PBS Attacks Leasing Tax Shelters

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/tax/etc/synopsis.htm

   and American money overseas plays the same “game”:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/tax/schemes/germany.html

    Interviews:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/tax/interviews/

"The Bush administration budget also targets leasing transactions. Treasury Secretary John Snow, while testifying before the Senate Budget Committee, said the leasing deals are unacceptable tax avoidance schemes that "need to be stopped." While testifying on the budget before the House Ways and Means Committee, outgoing Assistant Treasury Secretary for Tax Policy Pamela Olson targeted transactions known as sale-in, lease-out or SILOs as abusive transactions that the administration proposes to limit. Olson said that internal Treasury data showed that as much as $750 billion of SILO transactions -- which involve leasing arrangement with tax-indifferent parties (such as foreign governments, domestic municipalities and tax-exempt organizations) -- have occurred in the past four years. She described the SILO deals as, "a threat to the viability of the corporate tax base" and testified that, "Indeed, the magnitude of SILO transactions is such that the Treasury Department had to re-estimate and reduce its baseline estimate of corporate tax receipts over the ten-year budget window." While calling on Congress to address the SILO transactions, Olson maintained that the administration is supportive of and does not want to interfere with legitimate leasing transactions.

"In a December 2003 interview with FRONTLINE, Olson maintained that increased penalties on both shelter promoters and shelter investors are an important part of the administration's efforts to curb abusive shelters. 'We're talking about very substantial increases in penalties,' she said. "You know, an ''I'm going to take your house' kind of fine'."

   http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/tax/reform/pending.html