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Thirteen of the largest recipients of the government’s massive bailout failed to pay more than $220 million in federal taxes, congressional investigators said yesterday, prompting a new round of accusations that banks were abusing the financial rescue program.

The Internal Revenue Service said in March that a portion of the money had been paid back since congressional investigators gathered their information. Still, many in Congress were furious, noting that firms with the largest tax liabilities owed $113 million and $102 million.

“This is shameful. It is a disgrace,” said Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee’s oversight subcommittee, which examined the IRS data. “The American people are fed up, and they are fired up. And they are not going to take it anymore.”

Maybe this is the reason that there are so many people who are trying to do everything in their power to pay the least amount in taxes. The American people keep paying and for what we are still in the biggest economic depression since World War 2 in the 1930’s and 40’s, and its going to continue to get worse.

The head of the federal watchdog agency charged with prosecuting fraud in the program said his office would investigate to see whether any crimes had been committed by the firms, none of which were named. Executives of banks receiving bailout funds had to certify that their firms did not owe taxes, and if they knowingly lied, they could be prosecuted.

Could be prosecuted, how much these people get to get away with. They should be prosecuted no questions asked. It is highly ironic that a bank, a place that deals with money cannot sufficiently keep up especially when in the time they lend at a high interest and give lower interest to Participants or Lenders.

The disclosures ratcheted up anger on Capitol Hill at both the conduct of Wall Street firms benefiting from taxpayer dollars and the Treasury Department’s oversight of the program. Lawmakers are still furious over multimillion-dollar bonuses to executives at firms receiving bailout money as well as lavish retreats and expenses by those companies.

Because of these huge bonuses that the tax payers are paying for, it is going to make it harder than ever for the economy to do the things that must be done to get everything moving forward. The greedy are growing, and the desperation of the people is going to continue to drag us down in this huge economic spiral.

Given the complexity of corporate tax laws, people should not assume that all these taxpayers have necessarily done something wrong,” said Frank Keith, an IRS spokesman.

50 percent of the $220 million in unpaid taxes described to the panel this month had recently been paid back, though he declined to describe the payments further or say whether more unpaid taxes had accrued by the bailout firms since then.

The Post asked the 23 largest recipients of bailout funds yesterday whether they had any unpaid taxes?? Spokes people from only 9 companies responded stating NO! — Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Capital One, Northern Trust, CIT Group, Marshall & Isley Corporation, Chrysler, and General Motors. What happened to the other 14 companies that never responded that is over 55% that declined to comment, did not return phone and e-mail messages.

The congressional anger came from both parties. Sen. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said: “Unpaid tax liabilities damage confidence in our tax system and, in this case, increase cynicism that there are two sets of rules, one set for the big guys and one set for everyone else.”

There was a hearing that was held to discuss the bailout. During the hearing it was brought to attention that the unpaid taxes described in the data were the tip of the iceberg.

Source: Washington Post

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