tax shelter mess

[Digithead]

Any body have a clue where the tax shelter mess with kpmg et al is going ?

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Digithead
Any body have a clue where the tax shelter mess with kpmg et al is going ?

Welcome to the brave new world! We are moving from a self-assessment system to a self-audit system.

All the energy that used to go into planning and structuring transactions will now be fully employed making sure that all the substantive hoops and disclosure traps are covered. And as always, the controversy crowd will ultimately refine all the unanswered questions and drafting fuck-ups through years of fruitless litigation over the meaning of "economic substance."

Same as it ever was.

[Digithead]

huh ?? how about some ENGLISH. whats going on with the shelters and the companies ? how did they do it ?

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Digithead
huh ?? how about some ENGLISH. whats going on with the shelters and the companies ? how did they do it ?

To put it as simply as possible, the accounting firms and their shelter customers committed the greatest sin in the business world. They wound up being written about above the fold on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

The inevitable outcome is what you are witnessing now: the congressional hearings; the search for scapegoats; the big legislative and regulatory backlash in which they overwrite the law to prevent these awful things from ever happening again; the shelter promoters arguing they never actually did anything wrong, and their counterparts (sometimes in the same firms) bemoaning how things ever got out of hand.

The end result is that for the next several years, anything that smells remotely like a shelter will get shot down by most corporations, until they come up with the next generation.

Considering the breadth of your question, this is about as specific as I can get. If you want to ask a more pointed question, I can offer you my perspective on a more focused issue.