children’s show, Haim Saban; and two Texas businessmen, Charles and Sam Wyly, who the Center for Public Integrity found in 2000 were the ninth-largest contributors to President Bush. Mr. Johnson and Mr. Saban, who are portrayed as victims in the report, are scheduled to testify today before the Senate Permanent Investigations subcommittee. They are expected to say that professional advisers assured them their deals to avoid taxes were more likely lawful than not. The Wyly brothers told the committee that they would invoke their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and thus were not called to testify. The report characterizes them as active participants in tax schemes.So, what's this really all about? It's about a government that has a huge deficit because of the war in Iraq. When the deficit gets this big, Congress starts looking for targets. The new target is going to be any business person who sets up a company in an offshore tax haven, or uses those havens to (legally) avoid taxes. Because, if the Committee has its way, then the new rule will be "If you do business off shore, you're a crook. And you're going to spend millions of dollars defending yourself to the IRS, no matter how many law firms and accountants told you it was legal." As the war in Iraq becomes more and more expensive, as oil becomes more expensive and the deficit grows ever larger, Congress will target more and more transactions and industries that -- if audited -- could possibly turn up some revenue for the ailing U.S. treasury. Tags: offshore-business | offshore-taxes Permalink| | | Comments (View) | | blog comments powered by Disqus |
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