Senate report says dividend taxes being dodged
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. financial institutions are using stock swaps and intricate loan transactions to help foreign investors avoid paying billions of dollars in taxes on dividends paid by U.S. companies, according to a Senate report to be released on Thursday.
The report by the U.S. Senate Homeland Security subcommittee on permanent investigations said investment bankers use phrases like "dividend enhancement," "yield enhancement" and "dividend uplift" to market an array of transactions "whose major purpose is to enable non-U.S. persons to dodge payment of U.S. taxes on stock dividends."
Committee Chairman Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who along with Minnesota Republican Sen. Norm Coleman led the year-long investigation into these transactions, said the Internal Revenue Service has not done enough to crack down on abusive swap and loan transactions.
"There is no business purpose other than avoiding taxes," Levin told reporters at a briefing on Wednesday. "The IRS ought to go after that, they ought to go after that heavily, they have not."
The committee estimates that using offshore entities to avoid paying U.S. taxes costs the federal treasury about $100 billion annually. The report did not put a specific amount on tax losses due to stock swaps and loans transactions with offshore entities, but said the amount is "substantial."
The IRS is scheduled to testify before the subcommittee at a public hearing on Thursday.
The report provided case studies of transactions by six financial institutions: Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank AG, UBS AG, Merrill Lynch & Co Inc and Citigroup Inc.
Representatives of Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank are due to testify on Thursday. Representatives of hedge fund managers Maverick Capital Ltd, Highbridge Capital Management LLC, and Angelo, Gordon & Co are also set to testify.
Levin said transactions aimed at avoiding U.S. dividend taxes have become widespread in the offshore hedge fund industry and that some of the funds function as shell companies controlled by Americans.
"It adds insult to injury when so-called 'offshore' hedge funds turn out to have a shell operation offshore and their real headquarters are in the United States with U.S. personnel advising them on how to dodge U.S. taxes," said Levin.
The report recommended Congress enact legislation to make it clear that foreign investors cannot avoid U.S. dividend taxes by using a swap or stock loan to disguise dividend payments. It also encouraged the IRS to take tough enforcement action against transactions that have no economic purpose other than to avoid taxes.
The report also recommended IRS tighten its rules to make sure that dividend equivalent payments made in an equity swap transaction are taxable just like direct dividend payments to investors.
(Editing by Tim Dobbyn)
