In 2004, FRONTLINE investigated the rampant abuse of tax shelters dating back to the late 1990s, finding that some of America’s most respected accounting firms were responsible and that American taxpayers were paying for it. (Aired 2004)
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As the documentary “Tax Me If You Can” explored, the tax shelter became one of corporate America’s biggest hidden profit centers in the 1990s and early 2000s. The General Accounting Office estimated that bogus tax shelters at the time cost the government more than $85 billion.
Correspondent Hedrick Smith spoke with government officials, tax experts and industry insiders to expose these tax shelters. His reporting led him to some unexpected places — from the city of Dortmund, Germany, to the Cayman Islands. The documentary examined how difficult it was for the Internal Revenue Service to find tax shelters and how the tax shelter wave prompted a federal investigation. The ultimate victim in this scheme, experts in the documentary said, is the honest taxpayer who is left to make up what companies aren’t paying.
“Tax Me If You Can” is a FRONTLINE production with Hedrick Smith Productions. The co-writer, director and producer is Rick Young. The co-writer, correspondent and senior producer is Hedrick Smith.
Explore additional reporting on “Tax Me If You Can” on our website:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/tax/
#Documentary #Taxes #TaxShelter
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FRONTLINE is produced at GBH in Boston and airs nationwide on PBS.
Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Additional funding is provided by the Abrams Foundation; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; Park Foundation; the Heising-Simons Foundation; and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and additional support from Koo and Patricia Yuen.
CHAPTERS:
Prologue – 00:00
America’s Tax Shelter Epidemic – 1:17
How American Companies Used Cross-Border Leasing Deals For Tax Benefits – 4:06
IRS Struggled Amid ‘90s Tax Shelter Epidemic – 11:07
Steering The Wealthy Into Tax Schemes – 22:20
A Federal Investigation Into Tax Shelter Abuses – 35:09
Tax Schemes Adapt To New Rules – 43:28
Credits – 52:40
Since “Tax Me If You Can” originally broadcast in February 2004, federal prosecutors filed the largest criminal tax case in U.S. history against the accounting firm KPMG LLP on Aug. 29, 2005. For more on this update, visit our website: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/tax/etc/update.html
Welcome to Corporate America, where the working class and poor pay for the rich to get a 4th mansion or a new Bentley, DONALD 🤬🤬🤬
Naziz Descendants Are Orchestrating Behind The Scenes Causing Inducing Harm
Article 1 Section 8 of the US Constitution shows clearly that this 'IRS' has no legal right to exist in the first place. The entire structure of unlawfully delegating taxation to the executive branch has created, throughout the nation's history, a nation of tax cheats and money-launderers, easily avoiding taxation by every means available.
As meanwhile, those who stupidly define their rights and liberties in terms of being 'taxpayers' continue to pretend not to notice that the only purpose of this 'income tax' system has always been universal surveillance and sustaining an atmosphere of compliance for its own sake with regime demands, having nothing at all to do with gathering revenue, which is handily gathered instead by extending the regime's credit further and deeper into the permanent insolvency which has cursed the nation for generations. Leaving the 'taxpayer' to service the interest and stand as collateral, for debts no 'taxpayer' had ever been any party to.
EVERYTHING about this system of 'taxation' is anti-constitutional and fraudulent, as all the while anyone with the means to hire CPAs to cook their books, and lawyers to litigate away their money-laundering, can bask in untaxed wealth at their ease.
AND EVERYONE KNOWS THIS.
Any financial institutions in America should only be able to invest in America and it should be in no way purely a tax reduction device. Is that so complicated? Keeping it here and legit is essential.
And here we are in 2025 and the country of USA is being injured bye this insane concept.
I'm sick of corporations & the wealthy avoiding taxes.
One law that absolutely MUST be mandatory. Any law firm or private tax advisory firm that provides legal instruction on your financial practices should be responsible both financially AND criminally if/when the IRS audits and applies penalties and fees.
Stop blaming the corporations, tax lawyers and consultants for doing perfectly legal activity. Here is the simple fact about the rich not paying more taxes. Most tax shelters and avoidance systems are not criminal. Congress has legislated these massive opportunities to offset taxes. Why do you think the tax code is nearly 7000 pages? The reason those exceptions, shelters, etc are in the code is so that the congressmen and their big donors can avoid paying taxes as much as possible. Instead of making new law/tax codes to stop specific loopholes, how about we change the underlying code that allows the loopholes in the first place? Why don't they "fix" the problem that actual problem instead of using band-aides to stop the bleeding? Its obvious. THEY and their benefactors are reaping the same benefits of the tax code and congress is all about their own self interest. If YOU could write a law allowing you to hide income and avoid paying some or all of your taxes, you would. When the "cheaters" are the ones in charge of fixing the cheating, do you really think anything is going to change?
Relatedly, we could eliminate both all the tax code AND most of the IRS if we simply went to a usage-based tax code. Eliminate all income/revenue tax, wealth tax, estate tax, even property tax and shift to a 100% sales tax system. In virtually all cases, the more money you have, the more money you spend. With no tax avoidance system other than "don't spend your money," no one could avoid paying taxes. To avoid this from overly impacting the economically poor, you make essential goods and service tax exempt, but keep the list small. You include most food products minus maybe some non-essential processed foods. Also, you make public utilities tax exempt so you do not have to pay taxes on consumption of water, gas, or electricity. You also make children's clothing tax exempt. That's it. Everything else is taxed on sale from candy to real estate. The overall sales tax rate would need to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 20-22%. The beauty of the program is that no one would be losing their family home because they didn't pay their property taxes or income taxes. No one would be penalized for being more affluent. You could control your tax burden by choosing what to buy and when. And on top it of, we would never have to file annual taxes. It would save millions in tax dollars but reducing the size of the IRS and it would also save citizens from having to pay a tax preparer at the end of the year to make sense of their tax return. Finally, the government could have the ability to increase/decrease the sale tax rate annually to match times of affluence and depression. Simple and easy-peasy.
