William Tyson - Faculty Research in Knowledge@Wharton

Tax Shelters: Exotic or Just Plain Illegal?

Wed, 08 Mar 2006 19:25:22 EST

They were unusual tax shelters that went by incomprehensible names like BLIPS, OPIS, BOSS and FLIP -- and they boomeranged on the companies that sold them. In February, German bank HVB Group agreed to pay $29.6 million in fines to avoid indictment for defrauding the Internal Revenue Service with abusive tax shelters that gave rich clients phony losses to reduce taxes. The settlement was part of a broadening investigation into shelters that wealthy individuals used to escape about $2.5 billion in taxes from the mid-1990s through 2003, according to the government. What is a tax shelter, and more importantly, what is an illegal one?

Advice for Enron Litigants: Keep It Simple

Wed, 01 Mar 2006 16:50:55 EST

It took prosecutors just over four years to work their way up the Enron food chain, but now the failed energy company's top former executives, Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, are facing a jury in a federal criminal fraud trial expected to last at least four months. How can each side best present a complex story that involves exotic derivatives products, off-books accounting and strange subsidiaries with names like Raptor? Experts say they should apply lessons learned in the other high-profile corporate fraud cases of the Enron era: Keep it simple.

SEC's Spotlight on Executive Pay: Will It Make a Difference?

Wed, 08 Feb 2006 16:48:07 EST

Compensation for American CEOs has soared over the past decade, far exceeding inflation and wage gains of ordinary workers -- and leading critics to charge that self-serving insiders have tilted the playing field at shareholders' expense. In response, the Securities and Exchange Commission on January 17 took the first step toward adopting rules to better show shareholders how much their top executives and directors are paid. Will that drive executive pay down? Probably not, say several Wharton professors, arguing that executive pay is not necessarily as excessive as the most extreme cases suggest. Still, they agree that more complete disclosure would improve the system. As one expert puts it: "When people are forced to undress in public, they pay attention to their figures."

E-Commerce: The Taxman Cometh...Or Does He?

Wed, 20 Apr 2005 15:36:00 EST

As the April 15 deadline for filing taxes in the U.S. approaches, several eBay "power sellers" -- those who make a tidy sum each year auctioning items on the site -- are nervous about a crackdown by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The issue, however, goes far beyond just eBay or even income tax, according to experts at Wharton and elsewhere. As the volume of e-commerce transactions increases, so does the temptation to put the tax bite on them.

From Consolidation to Regulation FD: Financial Services Face a Major Upheaval

Wed, 07 Nov 2001 00:00:00 EST

In discussing the state of the financial services industry, it�s hard not to reference the events of Sept. 11. Yet even before that day, the industry was undergoing a number of changes that will affect customers, employees, analysts, managers and others. These changes, and the outlook ahead, were the focus of two Wharton conferences last month.

Small Investors Should Profit from New SEC Disclosure Regulation

Wed, 30 Aug 2000 13:28:04 EST

Earlier this month the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission put what it hopes will be an end to a common form of insider trading, the kind that happens when information that can affect a company�s stock price is given quietly to select analysts and/or favored investors before being made available to the public. Small investors, among others, had long wondered why such a practice was ever allowed in the first place. The answer, says Wharton legal studies professor William Tyson, can be found in a 1983 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.