Word: kpmg
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Accounting, I admit, is not the normal stuff of true-crime drama. But among accused finaglers walking perplike into court, former bean counters at accounting firm KPMG have more cause than most to question White House tactics against financial fraud...
...crime the accountants stand accused of is peddling iffy tax shelters, arcane financial deals that shield income from the IRS. Shelters are O.K. if they serve a true business purpose, and the KPMG gang insisted that its did. Yet over the past four years, the accountants have taken a prosecutorial beating. A Senate subcommittee publicly grilled them. The Justice Department suggested they blab without their lawyers present. KPMG, bending to government pressure, stopped covering its employees' crushing legal bills. And all this happened before any court ruled the tax shelters improper...
...made the Bush Administration look tough on financial fraud. The accountants seem headed for criminal trials, and KPMG coughed up $456 million to settle separately with the government. Yet just when we're prepared to be impressed, the White House pulls a U-turn...
...chief accountant for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said the agency was considering how to shield accounting firms from civil litigation because--get this--the Administration doesn't want the Big Four firms to become the Big Three. So, on the one hand, the Justice Department is squeezing KPMG and its former employees within an inch of their professional lives. On the other hand, the SEC is pushing for limits on lawsuits that might hurt firms like KPMG. Talk about mixed messages...
...Consider KPMG. From 1997 to 2001, the firm sold four types of shelters that helped clients avoid taxes by doing things like putting income temporarily in a tax-exempt entity. The transactions were so complex, it was hard to see a purpose other than skirting taxes. Although the IRS ruled them potentially improper in 2000, experts disagreed about their legality...