Iraq's 'Dirty Harrys' (making $365,000/yr tax-free)

[kurth]

Iraq's 'Dirty Harrys'
The swagger and tactics of private security guards are doing more harm than good.
By David DeVoss
September 23, 2007

Blackwater. The name says it all, conjuring images of imminent danger, hidden predators and night terror. From the moment Blackwater USA arrived in Iraq to protect L. Paul Bremer III's Coalition Provisional Authority until last week, when its guards killed 11 Iraqis and wounded 13 more while escorting a diplomatic convoy through Baghdad, the North Carolina-based private security company has been known for its swaggering image and "Dirty Harry" demeanor. All the U.S. private security armies in Iraq may be cut from the same khaki cloth, but each has its own personality. When I arrived in the country in September 2004 as a senior information officer for the U.S. Agency for International Development, bodyguards with Kroll Inc., whose credo is "in risk there is opportunity," met me at the airport. They were British and Irish veterans of Belfast's "Troubles" and viewed terrorists with a world-weary stoicism.

Our convoy had pulled onto the airport highway and was heading for the Green Zone when three black Chevy Suburbans flashed past. The rear door of the trailing vehicle was open, and inside sat a man dressed in black cradling a large-caliber machine gun. Bandoleers crisscrossed his chest, several handguns and a large knife dangled from his weapons harness and an enormous handlebar mustache covered most of his face. The look was designed to inspire dread, but it was carried to such cartoonish extremes that the man resembled Yosemite Sam more than the Terminator. "That's Blackwater," said the Kroll driver disdainfully. "You'll see a lot of them while you're here."...

Because the Pentagon refused to increase troop levels, the State Department was forced to sign contracts with dozens of private security firms. The companies with government contracts in Iraq have no trouble recruiting people with military or law enforcement experience. Most of the 20,000 guards thought to be working in Iraq come from the rural U.S., where a deputy sheriff is lucky to earn $40,000 a year. In Iraq, where Western bodyguards can earn $2,000 to $4,000 a week working for one of the 37 private security companies registered with the Iraq Ministry of Interior, a job with Blackwater -- which pays bodyguards assigned to the U.S. ambassador $1,000 a day -- is seen as the windfall of a lifetime.

Bodyguards protecting U.S. civilian contractors have one main goal: bring 'em back alive. Innocent Iraqis who get in their way do so at their peril. In 2005, when Kroll lost the USAID security contract to DynCorp International, a Virginia-based military contractor with $2.3 billion in annual revenues, the tactics of protection outside the Green Zone became more like military maneuvers. During a March visit to the Baghdad South Power Plant, our three-car convoy was joined by an OH-6A "Little Bird" helicopter that swooped low over the vehicles whenever we neared an intersection. To avoid congestion, we bounced over traffic medians, ran through a police checkpoint and used an offramp to enter the Doura Expressway, which rings eastern and southern Baghdad. As we sped down the wrong side of the freeway, a DynCorp guard tethered to the helicopter warned approaching traffic to get out of the way by throwing plastic water bottles at cars. The return trip was much the same, save for the Iraqi one of our cars clipped when he walked into the road from between two parked cars. Back inside the Green Zone, I told several colleagues about not stopping after hitting a pedestrian and then asked if I should report DynCorp's behavior to the U.S. Embassy. "You got back safely, didn't you?" came the response. "So what's your problem?"...

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-devoss23sep23,0,1560301.story?coll=la-opinion-center

[Retired AF Dem]

1. 365,000 tax free?

I have worked overseas and I thought the first 75,000 was tax free.

[mvccd1000]

2. Tax Free?

If you work for a US-based company, you have to spend 330 days out of a 365 day period outside of the United States. If you do this, you are eligible to exclude (currently) $82,500 of your income from taxes. All of the remaining income is taxed at the tax rate of your total income.

There are no exceptions to the 330-day rule. If you break your leg and go home with 10-1/2 months out of the US, you will pay taxes on all of the income.

IRS Publication 54 spells out these rules in great detail.

Note: A few of the companies in Iraq get around this by hiring all of their US employees through off-shore subsidiaries. Other companies hire non-US workers. (There are a lot of Bosnians performing administrative jobs in Iraq, for example.)

For US companies hiring US workers, though, the rule is 330 days out of the country in any 365 day period in order to exclude the $82.5k. No exceptions, and no way to exclude more than that. Someone making $365k is going to pay taxes on $282.5k.

[scarface2004]

3. they are paid in cash under the table...none of this is reported!

besides being sadistic killers, these guys are felony tax evaders! maybe we can get them like ness got capone!!