Tax Shelters

Two principals of defunct Seattle investment management firm Quellos Group and a Los Angeles lawyer were indicted in a tax shelter scheme that allegedly created more than $1.3 billion in fraudulent losses for prominent clients, including media mogul and billionaire investor Haim Saban. The operation was "one of the largest tax fraud schemes ever uncovered in this country," U.S. Atty. Jeffrey C. Sullivan in Seattle said Thursday.

Beverly Hills shopping center magnate Peter Lowy refused to testify to Congress on Friday about his family's use of overseas tax havens. But senators tried to make up for his silence, offering accounts of shadowy shell corporations, secret transactions, mysterious acquisitions, exotic locations, all topped off by allegations of a late-night flight by Lowy this month to avoid a government subpoena. A U.S.

The Internal Revenue Service said Wednesday that it was prepared to offer settlements to some 45 corporations if they agreed to end questionable tax shelter practices. IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said the agency aims to end transactions that have allowed corporations, including many of the nation's top banks, to gain billions in tax deferrals. He did not name the corporations.

In a move that could help prosecutors press their $2-billion tax fraud case against 16 former executives of national accounting firm KPMG, a California accountant pleaded guilty Wednesday to helping to sell sham tax shelters and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. Steven Acosta, 49, of Pasadena pleaded guilty to conspiracy, tax evasion and obstructing an Internal Revenue Service investigation in deals that cost the U.S. $100 million. He faces a maximum sentence of 16 years in prison.

Prominent law firm Jenkens & Gilchrist will shut its doors and pay a $76-million civil penalty in agreements with federal prosecutors and the Internal Revenue Service over allegedly fraudulent tax shelters that the firm promoted, the government said Thursday. The office of U.S. Atty.

What's a politician to do upon discovery that a generous billionaire donor turns out to be a major tax dodger? It's a dilemma already encountered by the Republican and Democratic parties in this season of unprecedented political fundraising. At a time when newly powerful Democrats, including presidential hopeful Sen.

For the headquarters of more than 14,000 companies, Ugland House is a quiet place. A few lawyers, accountants and secretaries wander into the five-story building each weekday morning, but by midafternoon the black marble lobby is about as busy as a bank on Sunday. Ugland House is what's known as an "address of convenience" for many of the 70,000 U.S. and other foreign companies, limited partnerships and trusts that are based in this Caribbean locale.

A former top Internal Revenue Service lawyer and three other Ernst & Young partners fraudulently reduced taxes for Americans making $10 million or more, an indictment unsealed Wednesday alleges. The four current and former partners of the giant accounting firm were arrested Wednesday and charged with fraud and other crimes relating to tax shelters that were devised beginning in 1998, according to the indictment unsealed in U.S. District Court in New York.

Federal prosecutors urged a judge to dismiss charges against 12 of 16 former KPMG partners accused of selling illegal tax shelters, dealing a blow to the largest tax fraud case in U.S. history. Prosecutors told U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in court papers filed in New York on Saturday that he should throw out the case against the 12 former executives after finding that the government had violated their right to counsel.

While in private business, Mitt Romney utilized shell companies in two offshore tax havens to help eligible investors avoid paying U.S. taxes, federal and state records show. Romney gained no personal tax benefit from the legal operations in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.