THE OTHER CULTURE OF CORRUPTION

Not the GOP's Washington of Tom Delay, Jack Abramoff and Rick Santorum, but Wall Street firms. Several will be paying back investors in Enron billions for their role in that scam and now we find that some of the biggest names engaged in tax avoidance scams. Remember that Uncle Alan Greenspan thinks hedge funds should be free of regulation.

Some Banks Are Accused of Aiding a Tax Dodge
By LYNNLEY BROWNING
Published: September 10, 2008
NY Times

Wall Street investment banks are marketing and selling complex schemes meant to allow foreign investors, including offshore hedge funds, to avoid paying billions of dollars in dividend taxes illegally, according to a Senate subcommittee report released Wednesday.

The 77-page report, by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, is based on scores of internal data and documents and singles out Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch, UBS and Citigroup.

The report also names several hedge funds, including Moore Capital, Highbridge and Maverick Capital, as using the dividend-dodging products. Maverick improperly used the banks’ schemes, mostly ones sold by UBS, to illegally avoid tapping its own investors for $95 million in dividend taxes from 2000 through 2007, the report said.