September 2008 Archives
Members in the United States House of Representatives are pushing for a new Wall Street tax that would cover the potential costs of a bailout being negotiated by Congress and the Bush administration.
U.S. House Speaker Pelosi said the fee could be assessed after five years if the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office determined taxpayers had lost money in the bailout.
"If after five years ... the CBO decides that the American taxpayer has lost money in this, then there would be a fee on financial institutions," Pelosi said.
Pelosi said that the Secretary of the Treasury could determine how to assess the fee.
I think it’s a pretty safe bet that the Secretary of Treasury can determine that the American taxpayer has lost money in this.
John M. Hanamirian
When last we left the Hood affair, we learned that lawyers for Charles Hood, sentenced to die in Texas for an alleged murder 18 years ago, had sought to postpone the execution because they believed the Judge at the trial was literally in bed with the prosecutor. That matter was heard by a Judge Dry who, in what he thought was shall we say dry Texas humor, initially set a hearing for two days after Mr. Hood was to be executed. Judge Dry later recused himself from the matter after remembering that he had been a business associate of Earl Holland, the husband of the Judge, Verla Sue, when the two were going through a rather nasty divorce. Holland reportedly told friends at the time, and perhaps even Judge Dry, that he was divorcing his wife because of her affair with District Attorney Tom O’Connell.
Thankfully, the new Judge then postponed Hood’s execution and ordered the two alleged exlovers to be deposed, though lawyers for each decried such intrusion into their personal lives while adding that rumors about an affair were vicious lies told as a last ditch attempt to save a killer from the gallows.
At the depositions, shockingly, the former Judge and Prosecutor each admitted the long term affair though each was unclear as to when it ended. Verla Sue thought she stopped sleeping with the DA a few years before Hood’s trial while Tom thought it was a few months. The whole relationship sounds like it was quite memorable.
Either way, it might be time for even Texas to rethink its criminal justice system.
Alan Milstein
A former global tax manager at Bechtel Group, Inc. has been indicted for aiding in the preparation of false income tax returns claiming a false research and development tax credit which Bechtel was not entitled to claim.
The specifics are developing, but what I do know is that the tax manager prepared a false partnership tax return for an entity related to Bechtel and claimed a $3.5 million research and development credit and that he knew the partnership was not entitled to that credit.
The tax manager left Bechtel a few years ago and joined a private law practice. Bechtel says:
“When allegations that Bechtel Group, Inc. had taken improper R&D tax credits came to the attention of the Bechtel Legal Department, Bechtel immediately retained outside counsel to conduct an investigation of the matter…When this investigation found that improper tax credits had been taken, Bechtel voluntarily disclosed the improper credits to the IRS and filed a amended return.”
So, nobody at Bechtel looked at the return, noticed a $3.5 million dollar deduction or asked any questions. Yeah, must have been Joe in Accounting.
John M. Hanamirian
The House of Representatives announced that it will form a committee to conduct an inquiry into Rep. Charles Rangel, the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. Specifically, the newly formed committee will be deciding the appropriateness of his use of congressional stationery in three separate years to seek donors for a public policy institute in his name at City College.
The committee will also investigate Rangel's use of four rent-
stabilized apartments leased in the Lenox Terrace apartment complex in
Harlem, the financing of the beachfront villa leased in the Dominican
Republic, and his questionable storage of a late-model Mercedes Benz
in the house garage.
In a statement the committee said it will determine whether Rangel
"violated the Code of Official Conduct, or any law, rule, regulation
or other standard of conduct applicable to his conduct in the
performance of his duties."
The committee gave no indication of how long the probe will take. One can guess, it will be awhile.
John M. Hanamirian
This is one of the best. Representative Charles Rangel says that “cultural and language barriers” had hindered him from understanding the finances of his Dominican Republic beach house and the need for him to have reported the income generated from the rental of that house; all $75,000.00 worth of that income that went unreported. That is just classic.
Rangel further asserted that he had trouble getting detailed financial information from the resort’s managers in the Dominican Republic. “Every time I thought I was getting somewhere, they’d start speaking Spanish”. Yeah, they do that there. The issue, though is whether your bank records reflecting $75,000.00 worth of cash receipts were written in Spanish as well.
