AIG agrees to settle tax shelter lawsuit over 1990s foreign transactions
The IRS found that the insurer's financial products unit used complex transactions to generate bogus credits on foreign taxes that it did not pay.
AIG has agreed to forfeit claims to more than $400 million in foreign tax credits and to pay a 10% penalty to settle a long-running tax shelter lawsuit related to seven cross-border transactions from the mid-1990s, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office announced on Friday (Oct. 23).
Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said in a statement that the U.S. had uncovered “overwhelming evidence” that the insurance company’s financial products unit had used the complex transactions to generate bogus credits on foreign taxes that it did not actually pay, in order to reduce the firm’s liability in the 1997 tax year.
The IRS disallowed the tax credits in 2008, and AIG paid a 20% penalty on the more than $61 million in tax credits it obtained. However, the company sued for a refund the following year.
The government had argued in response that the tax credits should be disallowed because the transactions at issue had “no economic substance,” a basic requirement for seeking tax benefits.
In the statement, Strauss said that AIG had created an “elaborate series of sham transactions that were designed to do nothing — and, in fact, did nothing — other than generate hundreds of millions of dollars in ill-gotten tax benefits for AIG.”
“Our system of taxation is built upon the premise that all citizens and corporations must pay the taxes they owe, no more and no less,” she said. “People and companies who game that system to avoid paying their fair share of taxes undermine public trust in our tax laws.”
A spokeswoman for AIG said on Oct. 23 that the company was “pleased to put this long-standing matter behind us.”
Under the proposed settlement, AIG would give up its claims to the credits and pay the 10% penalty to the IRS, though it would retain certain income expense deductions relating to six of the transactions that were structured as borrowings. The company would also remove certain amounts related to the transactions from its taxable income.
The agreement still needs approval from U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton of the Southern District of New York.
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