Hedge funds using Bermuda and reinsurance to avoid taxes

Yet more non-shocking, but completely repulsive news: these crooks aka "managers" and "best and brightest" are setting up reinsurance companies in Bermuda to help them avoid taxes in the US. The link's at the bottom. John Paulson and others involved. There's also a link to the IRS because maybe they might care to end these games (or crimes) by the big boys.

Yes, that's right, hedge fund managers now of all a sudden are interested in the reinsurance game. The funny thing about that (besides the obvious fact that insurance used to have nothing to do with hedge funds and banksters) is that AIG was also a big reinsurance player, was actually involved in the game (not strictly for tax purposes), linked to Bermuda, and still faced destroying the entire global economy unless we, the taxpayers, bailed it out.

But now we have billionaire idiots that can't beat market indexes, earning billions in management fees, and are getting into "insurance" in tax havens for a very obvious purpose of avoiding US taxes. Oh, to top it off, their entry into the actual reinsurance game puts us all, again, at very real risk because INSURANCE and REINSURANCE aren't supposed to be tools for tax evasion, but are actually supposed to be safe, conservative backups when things go wrong for people and businesses that rely on it. No taxes, companies and individuals brazenly evading US taxes by setting up sham or legitimate companies meant solely to avoid taxes, money laundering?, and endangering the global economy once again. How are these not sham companies and transactions a la Enron and KPMG and Arthur Andersen? Hey, buddy, can you spare a dime, because close to 30 million of us here never evaded taxes, never laundered money, but we can't afford to feed ourselves or families and we're scum? Screw this circus, it's vomit-inducing.

And of course regulators, bankster-owned media, big law firms, politicians, and anyone else in the corruption game will say it's all legal and fine because of a "lack of clarity" or it's not illegal at the same time demanding less regulation and fewer laws and ethics because rules, laws, ethics, and enforcement only hurt tax-evading banksters and job killers. $1 billion? Damn, these people begrudge the little folks that want to earn $30,000, or $50,000, or $60,000 for jobs that actually help other people or create real value, but not paying $1 in taxes is too much for them? Here are the links.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-19/paulson-leads-funds-to-bermuda-...

http://www.irs.gov/

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Comments

like most loopholes it's confusing to understand

This paragraph from the Bloomberg article gives the mechanics:

Here’s the catch: The IRS doesn’t penalize earnings from insurance companies, which it considers to be “active” businesses. As a result, by routing money through a Bermuda reinsurer, which in turn puts its assets back into their own hedge funds, fund managers can defer any taxes until selling the stake. They then pay only the lower capital gains tax rate.

Figuring out how each one of these loopholes works is a major study and that's why lobbyists demand and write them into legislation. Takes forever to figure out how they even work.

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Purposely confusing - always to the banksters' benefit

Isn't it always amazing though? If an average person tried to claim he was confused, the quick response from the officer/agent and prosecutor would obviously be: "ignorance of the law is no excuse." And rightfully so. But when it comes to the people that actually control the lawmaking process, they demand laws and regulations be written so that they simply can't be understood. And when the IRS or Congress is confused, why the lobbyists and big money will provide law firms and consultants to explain the very same laws. And then, when the same people that literally have laws written for them get caught because someone has had enough of the sham, they claim ignorance and get away with it.

That's how empty the "rule of law" has become. When they can write the laws (but we can't) and they escape any enforcement when it goes against them (but we can't), the law should carry no weight because it is form without substance.

The government should be concerned also because this just smacks of an incredible way to launder money. Besides tax evasion or fraud (transactions and businesses whose primary purpose are shams and are likely to avoid taxes pending the evidence), this massive movement of $ offshore and back again is a money launderer's dream. It's unbelievable that following 9/11 and the whole "follow the money/stop terrorist and drug cartel financing" these people still move billions of dollars around without being stopped or even questioned about it. Tax evasion + money laundering in 2013 - now who among the 99% can get away with that and still be called upstanding and avoid a few decades in prison?

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