Friday, November 2, 2007

IRS Probes Hedge Funds, Buyout Firms for Tax Abuses

If you can't trust a hedge fund manager...
Donald Alexander, a former IRS commissioner, said the new inquiry may reveal even more abuses than the executive-pay probe, which focused on the use of family limited partnerships, deferred-compensation arrangements, abusive ``split-dollar'' life insurance arrangements, golden parachutes, and stock options involving phantom companies.

``My guess is that hedge-fund types are less likely to comply than corporate CEOs,'' said Alexander, who is now at the Washington law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP. ``Taking risks is their stock in trade.''

Never mind. Here's the story from Bloomberg.