A press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office:
CHICAGO LAWYER BARRED FROM PROMOTING TAX SHELTERS
CHICAGO LAWYER BARRED FROM PROMOTING TAX SHELTERS
GENERATING $370 MILLION IN SHAM DEDUCTIONS
Federal Court Enjoins Former Seyfarth Shaw LLP Partner
Who Allegedly Designed “DAD” and “DAT” Tax Shelters
WASHINGTON – A federal court has permanently barred John E. Rogers and two of his companies, Sugarloaf Fund LLC and Jetstream Business Limited, from promoting tax shelters that allegedly use distressed Brazilian debt to lower customers’ reported income improperly, the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced today.
Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois signed the civil injunction order, to which Rogers consented without admitting the allegations against him.
According to the government complaint, Rogers, a Chicago tax lawyer and former partner at Seyfarth Shaw LLP, designed and promoted three similar scams –
- the Distressed Asset Debt (DAD),
- Distressed Asset Trust (DAT) and
- 743(f) tax shelters –
that used hundreds of millions of dollars of low-value, “distressed” debt owed to Brazilian retail companies.
In all three of the schemes, according to the injunction suit, Rogers falsely told U.S. customers that the distressed Brazilian debt was highly valuable, that the Brazilian retail companies were real “partners” in Sugarloaf, that hundreds of entities Rogers formed and used in the transactions were genuine companies, and that the customers – after paying Rogers – could claim huge purported losses from the Brazilian debt.
The losses were allegedly used to offset the customers’ unrelated U.S. income, with the resulting tax savings far exceeding what the customers had paid Rogers.
In fact, the complaint alleges,
- the debt was virtually worthless when it was purchased;
- the retail companies were never genuine partners but simply sold Sugarloaf the distressed debt for pennies on the dollar;
- the hundreds of companies that Rogers formed and controlled were sham entities that performed no business functions; and
- the supposed tax losses never existed.
The suit alleged that Rogers’s DAD and DAT schemes generated more than $370 million in improper tax deductions.
The IRS listed the DAT and similar tax shelters as tax avoidance transactions in 2008, which required all material advisors of such schemes to
- disclose their activities to the IRS,
- obtain IRS reportable-transaction numbers for those transactions, and
- furnish the reportable-transaction numbers to their customers.
Customers would then know they were participating in a reportable transaction and that the reportable-transaction number had to be disclosed on their next-filed tax return.
Under federal tax law, customers who fail to include a reportable-transaction number with their returns as required are subject to substantial monetary penalties.
Under the injunction order, Rogers, whom the complaint alleges failed to comply with the listed-transaction requirements, must now mail copies of the injunction order to all persons who engaged in any of the three transactions described in the complaint during or after 2003.
“The Justice Department is committed to exposing and shutting down fraudulent tax shelters and their promoters, and injunctions are an important tool in that effort,” said D. Patrick Mullarkey, Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Trial Matters at the Justice Department’s Tax Division.
“At the same time,” Mullarkey noted, “taxpayers should be keenly aware that if the tax benefits from a transaction seem too good to be true, they almost always are.”
“Today’s injunction sends the clear message that the IRS aggressively pursues those who allegedly invent new ways to cheat the tax system,” said IRS Deputy Commissioner Steve Miller.
“Using sham offshore losses to eliminate income and evade taxes is exactly the type of abusive scheme that we’re committed to combat.”
Mullarkey and Miller thanked Justice Department trial attorneys Nathan Clukey, Gregory Seador and Mark Milton, who handled the case, and praised the IRS Large Business and International Division for its investigative work and assistance, including IRS Revenue Agent Kimberlee Loren.
In the last decade, the Justice Department’s Tax Division has obtained hundreds of injunctions to stop the promotion of abusive or fraudulent tax schemes. Information about these cases is available on the Justice Department website.
My advice if you go work at KPMG is don’t sell corporate tax shelters or engage in structuring special purpose vehicles to hide billions of banking losses.
If you do, KPMG may turn on you to save itself and destroy yours and your family’s lives. KPMG is very good at this and retains firms like Skadden Arps to make false statements on KPMG’s behalf so bad that you will end up in prison to suffer daily beatings and worse.
Take a look at a smattering of the corporate tax shelters KPMG was selling its best clients like BRK while at the same time negotiating a deal with the DOJ to help it indict KPMG partners and managers who worked on individual transactions.
Bob Bennett was more than happy to cut such a deal with the DOJ on behalf of KPMG (KPMG made false statements to the DOJ about its very own Partners and Managers) apparently in exchange for allowing KPMG to continue its massive corporate tax shelter business and government audits generating hundreds of millions in fees for KPMG.
Goodness gracious, Bob Bennett of Skadden Arps was willing to make statements to the DOJ about KPMG Partners and Managers so the DOJ could indict the Partners and Managers working on individual transactions (but not any of the massive corporate tax shelters KPMG was purveying) not withstanding an email from KPMG’s Chief Counsel Joseph Loonan to Bennett informing Bennett that the information and statements he was making to the DOJ were absolutely false.
Oh well, at least Buffet and BRK made out, BRK has over $1 Billion accrued on its balance sheet for tax shelters, penalties and interest, yet Warren thinks we all should pay more, what a fraudster he is, just ask AIG.
