[Libloather]

These companies went belly-up while STILL paying their taxes? Wouldn't the Libdem/Chicoms want to use them as examples of what to do?

[dcwusmc]

Nice thought-bump!

[Torie]

The company can always file amended returns (back 3 years I think). Somehow though I suspect that the taxable income of the company was not the same as the reported income. Rushbo is shooting from the hip, or someone is.

[Larry Lucido]

I'm sure the bankruptcy trustee will look to get back every overpayment to which the bankruptcy estate is entitled.

[Pelham]

Unless Rush examined the 10k filings of these companies there is no way to know if they paid taxes on these phantom earnings. There's no evidence that either company paid taxes on their fraudulent earnings. Rush is just talking out of his hat.

For one thing, Enron created a host of subsidiaries in offshore tax havens- and phantom earnings recorded in these subs didn't pay taxes to the Treasury.

Worldcom grew by taking over smaller companies using the "supermoney" of its common stock- and such takeovers give the parent company plenty of tax offsets from any losses on the books of the acquired company.

[Clinging Bitterly]

> These companies went belly-up while STILL paying their taxes?

Since the actors (most of them) are alive, it's safe to assume they were, since all living people and a decent share of dead ones do, in fact, pay taxes.

To the extent that it's stolen money, it ought to be returned to it's rightful owners. Those would be, in large part, 401K accounts.

The dollar amount that has disappeared from my 401K account is roughly equivalent to all that has been contributed, plus all earnings, since about 1999. It appears that the IRS is in posession of at least a small part of it, and yeah, I'd like it back.

Of course if any cases of fraudulent accounting practices are proven in court, there will be fines and asset siezures and so forth. 100% of those dollars will go to the government, which is not an injured party here, so the government will be unjustly enriched with even more of the money that has been stolen from my retirement funds.

We the investors get shafted all the way up the patootie no matter how this plays out.

Dave in Eugene

[CyberAnt]

I hope ya'll aren't holdin' yer breath!!