“Not to be outdone by his potential opponent for Congress in 2010, Rob Miller, who has raised more than $350,000 since Wilson’s now infamous “You Lie” outburst, the congressman has a new video in which he explains his behavior and then goes on to ask for… campaign cash.”
Posted in: Elections, News & Politics
Tags: Congress, Rep. Joe Wilson, South Carolina |
AIG uses tax payer money to sue their majority owner, in this case the US Government, to recover some $306 million in tax payments, some related to offshore tax havens.
The lawsuit, filed on Feb. 27 in Federal District Court in Manhattan, details, among other things, certain tax-related dealings of the financial products unit, the once high-flying division that has been singled out for its role in A.I.G.’s financial crisis last fall. Other deals involved A.I.G. offshore entities whose function centers on executive compensation and include C. V. Starr & Company, a closely held concern controlled by Maurice R. Greenberg, A.I.G.’s former chairman, and the Starr International Company, a privately held enterprise incorporated in Panama, and commonly known as SICO.
The lawsuit contends in part that the federal government owes A.I.G. nearly $62 million in foreign tax credits related to eight foreign entities, with names like Lumagrove, Laperouse and Foppingadreef, that were set up or controlled by financial products, often through a unit known as Pinestead Holdings.
United States tax law allows American companies to claim a credit for any taxes paid to a foreign government. But the I.R.S. denied A.I.G.’s refund claims in 2008, saying that it had improperly calculated the credits. The I.R.S. has identified so-called foreign tax-credit generators as an area of abuse that it is increasingly monitoring.
The remainder of A.I.G.’s claim, for $244 million, concerns net operating loss carry-backs, capital loss carry-backs, a general refund claim and claims for refunds of other tax-related payments that A.I.G. says it made to the I.R.S. but are now owed back. The claim also covers $119 million in penalties and interest that A.I.G. says it is due back from the government.
This is all unrelated, of course, to Congresses approving a 90% levy on bonuses paid to AIG yesterday. It’ll remain to be seen how the lawsuit to recover taxes affects the governments plan to tax bonuses.
AIG should start treading on careful ground. One gets the sense that they are beginning to play the role of Marie Antoinette and King Louis XIV in an American version of the French Revolution. But honestly? If that’s what it takes to get the message to these robber barons, then maybe that’s what has to be done.
It’s high time people in this country began to get angry.
Posted in: News & Politics
Tags: AIG, Congress, taxes |
If you apply for a loan from a bank you can damn well be sure that they’re going to fine comb your request and know every detail about where their money is going and how it’s being spent and how that money will be paid back.? But if a bank loans money from the taxpayers, those same rules apparently do not apply.
But after receiving billions in aid from U.S. taxpayers, the nation’s largest banks say they can’t track exactly how they’re spending the money or they simply refuse to discuss it.
“We’ve lent some of it. We’ve not lent some of it. We’ve not given any accounting of, ‘Here’s how we’re doing it,’” said Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money. “We have not disclosed that to the public. We’re declining to.”
The Associated Press contacted 21 banks that received at least $1 billion in government money and asked four questions: How much has been spent? What was it spent on? How much is being held in savings, and what’s the plan for the rest?
None of the banks provided specific answers.
“We’re not providing dollar-in, dollar-out tracking,” said Barry Koling, a spokesman for Atlanta, Ga.-based SunTrust Banks Inc., which got $3.5 billion in taxpayer dollars.
Some banks said they simply didn’t know where the money was going.
“We manage our capital in its aggregate,” said Regions Financial Corp. spokesman Tim Deighton, who said the Birmingham, Ala.-based company is not tracking how it is spending the $3.5 billion it received as part of the financial bailout.
The answers highlight the secrecy surrounding the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which earmarked $700 billion ? about the size of the Netherlands’ economy ? to help rescue the financial industry. The Treasury Department has been using the money to buy stock in U.S. banks, hoping that the sudden inflow of cash will get banks to start lending money.
There has been no accounting of how banks spend that money. Lawmakers summoned bank executives to Capitol Hill last month and implored them to lend the money ? not to hoard it or spend it on corporate bonuses, junkets or to buy other banks. But there is no process in place to make sure that’s happening and there are no consequences for banks who don’t comply.
It’s a good thing that Congress demanded and received strict oversight for TARP.
Posted in: News & Politics
Tags: bailout, Congress, economic crisis, TARP |
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