SMATTERING OF KPMG CORPORATE TAX SHELTERS (FRAUD)
a. “Tier 1 Capital”, which allows banks to obtain deductions when raising capital using offshore tax haven Financial Asset Securitization Investment Trusts (“FASIT”);
b. “TITUS”, which allows banks to create fraudulent income through the decrease of book tax rate;
c. “German KG Financing Structure”, which allows corporations to avoid taxes in the U.S. and Germany;
d. “Verdi I”, which is the use of offshore tax haven FASITS to avoid taxes;
e. “Default Captive Insurance”, which creates phantom tax deductions for banks on their credit card receivables through the use of offshore tax haven subsidiaries”;
f. “21% LIFECO Solution”, which is the use of reinsurance contracts by banks to create phantom tax deductions;
g. “Price”, which is the use of offshore tax haven insurance companies by executives to avoid taxes on corporate compensation;
h. “RIPSS2”, which is the use of foreign party and debt securitization to avoid taxes;
i. “CARTELS”, which is an international 304 non-economic loss generating transaction;
j. “Repatriation of Foreign Parents Profits”, which avoids U.S. taxes on distributions through triangular B Reorgs;
k. “Securities Lending Transaction”, which allows banks to avoid U.S. taxes by creating phantom FSI;
l. “Partnership Buy in Strategy”, which allows U.S. corporations to avoid taxes on transfers of property to foreign tax havens;
m. “LUX CO”, which utilizes a branch in the U.S. of a Luxembourg tax haven company to avoid taxes in the U.S.;
n. “Interest Allocation Coop”, which allows corporations to avoid taxes in 2 the U.S. and other countries;
o. “Spared Sparing”, which provides for the avoidance of withholding taxes;
p. “Original Issue Discount Strategy”, which allows for taking the same interest deduction twice;
q. “956/1032 Zero Basis Solution”, which avoids U.S. taxes on the repatriation of untaxed foreign profits;
r. “Chase Knights”, which is the use of a Luxembourg tax haven to avoid us Taxes;
s. “Chase Squires”, which is the use of a Luxembourg finance subsidiary to avoid us taxes;
t. “RBS”, which is the use of repossessions by banks to avoid taxes;
u. “Caesar”, which allows banks to fraudulently raise regulatory capital and investors to avoid taxation by intentionally structuring transaction to lack earnings and profits;
v. “Global Currency Management Program”, which allows banks to invest in sophisticated foreign currency positions which generate substantial non-economic tax losses;
w. “SOCS”, which is an artificial loss generator for banks;
x. “Contingent Liability Trusts”, which create artificial phantom losses for corporations;
y. “Foreign Tax Haven Captive Insurance Companies”, which create artificial phantom losses for corporations;
z. “Tempest”, which creates artificial phantom losses for banks;
aa. “Contingent Liability Corporations”, which create artificial phantom losses for corporations;
bb. “REIT Strategy”, which eliminates income for banks;
cc. “Compensation Partnerships”, which shifts income from corporation to employees to avoid taxes;
dd. “Guaranteed Payments”, which is the use of guaranteed payments to avoid taxes;
ee. “BIG”, which allows corporations to sell assets and avoid taxes;
ff. “Hamlet”, which is the fraudulent use of banking rules to avoid taxes Resulting from interest expense allocable to tax exempt securities;
gg. “Loss Planning”, which involves using IRC § 704d to avoid taxes;
hh. “Debt Buy Back with Quasi Related Party”, which allows for the avoidance of taxes by a corporation on the buy back of discounted debt;
ii. “AARTS”, which is the use of inter-company tax rules to avoid taxes on the transfer of assets;
jj. “Nine Lives”, which is the use of options to avoid gain provisions of 355;
kk. “RAPS”, which is the use of accounting periods and REITS to avoid taxes;
ll. “CAPPS”, which allows taxpayers to avoid tax by converting ordinary income into capital under 306;
mm. “B-Flip”, which is the use of foreign companies to generate non-economic tax losses;
nn. “351 Leaseback”, which is a strategy to avoid taxes on contribution to corporations;
oo. “SZCBS”, which uses synthetic debt to avoid taxes;
pp. “Stock Option Swap”, which is a securities transaction using options to not only avoid taxes, but to avoid Securities and Exchange Commission Rules related to insider trading;
qq. “Project Zodiac”, which allows for capital raising and creation of phantom losses to avoid taxes all at the same time;
rr. “Oilco”, which allows oil companies to raise capital and avoid taxes through the manipulation of basis rules on depleted properties;
ss. “Debt Repurchase Program”, which allows corporations to avoid taxes on 2 buy back of discounted debt;
tt. “PARTS”, which allows for the issuance of debt and avoidance of taxes;
uu. “FAS 140”, which allows banks to avoid taxes through the manipulation of accounting rules;
vv. “Common Trust Fund Strategy”, which avoids taxes through the manipulation of common trust fund tax rules;
ww. “MACES”, which allows individuals to avoid taxes on ordinary income property;
xx. “CODA”, which avoids the recognition of income on debt buy backs;
yy. “FADS”, which creates artificial tax deductions through the use of swaps;
zz. “Express”, which is the use of foreign parties to avoid taxes through the securitization of receivables;
aaa. “Stars”, which is the use of a U.K. company to avoid taxes in the U.K. and U.S.;
bbb. “Short Lease”, which avoids depreciation rules;
ccc. “Slots”, which creates tax deductions with leases that are otherwise unavailable;
ddd. “Employee Benefit Captive Insurance Company”, which creates otherwise unavailable tax deductions for potential employee costs through the use of off shore tax haven companies; and
eee. “PINSCO”, which is the use of offshore tax haven insurance companies to avoid tax on the sale of assets.
“At the same time,” Mullarkey noted, “taxpayers should be keenly aware that if the tax benefits from a transaction seem too good to be true, they almost always are.”
Unless, of course, you are a large corporation.