ANOTHER CROOKED ACCOUNTING FIRM

The Raw Story has this tidbit about how the 1% get helped by crooked accountants:

Ernst & Young reaches deal with U.S. regulators to pay $123 million over tax avoidance scandal
By Simon Bowers, The Guardian
Sunday, March 3, 2013 23:46 EST

Ernst & Young has agreed to pay $123m (£82m) in a settlement with criminal prosecutors in the US, admitting that some of its most senior tax partners had been involved in developing, marketing and defending tax avoidance schemes between 1999 and 2004 to dodge taxes worth $2bn faced by about 200 wealthy individuals.

The episode saw four former employees sentenced in 2010 to between 20 and 36 months in jail for involvement in tax evasion and obstructing the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Two last year had their convictions overturned on appeal.

E&Y admitted that products developed from the Viper division – one of which was called Currency Options Bring Reward Alternatives, or Cobra – had been designed to appear to the IRS as genuine investments when, in reality, the products were designed and marketed to clients as a series of pre-planned steps that would defer, reduce or eliminate tax bills for millionaire clients.

As of now, this story did not make the front page of either Yahoo News or Google News.