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Posted
Sep 21 2009, 04:13 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The IRS is extending the deadline to October 15 for tax cheats who have hidden assets overseas to turn themselves in. It is an odd way to treat law breakers, but the IRS must be recovering a lot of revenue, so the end-point of the program may be pushed out again and again.
The IRS says that more than 3,000 people have come forward under the program, which is set up to lower penalties and spare tax law violators time behind bars.
There are probably thousands of rich Americans keeping money in offshore accounts, so the number of people participating in the program is unimpressive. The amnesty does raise the issue of why the program is being confined to people who have assets outside of America’s borders.
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Posted
Aug 28 2009, 10:27 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Bernie Madoff is in jail, but the mess he left behind isn't winding down. His victims are outraged, and they want their money back.
The question now is how much should they get back? Should they receive just the money they originally invested, or the profits Madoff told them was in their account?
That's the latest drama in the three-ring circus that the bankruptcy trustee in the Madoff case is dealing with. Irving Picard is trying to distribute the Madoff money he's been able to recover. So far, he has been operating on a simple money-in, money-out approach. Whatever money people gave to Madoff is what they get back. But that's not enough for some victims,
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Posted
Aug 26 2009, 07:27 AM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This article is written by Minyanville's Josh Lipton According to a report from the Associated Press, federal prosecutors have charged a woman who once advised a disgraced NFL quarterback and several other pro football players with stealing $3 million from eight victims in a Ponzi scheme. Prosecutors say that the alleged swindler, Mary Wong, worked out of her home in Omaha. Apparently, Wong told clients that she was busy selling investments in high-end properties and private jets. In reality, according to an indictment unsealed Monday, Wong was using the cash to support herself and her business partners. Bing: More on Ponzi schemes
In an unusual twist, three NFL players are also allegedly mixed up with Wong. Demorrio Williams of the Kansas City Chiefs and twins Josh Bullocks of the Chicago Bears and Daniel Bullocks of the Detroit Lions were partners with Wong in a corporation that she ran, which Uncle Sam’s prosecutors say benefited from the Ponzi scheme It’s not clear, as of right now, who lost money or whether Michael Vick’s money was involved in the scheme, according to the AP. But we do know that Vick, who recently signed a two-year contract with the Philadelphia Eagles reportedly worth $6.8 million, has sued Wong, hoping to get back $2 million from her.
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Posted
Aug 14 2009, 02:49 PM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This article was written by Minyanville's Mike Schuster with additional reporting by Nico Carbellano.
This has been a high-profile week for cyber criminals. An as-yet-unidentified cyber thief made off with the identities of some 500 dewy-eyed journalism-school applicants by breaking into the UC Berkeley server. Twitter -- the inexplicably popular, profoundly useless social networking site -- was taken offline for the second time, along with Facebook, in as many weeks by the same kind of hack that took down Google (GOOG) last year. And British hacker Gary McKinnon -- accused of pulling off the biggest military computer hack of all time, to the tune of $800,000 -- lost an appeal to avoid extradition to the United States. He'll therefore be tried stateside, where we don't take kindly to this sort of thing.
Despite the scale of these network outages, they can't hold a candle to those affected by some of our more ambitious computer hackers. Click here to view 10 of the costliest cyber crimes of all time.
The business of computer hacking is certainly booming, with hack-related losses totaling a staggering trillion dollars per year worldwide. In February, Ponemon Institute conducted a survey to determine the average loss a business incurs when it suffers a security breach. Reviewing cases from 43 organizations, the group finalized a figure: $6.6 million.
Bing: Cyber criminals
While that might seem like small potatoes for megacorporations like Wal-Mart (WMT) or Best Buy (BBY) -- which experienced data leaks in 2006 and 2007, respectively -- the cost of clients' files being released into the hands of a nefarious hacker could ruin a smaller company.
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Posted
Jul 30 2009, 11:00 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 All it took was a little nudge, and now tax evaders are practically lining up to confess to hiding money from Uncle Sam.
President Obama said last May that the government would go after people who skipped paying taxes by tucking undeclared money in overseas accounts. That scared the daylights out of some wealthy Americans, who have begun filing requests with the Internal Revenue Service to disclose their shenanigans, The Wall Street Journal reports. The requests have flooded in so quickly that the IRS now offers a three-page form to expedite the truth-telling. If only all confessions were this easy!
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Posted
Jul 29 2009, 10:39 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Bernie Madoff has given his first prison interview, and tells a lawyer that he still can't believe he got away with the massive Ponzi scheme that robbed thousands of people who thought they were making smart investments.
"There were several times that I met with the SEC and thought, 'they got me,'" Madoff reportedly told a lawyer who is representing some of the victims. The lawyer is threatening to sue Madoff and his family on behalf of the victims, reports ABC News. Madoff likely gave the prison interview to try and get the lawyer to back away from his family. The lawyer, Joseph Cotchett, said Madoff is looking good and appears to be working out. Madoff is serving a 150-year sentence in a North Carolina prison. Cotchett also said that Madoff cares about his wife, Ruth, but doesn't have much interest in his two sons, Mark and Andrew.
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Posted
Jul 21 2009, 11:36 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Wealthy New Yorkers who get sent to jail would have to foot the bill for their incarceration, according to a bill introduced Monday by a New York state legislator.
The "Madoff bill" -- named for disgraced financier and Ponzi-pusher Bernard Madoff -- forces drug dealers and other high-profile inmates to repay the state and federal governments for the cost of jailing them.
"Far too often, taxpayers are stuck with the bill for criminals who have extensive personal wealth waiting for them once they are discharged from our state's penal system," said the Republican assemblyman, Jim Tedisco, who introduced the bill, according to Reuters.
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Posted
Jul 20 2009, 01:19 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Bernie Madoff's new prison mates are eyeing him closely, and some want to beat him a little bit to up their prison rep, the New York Post reports.
"Some of the guys were talking about smacking him around a little, just to get the notoriety of it," the Post reports, quoting someone who has a relative in the same Butner, N.C., lockup.
But others are impressed by Madoff and the way he has handled himself, the Post reports. That's because Madoff didn't rat anyone else out in his massive Ponzi scheme. He took the fall for the whole operation.
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Posted
Jul 10 2009, 10:51 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Pity the poor judges that must sort this mess out. July 2 was the deadline for victims of Bernie Madoff's Ponzi schemes to file claims, and by the end of the day nearly 15,500 had been submitted. Investigators are trying to recover some of Madoff's money, but in the end they won't find enough to satisfy all those claims. So who gets the money they do find? Nearly 260 people have asked for hardship reimbursement because they can't pay for basic living expenses, or they're over 65 or have declared personal bankruptcy, The New York Times reports. They would get money faster than others. About 150 of those applications have been approved.
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Posted
Jul 08 2009, 06:00 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Bernie Madoff has hired a consultant to help him land the best possible place to spend the rest of his life. Madoff, who received a 150-year jail sentence for his fraudulent Ponzi schemes, could even end up in the notorious "Supermax" jail in Florence, Colo., the Times Online reports. That's because his long sentence puts him in a more hard-knuckled prison category than most white-collar crimimals, the Times adds. "He could be forced to mingle with murderers, rapists, drug-dealers and white supremacist gangs with a hatred of Jews," the Times writes.
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