NYT: Crackdown on Tax Cheats Not Working, Panel Says

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/20/business/20tax.html?hp

On Tuesday the Senate Finance Committee will hold hearings on tax shelters that, committee aides said, will feature testimony that tax cheating continues unabated and that the numerous crackdowns announced over the past two years by the Internal Revenue Service have had almost no impact.

The committee's leaders, Senators Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, and Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, have been frustrated by their inability to get Congress to finance a serious assault on tax cheats, aides said yesterday. This hearing, which will feature a witness hidden behind a screen with his voice altered, is intended, in part, as a well-aimed kick in that direction.

In the aftermath of corporate scandals that emerged two years ago, Congress enacted changes and increased by a third the Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement budget, but it did not pass any laws to attack abusive tax shelters or finance a serious hunt for tax cheats.

A consultant's report, prepared for the I.R.S., but kept secret by the agency until now, is expected to show that corporate tax cheating in 2000 cost the government $14 billion to $18 billion.

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One witness is scheduled to appear behind a screen, his voice altered, a tactic usually reserved for Mafia turncoats, spies and in 1997 for some I.R.S. agents who feared the loss of their jobs for speaking out. The leasing expert is being shielded because of fear by security advisers to the committee that "if his name became public it would not be healthy for him.''

a few partnerships and and a pass throughthe EU strips the income out and leaves the depreciation as a deduction in the US. Meanwhile a certain country in the EU does not tax the income that has been stripped.

And the famous "unkown Swiss billionaire" will do the other side via E&Y or Merrill or some other name that then charges you a few million for their great idea.

And this is news to the GOP ???? The GOP gets a few HUNDRED million in contributions to keep this game going -What a con

But as always US Media is not interested in GOP fraud -

Our we are not controlled by the right wing GOP - we just act like we are - US Media.

By the way - latest survey is 3 to 1 ratio right wing GOP editors and senior media executives with story control to those with such control on the left or in the center.

Sort of offsets the the 60/40 advantage the left has at the reporter level.