AIG's Tax Dodge Business

-- by Dave Johnson

AIG was running a scam that enabled companies to dodge paying taxes. Yes, the same AIG that is now sucking up our tax dollars - and paying out million-dollar-bonuses - was in the business of helping companies not pay their taxes.

At what point do we feel completely harvested, bled, scammed, and done with this? Why aren't we raising taxes on high incomes -- the beneficiaries of all these scams that brought down the economy -- to pay for all of this?

WSJ: AIG's Tax Shelter Business Was 'Even Bigger' Than Their CDOs; IRS Calls At Least One Of Them A 'Sham' | Crooks and Liars

An attorney and tax shelter expert we spoke with today says AIG FP was one of the biggest players in the business of engineering offshore tax shelters for corporate and private clients that resembled a multibillion dollar tax evasion scheme called Son of Boss (we don't have time to figure out why) that thousands of corporations and wealthy individuals used to book phony capital gains losses and evade most or all of their income taxes in the late nineties and early 00s.

So I found this from 2005: Court Papers Say A.I.G. Played Role in Tax Shelter,

New court papers indicate that the American International Group helped dozens of wealthy individuals make use of questionable tax shelters intended to shield hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from federal taxes.

A.I.G. is under scrutiny by federal and New York investigators looking into questionable insurance transactions that the company used to dress up its financial strength.

Why haven't We, the People taken control and broken these "companies" up into little bite-sized chunks yet?

Posted by Dave Johnson at April 11, 2009 10:07 AM