For ten boom‎-powered years at the turn of the twenty‎-first century‎,‎ some of America‎'‎s most prominent law and accounting firms created and marketed products that enabled the very rich ‎-‎- including newly minted dot‎-com millionaires ‎-‎- to avoid paying their fair share of taxes by claiming benefits not recognized by law‎.‎ These abusive domestic tax shelters bore such exotic names as BOSS‎,‎ BLIPS‎,‎ and COBRA and were developed by such prestigious firms as KPMG and Ernst & Young‎.‎ They brought in hundreds of millions of dollars in fees from clients and bilked the U‎.‎S‎.‎ Treasury of billions in revenues before the IRS and Justice Department stepped in with civil penalties and criminal prosecutions‎.‎ In Confidence Games‎,‎ Tanina Rostain and Milton Regan describe the rise and fall of the tax shelter industry during this period‎,‎ offering a riveting account of the most serious episode of professional misconduct in the history of the American bar‎.‎Rostain and Regan describe a beleaguered IRS preoccupied by attacks from antitax and antigovernment politicians‎;‎ heightened competition for professional services‎;‎ the relaxation of tax practitioner norms against aggressive advice‎;‎ and the creation of complex financial instruments that made abusive shelters harder to detect‎.‎ By 2004‎,‎ the tax shelter boom was over‎,‎ leaving failed firms‎,‎ disgraced professionals‎,‎ and prison sentences in its wake‎.‎ Rostain and Regan‎'‎s cautionary tale remains highly relevant today‎,‎ as lawyers and accountants continue to face intense competitive pressure and regulators still struggle to keep pace with accelerating financial risk and innovation‎.‎

• Author‎:‎ Tanina Rostain‎,‎ Milton C‎.‎ Regan
• Puplisher‎:‎ MIT Press
• ISBN‎:‎ 9780262529778