Shell firms shielded US contractor from taxes

[unhappycamper]

Source: Boston Globe

Shell firms shielded US contractor from taxes
By Farah Stockman
Globe Staff / May 4, 2008

WASHINGTON - In March 2005, one of the Pentagon's most trusted contractors - Virginia-based MPRI, founded by retired senior military leaders - won a $400 million contract to train police in Iraq and other hotspots. Two months later, MPRI set up a company in Bermuda to which it subcontracted much of the work.

It was not the first time that MPRI executives had used a shell company in an offshore tax haven to perform government-funded work. A year earlier, MPRI headed a joint venture that won a $1.6 billion contract to provide US peacekeeping forces in Kosovo and elsewhere. Three months later, MPRI set up a company in the Cayman Islands to do the work.

Like MPRI's Bermuda subsidiary, the Cayman Islands company appears to have no phone number, website, or staff of its own there.

Rick Kiernan, an MPRI spokesman, declined to explain why the company created the two offshore entities and stressed that MPRI operates in "total adherence or compliance with the current law."

Read more: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/05/04/shell_firms_shielded_us_contractor_from_taxes/

[SpiralHawk]

1. "...one of the Pentagon's most-trusted contractors." Bwa ha ha ha ha. WTF?

That's rich. What a sense of humor the writer has.

No doubt Commander AWOL and VP Dickie 'Five Military Deferments' Cheney and their cabal of republicon homelander chickenhawks are getting a merry, war-enriched cluck or two out of that description.

"You can't make this stuff up. Smirk." -Commander AWOL

[UpInArms]

2. more of our government subverting our government

Long live irony!

Irony is dead!

[alfredo]

3. But we are getting a tax rebate, shut up or we'll take it back.

[Trillo]

4. Ain't Corporate Personhood grand!

If only people could set up shells within shells to give the middle finger to what they don't like.

[DeSwiss]

5. "One of the Pentagon's most trusted contractors?"

Are there any contractors that they don't trust? Particularly those owned by former generals?

- Right. I didn't think so...

K&R!!!

[windbreeze]

6. Well...Jay Garner, and KBR involved....

Parent Co. of Halliburton? and former Com.Gen in Iraq, what a combination....has this bunch left any stone unturned when it comes to raping/pillaging this country, and stealing it blind??? wb

[anitar1]

7. K &R n/t

[Solly Mack]

8. sheesh

"total adherence or compliance with the current law."
Yeah...laws designed for just that purpose...