It should be noted that several times in recent years the Democratic leaders have tried to pass legislation, giving additional funding to the IRS to go after specifically the complicated tax schemes. It takes a lot of resources and skilled workers to mount a case against the lawyers and accountants working for the wealthy.
DO NOT ALLOW THIS!!!!! Pebble Mine doesn't give 2 cents about the American Indains that America put over in Alaska for starters. Seems they are dumb to the sciences, "We Think" well buddy "THINKING" doesn't cut it. They will not show their findings because of the water situation. The underground water system will be F..KED. The tailings dams are a joke, it was stated the reasons for tailings dam failures, then turn around and admit that Alaska gets substantial rain fall, that leaves one wondering. They cannot guarantee the damns will remain in tact. Alaska has recorded 2nd strongest recorded earthquake @ 9.2. Pebble Mine is at the end of the fault line, so we will build a damn to withstand a 7. whatever. The damn should be built to withstand at least a 9.0 earthquake. Pebble is already short coming the Indain nation. Pebble is only concerned about their back pockets at the end of the day and F..K THE PEOPLE.
Do you want to be depressed? Try binge-watching 4 or 5 Frontline docs while knowing that there isn't a damn thing you can do about ANY of the mentioned issues. Oof-ta may.
Did u see this guys face he didn’t care about nothing but himself & didn’t owe anyone a explain ok I see how the world works that’s cute my man. This is a good example
Ppl never work hard for corporations & ppl I’m general they will always value themselves over u
"2X the refund if they collected the correct tax." How much does the fed refund in total each tax year? It is in fact a 1 year interest FREE loan. Your government thanks you for your service.
IF I'M NOT MISTAKEN, WHEN I WAS A YOUNG MAN- SOME DECADES AGO- THE VAST FINANCIAL SUPPORT OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT RESOURCES CAME FROM CORPORATE TAXES, INTENDED TO RUN IT. THEN CAME DEREGULATION- THANKS TO THE 'GIPPER'.. AND EVERYTHING CHANGED- THE DECLINE OF THE MIDDLE CLASS BEGINS.
Every person and every company should be required to pay all their taxes. This would keep the United States out of debt, rebuild our infrastructure and fund aid programs in the US and around the world.
Obama criminalized the IRS. Obama is a criminal.
The AUDACITY of Congress to Lecture & Scrutinize us on Money Management!
Mr. Crutchfield has himself a problem. He’s the master of a bank yet he doesn’t know how his bottom line is being drawn out that’s dangerous because it says heat is not aware of what the people under his command are doing. That’s even more dangerous and he is required to be responsible for the people under his command and yet he doesn’t know what they’re doing. That’s a serious problem. He probably shouldn’t be working as the CEO of this bank under any circumstances and if he’s gonna be doing that he needs to know what’s going on and if he doesn’t know what’s going on then fire him and get somebody else who does know what’s going on and that way they can do the job that we pay them to Doit also means that they have to pay their taxes on time
No one would complain about taxes if EVERYONE paid their fair share, rich people, already holding upwards of 90% of the wealth of this country, are still haggling to not pay for what they benefit from. I hate American greed and those at the bottom who don't place the blame at the right people, those rich bastards that pay off and place politicians to push their personal agendas. It's truly disgusting
Better yet … watch 'America, Freedom to Fascism' (2006)
THE GOOD OLD FASHION SHELL GAME LADY N GENTLEMAN CACH ME IF YOU CAN 😮😮😮
… this is becoming tiring… why should corporations not dodge taxes… if death and taxes is a given in life, dodging taxes should be a sport… a natural game born out of the instinct to hold on to ones hard eatned sweat… of all the benefits that corporations adorn the societies they operate in, they should not even pay taxes… yet, they do… and they simply make use of the tax code with its guidelines… a code which is fair because it takes into consideration the vagaries of doing busines in all it's infinite permitations… yet, the uninformed sit around and only complain as if to say the existence of corporations is a gift from providence for the benefit of the societies in which they ooerate … try running a business if you think it is easy… if not, ask yourself why many ventures fail… no company ever thrived because it is operated like a picnic party… or, its founder a simpleton with a lot of benevolence. Corporations are not beneficiaries of the generosity of society nor… an entitlement to it either. The two are mutually inclusive…. symbiotic.
I work for KPMG. I'm a little ashamed about this.
Capitalism at its finest. Many support it but it doesn’t support you. Many small business owners have such bad attitudes and so racist that they deserve to go out of business. They don’t speak to you when you enter their business nor do they acknowledge when you leave. Fk em
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Personally, l've been filing taxes since 1979 (l still have every single income tax form since then). I know people that don't even file😮😮😮😮😮, why 🤔?
My mom is 102, yes, 102 and is still filing her taxes! She even does her own banking! I love Frontline and their documentaries however they can be rather depressing with what they are sharing about disturbing situations!
These guys spend far too much time ripping off people! It would be easier just to file your taxes honestly!
And remember people, no one went to jail over this.
If I was the IRS, with regard to two books, take the books they put out on Wall Street for the profits side and tax it. This is why Americans don’t want to pay taxes and do cash deals. We know the corporation is paying less and less (Trump is lowering this from 34% to 21% to 15% and they were already paying 17% now 5-7% to soon to be 1-2%.
Muust watch to see why Trump, DOGE and GOP what to destroy PBS and the IRS !!!
The federal government can close this loop holes and from criminal charges. They don’t because they use these same holes to exploit the system.