Foreigners Evaded Paying Taxes With the Aid of Banks

[pennypinch]

Senate investigators have found that major Wall Street investment banks have come up with schemes that allowed foreign tax-payers to avoid paying millions of tax dollars each year on U.S. stock dividends.

Two different senators say that some banks have created transactions that allow their foreigner clients to avoid paying taxes owed on dividends and that the IRS has failed to do anything about it.

According to a report from an investigation held by a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee, that billions and billions of tax dollars have been lost during the last ten years.

Hearings are to be held today on the matter. Testimony will be taken from IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman. Executives of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank, and from several hedge funds also are expected to appear as witnesses to the matter.