John Larson

Sentencing Minutes & Defendant's Sentencing Exhibits in USA v. Stephen Donaldson, Sr. at the U. S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

A Kentucky-based husband-and-wife claim they were swindled after depositing US$1.9 million in an offshore tax planning and asset protection plan involving insurance, trust, and investment-management companies in Anguilla, the Bahamas, and Nevis. Dallen Wendt, 53, and his wife, Peggy Wendt, 50, were told the offshore products in which they invested during 2002 and 2003 carried "no-risk" and returned 8% and 8.5% annually, according to a complaint they filed at the U. S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on June 24, 2008.

Major accounting firms, banks, law firms and investment advisors helped create "abusive tax shelters" that deprived the United States Government of "billions of dollars", it has been claimed. Among the alleged participants were KPMG, Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Sidley Austin Brown & Wood, Sutherland Asbill & Brennan, Deutsche Bank, HVB, UBS, First Union National Bank, Wachovia Bank, Presidio and Quellos.

The investigation by the IRS into alleged offshore tax evasion by United States taxpayers using offshore credit cards appears to be currently focusing on Antigua & Barbuda, the Bahamas, and the Cayman Islands. Although the IRS has previously announced it is targeting more than 30 offshore centers, these three are the only countries to feature in a slew of "John Doe" summonses issued recently by U. S. federal courts.

Promotional spiel used by two former insiders of the First International Bank of Grenada to promote a separate fraudulent investment scheme has been likened to a legendary comedy sketch by a judge.Their tale of purported high-reward, no-risk trading in "mid-term notes" resembled "the old Abbot and Costello routine of 'who's on first'", stated Circuit Judge Frank L. Bearden.