IRS Challenges AIG's Offshore Tax Deals

(NEWSER) - Even as Washington rails against AIG’s bonus giveaway, the insurer is quietly suing the government for $306 million in tax payments, the New York Times reports. AIG’s case hinges largely on its use of offshore tax havens, including one entity that handles executive compensation. It also says it overpaid the government after a 2004 accounting scandal forced it to restate records. More»

105 busted in sweep

(NEWSER) - The Internal Revenue Service is cracking down on fraudsters as tax return seasons begins. The agency has stepped up efforts to prevent identity theft, and caught 260,000 bad returns last year, up from 50,000 in 2010, and prevented a total of $1.4 billion in bad refunds being sent out, Reuters reports. New screening measures have been put in place and hundreds of check-cashing operations are being audited. More»

They say takeover violated investors' fifth amendment rights

(NEWSER) - Former AIG CEO Hank Greenberg is suing the US government for $25 million for having the effrontery to bail out the dying insurer. Greenberg was ousted in 2005 after allegedly cooking AIG’s books to inflate its value, but still had a keen interest in the company during the bailout, because his firm, Starr International Co., was its largest shareholder. Now Greenberg’s saying that the bailout of the firm violated shareholders’ constitutional rights, the Wall Street Journal reports. More»

Millions go unreported thanks to 'unrealized appreciation'

(NEWSER) - If President Obama wants a "Buffett Rule" to keep billionaires paying their fair share of taxes, he’ll have to look at the "800-pound gorilla" in the room, tax experts say. That gorilla, explains one expert, is "unrealized appreciation"—cash that America’s wealthiest take in via stock transactions that isn't considered taxable income, Bloomberg reports. Case in point: Sports impresario Red McCombs claimed a $9.8 million loss on his tax return, but conveniently omitted the $259 million he’d scored by loaning shares of Clear Channel to an investment bank. Because he won't actually sell them to the bank for a few years, he didn't pay capital gains tax at the time. More»

Agency pulls in $2.7 billion

(NEWSER) - Tax evaders are rushing to the IRS, cash in hand, thanks to a partial amnesty program aimed at recovering money in offshore bank accounts. In all 12,000 tax cheats came forward, the agency announced yesterday, bringing in a total of $2.7 billion. “The results we’re seeing today were unthinkable just a few short years ago,” IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman tells Bloomberg , chalking it up to stepped-up enforcement efforts. More»