Understand, Rangel is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee….they co-write all of the tax legislation. Amazing how underestimated our collective intellect must be.
John M. Hanamirian
A Missouri woman pleaded guilty to her role in a tax fraud scheme that purportedly cost the IRS nearly $15 Million Dollars. According to the Department of Justice, the defendant was an integral part of a scheme in which conspirators stole the identity of nursing home residents and used the information to file at least 365 false Federal Income Tax Returns that then caused the IRS to issue the $15 Million Dollars in refunds.
In the will it ever end and how oblivious to "419 Scams" can you be category, the defendant ‘s role in the scheme was to receive fraudulent refund amounts in her bank account because, she was told, that although the monies were “legitimate grant monies from African sources”, the other conspirators were barred from opening bank accounts in their own names in the United States because they were citizens of Kenya. She faces up to 20 years in prison, where you can go even if you are not a United States citizen.
John M. Hanamirian
Everyone knows in
An exprosecutor now says in this affidavit it was common knowledge that the two were having a romantic relationship, one even the Judge’s husband admitted before his death several years ago. A state judge has scheduled a hearing this week and may issue an order that the two alleged exlovers be deposed. Even in
Alan Milstein
A federal district court in
Significantly, the court rejected the argument that it should follow the Third Circuit’s ruling in Colacicco v. Apotex, where the court held that adult suicide claims are preempted because the FDA had issued a misguided letter rejecting a warning for adults.
Judge Buckwalter concluded that, with respect to adolescents and Paxil, because the drug “has never been approved for pediatric use . . . the FDA never reviewed any safety and efficacy data regarding pediatric use prior to approval of the drug.” The Judge further reasoned that the drug company, not the FDA, had the most information about whether its product presented a risk of harm and, therefore, was in the best position to issue a warning to users.
Jack Abramoff, the once powerful lobbyist at the heart of an extensive political corruption scandal, was sentenced to four years in prison yesterday. Not so sad.
Abramoff reportedly fought back tears as the judge handed down a sentence lengthier than prosecutors had sought.
Over the past three years, Abramoff has become an Enronian symbol of corruption and the backroom deals cut between lobbyists and politicians.
"I come before you as a broken man," Abramoff said at his sentencing before U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle. "I'm not the same man who happily and arrogantly engaged in a lifestyle of political and business corruption."
He added later that, "My name is the butt of a joke, the source of a laugh and the title of a scandal."
Although Abramoff expressed remorse Thursday, he also has spent his time in prison cooperating with a book that portrays him much differently: as a victim. Hmm.
John M. Hanamirian
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal of indictments against 13 former partners and employees of KPMG LLP who had been charged with criminal tax fraud and conspiracy for their roles in tax shelter activity. The Second Circuit agreed with the District Court that the
This is really a positive opinion for individuals. The government’s tactic was abhorrent to the right to counsel and the presumption of innocence. The way these advancement of fees work is that if a person is an owner or officer of a company and there is a charge of wrongdoing on their part, on the part of others in the company or on the part of the company itself, the company’s by-laws typically provide that the company will advance the costs that individual incurs in association with the claim and/or in defense of the claim. If that individual, however, is found to have committed a crime, the individual is charged those costs and must pay them back to the company. The
John M. Hanamirian
The California Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, has held that the state’s anti-discrimination law, the Unruh Civil Rights Act, limits a clinician’s constitutional right to religious freedom, when that right is invoked against the interest of a patient. In Benitez v. North Coast Women’s Care Medical Group, the plaintiff had sued two ob-gyns after they refused to perform an intra-uterine insemination, claiming that the refusal was based on her sexual orientation. The physicians contended that their religious beliefs prohibited them from assisting Benitez not because she was gay but because she was unmarried.
The case will now proceed on the factual question of what really motivated the physicians. If it was the patient’s marital status, the physicians may have the right to refuse the procedure, as other physicians have refused to perform abortions on the basis of their religious beliefs, particularly because
Alan Milstein
