"Whew. Another article about the Miers pick. And just in time."
lol
Has this been posted:
Oct. 10 (Bloomberg) — The Dallas law firm headed by U.S. Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers helped accounting firm Ernst & Young LLP sell a sham tax shelter in 1999 by providing letters to shield customers from IRS penalties, a Senate investigation found.
The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said in February that the firm, Locke, Liddell & Sapp, provided “deficient”‘ opinion letters to support the shelter, which was used to convert highly taxed ordinary income into lower-taxed capital gains. Ernst & Young sold the shelter to more than 132 taxpayers, netting fees of more than $27.8 million, the report said. The Internal Revenue Service banned the transaction in May 2002. […]
Locke, Liddell & Sapp’s endorsement of the tax shelter may complicate Miers’s quest for Senate confirmation to the Supreme Court given that she headed the firm in 1999 and President George W. Bush emphasized that in nominating her. […]
At least one unidentified Ernst & Young client dubbed the transaction a “classic sham tax shelter” and criticized the “weak legal analysis” provided by Locke, Liddell & Sapp, the Senate report said.
Ernst & Young paid a $15 million fine to settle a case with the IRS over its tax shelter promotions in July 2003.