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| Barack Obama's other billionaire: How George Kaiser turned Oklahoma into his personal tax haven |
| 2011-10-13 |
| Via InstaPundit It's unlikely that President Barack Obama will be naming any tax proposals after George B. Kaiser. An investment by the Tulsa billionaire's family foundation in Solyndra, whose bankruptcy may leave taxpayers on the hook for $535 million in federal loans, has raised speculation that the administration acted in part to aid a financial supporter. But the impact on taxpayers of Kaiser's career goes far beyond the $535 million loss. Kaiser has built his fortune in part through shrewdly playing the Internal Revenue Code. In one six year period, during which he increased his net worth enough to land him on the Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans, Kaiser reported taxable income to the Internal Revenue Service just once, totaling $11,699--equivalent to a full-time hourly wage of $5.62. In addition to Solyndra, the George Kaiser Family Foundation has investments worth hundreds of millions in energy firms, most of them in the oil and gas industry. The Washington Post reported that, in 2005, Senate investigators focused on the tax implications of the foundation, whose assets at the end of 2009 had grown to nearly $4 billion. GKFF has averaged more than $194 million a year in income from those assets over the last five years and issued grants that averaged about $53 million a year--or just 1.7 percent of its net assets. That wasn't the first time Kaiser caught the attention of government tax officials. In 1997, the Internal Revenue Service sent Kaiser and his companies tax bills for more than $72 million in back taxes, interest and penalties, covering individual and corporate returns filed from 1986 to 1992. Kaiser filed returns showing his personal income averaging negative $860,000 between 1986 and 1991; his holding company, GBK Corp., and its subsidiaries reported an aggregate loss from 1989 to 1992 of $507,000--some years it made money and paid taxes, others it claimed losses and paid none. |
| Posted by:Eohippus Phater7165 |