Enron genießt Steuer-Oasen

Enron genießt Steuer-Oasen

Washington - Der US-Energiekonzern Enron, der vor seiner Pleite im Dezember 2001 als eines der erfolgreichsten Unternehmen der USA galt, hat in vier der vergangenen fünf Jahre keine Einkommenssteuer gezahlt. Wie die "New York Times" berichtete, hatte das profitable Unternehmen 881 Tochter-Gesellschaften in Steueroasen gegründet um der Besteuerung seiner Gewinne zu entgehen. Dadurch sowie durch die Nutzung von stock options habe Enron seit 1996 sogar noch Steuerrück-Erstattungen in Höhe von 382 Millionen Dollar (433 Mill. Euro/6 Mrd. S) lukriert.

Viel Geld um Nichts

Die steuer-schonenden Enron-Töchter lagen laut einer Aufstellung für Dezember 2000 hauptsächlich in der Karibik, und zwar auf den Cayman Inseln (662) und den Turk und Caicos-Inseln (119).
Zusätzlich schöpfte Enron eine weitere steuer-schonende Taktik voll aus: Die Nutzung von stock options durch das Management. Die Enron-Spitze hatte in den Boom-Jahren bei einem bis auf 90 Dollar gestiegenen Aktienkurs durch den Verkauf großer Aktienpakete zig Millionen Dollar verdient. Alleine im Jahr 2000 wurde dadurch eine theoretische Einkommenssteuer-Verpflichtung von 112 Millionen Dollar in eine Steuerrück-Vergütung von 278 Millionen Dollar "umgedreht".

Laut einer Studie der Gruppe "Bürger für Steuergerechtigkeit" ist Enrons erfolgreiche Politik der Steuer-Vermeidung kein Einzelfall. Eine kleine aber steigende Anzahl von Groß-Unternehmen zahle überhaupt keine Einkommensteuern mehr. Bei einer Untersuchung der Hälfte der im Fortune 500 aufgelisteten Firmen habe sich gezeigt, dass im Jahr 1998 24 Gesellschaften keinen Dollar "income tax" gezahlt hatten

Die fünftgrößte Wirtschaftsprüfungsfirma der Welt -  Andersen  - machts halt möglich.
Aber wahrscheinlich nicht mehr lange, denke ich.

Enron Scandal Widens to Vinson & Elkins, Bush's Single Largest Contributor in 2000

Houston's biggest law firm, Vinson & Elkins, gave its seal of approval to Enron's scandalous accounting procedures, brushing aside Sherron Watkins' warnings to Ken Lay. "The expanding Enron scandal also is putting political heat on President [sic] Bush and his inner circle. Along with Enron, Houston's Vinson & Elkins has been among the big Texas businesses that have been his biggest political patrons. Of the firm's 341 partners, 165 contributed about $204,000 to Mr. Bush's 2000 campaign, according to Thomas Marinis Jr., a firm partner and boyhood friend of the president's [sic]." But "White House spokesman Dan Bartlett says he is unaware of any contacts between Vinson & Elkins attorneys and administration officials about Enron. 'One thing is clear,' he adds. 'This administration has taken no action to benefit or to attempt to help the Enron company.'" That is an UTTER LIE, and the media should make Bartlett eat his words!

Schön das noch Beiträge gelsesen werden, die über Unternehmen berichten

Euer
SC

Wäre ja auch mal ne "Gute Tat", für die er bestimmt auch einige "Gegner" gewinnen könnte.

Politiker sind eh nur Marionetten der Wirtschaft....

A Salon special report
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More than one Enron official warned company about growing crisis
One staff lawyer grew so worried, he secretly hired an outside law firm to review the company's murky business partnerships. Another executive was reassigned after raising alarms.

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By Jake Tapper

Jan. 18, 2002 | In recent weeks, Enron executives have insisted that their controversial -- and ultimately disastrous -- accounting strategies were legally vetted. But Salon has learned that a law firm hired secretly by one of Enron's own attorneys last year recommended that the huge energy trader stop setting up the financial instruments whose exposure later drove the company into bankruptcy.

At the heart of the Enron scandal are a series of complex partnerships that Enron employed to keep billions of dollars of debt off its books -- thus boosting both its quarterly profits and its credit level. Enron executives participated in these partnerships, earning millions of dollars in management fees and raising major conflict-of-interest issues.

 
Embattled Enron CEO Ken Lay has attempted to justify the partnerships by noting that Enron's own staff attorneys as well as those at Vinson & Elkins, its powerful outside law firm, signed off on them. Despite this legal advice, it was reported earlier this week that one Enron executive, Sherron S. Watkins, raised serious questions about the propriety of the partnerships in a memo sent to Lay in late August. Salon has now learned of two other major instances in which Enron executives were told by company colleagues that the partnerships were deeply troubling and possibly illegal.

In one case, an Enron staff attorney took the extraordinarily unusual step of secretly retaining another outside law firm to evaluate the legality of the partnerships set up by then-chief financial officer Andrew Fastow.



 
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Last summer, before Enron was forced to reveal the actual state of its finances, Fastow moved to set up more of these partnerships. But Fastow's plan was blocked when an Enron attorney named Jordan Mintz took matters into his own hands. According to sources inside Enron, Mintz, who had just moved from the company's tax department to its finance department, was so concerned about the questionable nature of the partnerships -- and apparently so worried that Enron's attorneys were too close to the business schemes to judge them correctly -- that he sought a second legal opinion.

Without the knowledge of his boss, Enron chief counsel James Derrick Jr., Mintz hired an outside firm far removed from Enron and its Houston-based firm, Vinson & Elkins, to take a fresh look at the questionable deals. After reviewing the partnerships, the respected New York firm hired by Mintz -- Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson -- recommended to him that Enron stop setting up the the shell partnerships. The New York firm's opinion prompted Mintz to write internal memos to company executives urging Enron to halt the practice -- which they apparently did. In October, Enron fired Fastow. Last month, he hired celebrated attorney David Boies, who represented Vice President Al Gore during his Florida recount battles.

Contacted Wednesday night, Mintz declined to comment, citing attorney-client privilege. When asked about the Mintz retention of outside counsel, Mark Palmer, an Enron spokesman, said "this is the first I've heard of that" and declined to comment further. A spokesman for Fried Frank did not return a call for comment.

Without specifically confirming the Mintz episode, House Energy & Commerce Committee spokesman Ken Johnson said that worried Enron executives did go outside the company for legal advice: "(This) happened in a couple instances. There was more than one person who was spooked by these partnerships."

It is unusual for a corporate lawyer to go behind the back of his boss, the chief counsel, and retain an outside firm to do work for a company. And it was against standard operating procedure at Enron, where chief counsel Derrick had to approve of any outside legal work. But Mintz apparently thought that Derrick, who had worked at Vinson & Elkins before joining Enron, was too much a part of the company's closed culture, in which dubious business practices had become the norm

ist doch total legitim, Steuern sparen zu wollen. Das machen wir doch auch alle so im Rahmen unserer Möglichkeiten.
Ausserdem wären die wohl viel früher weg vom Fenster gewesen, hätten sie immer schön kräftig Steuern zahlen müssen...

Gruß, Ulfie2