DODD'S WIFE, TOO, HAD MONEY LINK TO AIG

Senate banking-committee Chairman Christopher Dodd who has received $280,000 in campaign contributions from AIG isn't the only person in his family to benefit from a relationship with the embattled insurance behemoth.

His wife, Jackie Clegg Dodd, worked as an outside "director" for a Bermuda-based company affiliated with AIG, according to a report.

The Connecticut Democrat's wife worked at IPC Holdings Ltd. for three years, beginning in 2001, according to a proxy statement obtained by Real Clear Politics.

She was paid $12,000 a year for her job, plus an extra $1,000 for every directors and committee meeting she attended, according to the Web site.

AIG was one of the original IPC shareholders but sold its 24 percent stake in 2006, two years after Mrs. Dodd stopped working there.

"To try to connect the AIG bonuses and my wife's service on the board of this company, which ended five years ago, is nothing more than a cheap political attack," Sen. Dodd said.

As chairman of the Senate's influential Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, Sen. Dodd has been smack in the middle of the furor surrounding the $165 million in bonus payouts to AIG execs.

He helped craft the controversial bill that ended up giving hefty bonuses to the very execs who torpedoed the company.

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Congress members’ spouses earn big - State’s lawmakers disclose earnings
Connecticut Post (Bridgeport, CT) - Sunday, June 15, 2003
Author: PETER URBAN

WASHINGTON - As they toil away under the Capitol dome, Connecticut lawmakers have relied on their spouses in varying measures to bring home the bacon.

Rep. Christopher Shays’ wife works for the Peace Corps.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s husband is an internationally known pollster.

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd’s wife has her own consulting business.

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman’s wife has been on the speech circuit for the last two years.

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Sen. Christopher Dodd As a bachelor in 1992, Dodd reported less than $30,000 in assets in two bank accounts. And he earned $400 for a cameo appearance in the movie, “Dave.” Dodd donated his fee to charity.

Now married, Dodd has a cottage in Ireland worth between $100,000 and $250,000, and a Senate credit union account worth between $15,000 and $50,000. Dodd owes between $115,000 and $300,000 on mortgages on the Irish cottage.

His wife, Jackie Clegg , operates her own consulting firm and serves as a director of a Bermuda-based reinsurance company, IPC Holdings , Ltd.

Clegg owns property in Utah and a condominium in Washington, D.C., that together are valued between $30,000 and $100,000. She also has a Senate credit union account worth between $50,000 and $100,000.

“She’s got her own career here,” said Ryan McGinn, a spokeswoman for Dodd.

A Utah native, Clegg came to the nation’s capital fresh out of college to work for former Sen. Jacob Garn, R-Utah, and then as a staff member for the Senate Committee on Banking. After a decade working on Capitol Hill, Clegg was appointed to the Export-Import Bank in 1993.

President Clinton appointed her first vice president and vice chairman of the Export-Import Bank in 1997, where she served until his term expired. Clegg opened her own consulting firm after leaving the bank. She was also asked to become a director of IPC Holdings .

Dodd, a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, spearheaded legislation that offers insurance companies some protection from massive losses due to terrorist attacks. McGinn said Dodd’s work on that legislation was largely at the behest of Hartford-based insurance companies and had absolutely no connection with Clegg .

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Tax stances of senators don’t match wives’ deals
Norwich Bulletin (CT) - Monday, September 6, 2004
Author: Norwich Bulletin, Katherine Hutt Scott, Staff
By KATHERINE HUTT SCOTT

Norwich Bulletin

WASHINGTON - Connecticut’s Democratic senators, Joe Lieberman and Christopher Dodd, want to eliminate a legal loophole that allows U.S. companies to reincorporate overseas - often in Bermuda - to avoid taxes.

But the senators’ wives have had financial or business interests that aren’t completely compatible with the goal of ending corporate tax evasion.

Lieberman’s wife, Hadassah, owns stock valued at between $1,001 and $15,000 in Tyco International Ltd., according to the senator’s 2003 personal financial disclosure form filed with the Senate. Tyco, formerly based in New Hampshire, reincorporated in Bermuda in 1997 to legally reduce its U.S. tax burden.

Dodd’s wife, Jackie Clegg , served on the board of Bermuda-based IPC Holdings Ltd., a reinsurance company, according to Dodd’s 2003 disclosure form. The company’s offshore location allows another U.S. firm that is a major shareholder in IPC Holdings to avoid paying some taxes to the federal government.

The senators say there is no inconsistency between their public positions and their wives’ financial or business dealings.

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Dodd voted in favor of the bill to stop U.S. companies from reincorporating overseas to avoid taxes both times the measure has come to a vote in the Senate, spokesman Marvin Fast said.

“The fact that Senator Dodd has consistently and repeatedly fought legislatively to enact the tax reform measure should highlight in no uncertain terms his independence on this issue,” Fast said.

Passage of the legislation would not change the law that allows American International Group Inc. - the firm with a stake in IPC Holdings - to avoid paying some taxes. But Fast said Dodd would be “willing to review” any proposals to change that law. There has been no push in Congress for a change.

Larry Noble, executive director of the watchdog group Center for Responsive Politics, said Hadassah Lieberman’s investment in Tyco and Clegg ‘s former seat on the board of IPC Holdings “reflect low levels of hypocrisy” because their husbands support closing the reincorporation tax loophole.

“The next step is to put their money where their beliefs are,” Noble said. “Which is to say that you don’t invest in companies or be involved with companies that are acting contrary to our national interest.”

Noble added, “The bills still have to be paid, so the tax burden is then shifted to the average citizen who can’t take advantage of these tax loopholes.”

Spokespeople for Sens. Lieberman and Dodd said the senators’ wives would not comment.

Twenty-four U.S. companies have relocated to the Caribbean tax havens of Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Panama and Antigua, according to a list compiled by Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass. Most went overseas between 1997 and 2002, as companies came under increasing pressure to report profits, said Peg McGlinch, Neal’s legislative director.

Bermuda, the most popular offshore location, has no corporate income tax. The U.S. corporate income tax rate is 35 percent.

Dodd and Lieberman were early co-sponsors of legislation introduced by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, that would change the tax code to require U.S. companies that reincorporate overseas in the future to pay taxes. The bill also would limit the ability of Tyco and other companies that have already moved offshore to reap tax benefits. That legislation is part of a major tax bill under consideration by Congress.

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Dodd’s wife served as a director of IPC Holdings from July 2001 until this past March, according to documents the company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company was created with capital raised by AIG, an insurance company, and other investors in 1993, after Hurricane Andrew decimated the reinsurance industry, IPC Holdings President Jim Bryce said.

Bermuda was an attractive location as a major insurance market. It also offered a tax advantage for AIG

That’s because AIG owns only 24.3 percent of IPC Holdings . By law, U.S. investors or companies that own less than 25 percent of a foreign insurance company don’t have to pay taxes on their share of the foreign company’s income, said Philip West, an international tax lawyer in Washington.

In 2003, IPC Holdings reported a profit of $260.6 million, according to filings with the Securities Exchange Commission.

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