The Department of Justice announced Friday yet another indictment in the tax shelter schemes aimed at helping the U.S.'s super-wealthy class avoid taxes on big gains by generating artificial losses. John Ohle, the head of the "innovative strategies group" at the Chicago branch of a "national bank" (Bank One, now owned by JPMorgan Chase) was indicted in the Southern District of New York in connection with the promotion of the "HOMER" tax shelter. (HOMER is the acronym for Hedge Option Monetization of Economic Remainder, the descriptive title of the shelter.) According to the press release and indictment, the bank group sold HOMER to 36 wealthy clients in 2001, leading to $430 million in artificial losses to be used against real income. Ohle is charged with conspiring with lawyers at the now defunct Jenkens & Gilchrist law firm to market the shelter, for fees of 6% of the desired tax loss, as well as working with several buddies to gin up referral fees and filing false tax returns in respect of the income. Ohle could get a lot of jail time and pay big fines (up to 38 years and $2 million).
For coverage, see the following:
MarketWatch, Nov. 15, 2008 (note in the comments section the typical libertarian line that "taxation is theft"; this meme has been repeated often by right wing think tanks funded by corporatist interests, and is ludicrous except for the fact that so many seem to buy into it without realizing that taxation is a necessary concommitant of living in a civilized society, just as shared rules about noise or roadways or any of the myriad other ways that civilized peoples give up some measure of individual leeway in order to gain the huge benefits of cooperative effort.).
WGSO.com, Nov. 15, 2008 (noting that William Bradley, the Louisiana attorney already facing bribery charges in the state, was indicted with Ohle in the tax shelter scheme).
ChicagoBreakingNews.com, Nov. 14, 2008.
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