The Best Way Yet to Proclaim Love for a Tax Cheat: Jonathan Weil
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Ernst & Young LLP received the usual kid-glove treatment given to too-big-to-fail enterprises when it reached a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department over illegal tax shelters it sold more than a decade ago. The government chose not to prosecute the Big Four accounting firm, and Ernst is getting off by writing a relatively small check.
The $123 million that Ernst must pay is equivalent to the fees it charged for the tax shelters in question. About 200 Ernst clients used the shelters to try to avoid more than $2 billion in taxes. The firm doesn’t even have to pay interest on the ill-gotten proceeds, under the deal revealed last week.