Kucinich panel to investigate Citigroup tax ruling

[mcablue]

Source: Washington Post

By Binyamin Appelbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 18, 2009

A House subcommittee said Thursday that it will investigate the Treasury Department's decision to change a long-standing law so that Citigroup could keep billions of dollars in tax breaks.

Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio) called Treasury's action a "farce" and an "outrage" during a hearing Thursday of the domestic policy subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Kucinich, the subcommittee chairman, said that he would demand an explanation from Treasury officials.

"This committee is not going to rest until we've examined this last deal threadbare, until we have spoken to every individual associated with it, examined every communication related to it, with every person that may have had an interest in it, or who may have had some kind of a channel of influence," Kucinich said.

The Internal Revenue Service, an arm of Treasury, ruled last Friday that Citigroup could keep $38 billion in tax breaks that otherwise would decline in value as the government sells its stake in the company. Federal law lets companies shelter profits from taxes in good years based on the amount of losses in previous bad years. But the law restricts the use of past losses if a company changes hands, to discourage profitable companies from buying unprofitable firms to avoid paying taxes.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/17/AR2009121704347.html?hpid=topnews

[LakeSamish706]

1. Does anyone really doubt who our President should have been? Yeah, I know that there are

things that Dennis has said and done that piss people off, but compared to the current President and the previous one, he is heads above their goals for the American people.

[girl gone mad]

2. I do believe there may be corruption afoot.

This deal did not make an iota of sense from the standpoint of the government.

I have seen speculation that this was an underhanded route to encourage more lending activity through increased recapitalization. But then why make a one-off deal for Citi alone, done only to let them off the hook on TARP restrictions? IOW, the balance sheet didn't really change, but now the looting can begin and the only bailout people play close attention to looks slightly less skeevy in the general public's eyes (yay, they paid back TARP!1!). Something is very wrong here. Not only did we miss another perfect opportunity to make some demands of Citi, but we essentially paid them to get out of a program with some controls that they already desperately wanted out of.

[Dr.Phool]

5. Bob Rubin, ex CEO of Shitibank, to the President.

"Who's your daddy"?!?

I'm outraged that I STILL have to get so outraged.

[Better Today]

3. Kucinich rocks!

[Bushknew]

4. This is leadership.nt

[G_j]

6. doing the right thing again

Oh, I mean, grandstanding..
:sarcasm:

[Vidar]

7. K&R.

[Zorra]

8. Looks like somebody is in deep doo-doo. When DK finds the bribes,

this could get real interesting.
:popcorn:

[Earth_First]

9. But, but, but... Kucinich only offers window dressing

He never really offers anything substantial towards real political action!

Where are the unrec-bots with this one?!