|
Enron taxes Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20020117/pl/enron_taxes_dc_2.htmlhttp://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20020117/pl/enron_taxes_dc_2.html
Thursday January 17 3:36 PM ET
Enron Didn't Pay Income
Taxes 4 of 5 Years -Study
By Susan Cornwell
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fallen energy-trading
giant Enron did not pay U.S. income taxes in four of
five years through 2000, receiving tax refunds
totaling close to $400 million in the period, the head
of a tax watchdog group said on Thursday.
Robert McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax
Justice, a labor-backed tax research group, said he
had analyzed Enron's financial reports for 1996
through 2000, the most recent year for which they
were available.
He said he found Enron had used hundreds of
subsidiaries in tax-haven countries, as well as
deductions for stock options, to avoid paying taxes.
``They made more money after taxes than before
taxes,'' McIntire said. Other companies have used
similar techniques, he said.
The Citizens for Tax Justice did a similar study in
1998 of half the Fortune 500 companies. ``Out of
250 companies, we found 24 that didn't pay taxes
over 3 years,'' McIntire said. ''So that's about 10
percent of them.''
An Enron spokesman had no comment, other than
to say that in 2001 the company paid $60 million
under the corporate alternative minimum tax.
SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE PROBE
The Senate Finance Committee is investigating
whether Enron has been complying with federal tax
laws, said spokesman Mike Siegel.
``Clearly the chairman, (Montana Democrat Sen.
Max) Baucus, as well as other members on the
committee, are interested in whether Enron had
been in compliance with federal tax laws, and to that
extent, we are communicating with the proper
federal authorities to gather the facts,'' Siegel said.
``Once the facts are known, we will proceed
accordingly,'' he added, but said there were no
hearings scheduled at this time. The committee is
one of more than a half-dozen on Capitol Hill that
are investigating various aspects of the Enron
collapse.
An IRS spokesman, speaking on condition of
anonymity, said the agency could not comment on
reports it is looking at Enron's tax filings.
``If we were, we couldn't say so. If we're not, we
can't say we're not,'' he said. IRS regulations on
taxpayer privacy apply to companies as well as
individuals, he said.
Once a Wall Street titan, Enron's stock slid
dramatically last fall and it filed for bankruptcy on
Dec 2. Its spectacular demise has sparked Capitol
Hill inquiries as well as investigations by the
Securities and Exchange Commission and a criminal
probe by the Justice Department.
HUNDREDS OF SUBSIDIARIES McIntire said
he had found Enron listed 880 subsidiaries in tax
haven countries such as the Cayman Islands and
Mauritius. ``They list them in fine print in the annual
report,'' he said.
In the year 2000, Enron got a tax refund of $278
million, he said. This was the largest of the refunds in
the study. Of the five years he examined, only in
1997 did Enron pay taxes, the records showing a
payment of $17 million, McIntire said. Altogether,
the tax refunds over the five years added up to
$381 million, he said. McIntire said the company
may have benefited from provisions that weakened
the corporate alternative minimum tax after 1997.
``That probably had an impact,'' he said. ``Some of
the things they were doing aren't covered by the
minimum tax, like (deductions) for stock options.''
Before its collapse last fall, Enron led a business
lobbying campaign on Capitol Hill to scrap the
corporate alternative minimum tax.
Under the first version of the economic stimulus bill
that passed the Republican-majority House of
Representatives, Enron would have received a $254
million refund. Lobbyists involved said that while
Enron favored repealing the alternative minimum tax,
it was not pushing for the refund provision.
However the House plan was blocked in the
Democrat-majority Senate and did not become law.
|
|
