It has been confirmed that several of the companies which fraudulently inflated their profits may now be seeking tax refunds on the overpaid amounts which they invented! From the
Toronto Star:
QUOTE
WorldCom Inc., Enron Corp., Qwest Communications International Inc. and HealthSouth Corp. are either pursuing or considering filing for tax refunds or credits for payments made on billions of dollars falsely claimed as earnings, the Senate finance committee aide said, confirming a report in the Wall Street Journal...
HealthSouth, which has not decided whether to seek a refund, said it overpaid $300 million in federal taxes because of inflated income. "Logically, if we overpaid taxes on income we didn't have, we may seek a refund," HealthSouth spokesperson Andy Brimmer told the Journal.
"Logically", perhaps, but
legally? Seriously, this strikes me as being similar to the boy who murders his parents then seeks leniency on the grounds that he's an orphan. Does anyone know if this sort of thing - what looks like further benefiting from acts of fraud -
is legal? Regardless, does anyone find this
ethical?