Bailout watchdogs condemn AIG tax break

AP Photo

(AP) WASHINGTON -- Former members of a congressional panel that oversaw bailouts during the financial crisis are condemning a tax break for insurance giant American International Group (AIG). They say it amounts to an extra bailout worth billions of dollars.

Former oversight panel chair Elizabeth Warren and others from both parties say the tax break is a massive taxpayer subsidy on top of the $182 billion bailout that AIG received during the financial crisis.

Companies generally can't count all of their past losses against future taxes after they change ownership. The former panel members say the Treasury Department gave AIG exemptions from the limit, handing the company an extra $17.7 billion of profit.

Warren is a consumer advocate and Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts. The oversight panel disbanded last April.

[commenter777]

The US corporate attitude of me, me, me is going to destroy the US. They are sucking the life out of the United States.

[commenter777]

And this is different from welfare how? Is it somehow different than welfare because it's going to the rich instead of the poor? A duck is a duck, right? The middle-class gets no welfare at all.

[Dmorris_Engage_America]

When the tax code plays favorites, like in the case of AIG, it leads to inefficient allocation of capital, slower growth and reduced corporate tax revenue. http://nyti.ms/wbevXg

What we need to do is fix the corporate tax code's unnecessarily high statutory rates, its ability to incentivize certain economic activity and not others, and its treatment of foreign profits. http://******/wkIlN5

The most sensible reform can be found in the Bowles-Simpson deficit reduction plan which would increase tax fairness and corporate competitiveness by lowering the marginal rate, removing tax expenditures, and moving to a territorial tax system. http://******/noTDPF