Only 23 of the 470 firms taxes have been looked at and 13 of the 23 owe back taxes. Two of them (unnamed) owe more than $100 million each.
http://www.google.com/...
Notable in this story is another example of how "contract" appears to have different applications when it comes to financial executives, auto workers, the government, and taxpayers. It appears that at least some contracts are simply made to be broken.
Banks and other firms receiving federal money were required to sign contracts stating they had no unpaid taxes, Lewis said. But he said the Treasury Department did not ask them to turn over their tax records.
A House Ways and Means subcommittee (not the Treasury?) made the discovery. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
The House Ways and Means subcommittee on oversight discovered the unpaid taxes in a review of tax records from 23 of the firms receiving the most money, [Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., chairman of a House subcommittee overseeing the federal bailout]said as he opened a hearing on the issue.
The committee said it could not legally release the names of the companies owing taxes. It said one recipient had almost $113 million in unpaid federal income taxes from 2005 and 2006. A second recipient owed almost $102 million dating to before 2004. Another was behind $1.1 million in federal income taxes and $223,000 in federal employment taxes.
"If we looked at all 470 recipients, how much would they owe?" Lewis asked.
All 240 companies need to be investigated on back taxes and all their other records. All non-participating financial institutions, insurance companies, etc. who owe any back taxes also need to be looked at. The public deserves to know this information and the names need to be released.
There is so much more to be concerned about with the TARP program than AIG bonuses. There is so much more that is not known about the whole mess and there appears to be no investigation or verification on information coming from these firms. Giving false answers in a contract with the government is fraud and the amount of money involved makes the Madoff scheme look like peanuts. Where are Treasury and Justice on any of this?
To date, the Troubled Asset Relief Program has paid out more than $300 billion to private companies, with billions more on the way.