There should be no shortage of press reporting on just how bad these bank settlements are. The banks stole hundreds of billions, the headlines report they’ll be penalized “up to” a few billion, but the reality is their true cost is far less than the delusional headlines.
Here’s the latest and what may be one of the most offensive aspects of the settlements:
If a homeowner gets principal reduction on a second home, he may owe income taxes on that forgiveness. On the other hand…..
THE BANKS WILL GET TO WRITE THE ENTIRETY OF THE SETTLEMENT PROCEEDS OFF AS OPERATING EXPENSES!
That’s right suckers…while the taxpayer will pay tax penalties for the “relief” provided, the criminal enterprises that accepted such sweetheart deals have in fact engineered deals that just get sweeter for them all the time!
Was this added bonus tax boodoggle known to the attorneys general that signed off on this offense to the American people or did they get bamboozled? Either way The People get shafted once again
There can be no more clear example of the undeniable proof that the government in this United States serves the interests of the corporations than these three horrendous bank bailouts.
But perhaps even more disturbing is just how low the press in this country has sunk, reporting only the bullet point headlines on press releases fed to them, rather than actually doing real reporting. From HuffPo:
WASHINGTON (AP) “” Consumer advocates have complained that U.S. mortgage lenders are getting off easy in a deal to settle charges that they wrongfully foreclosed on many homeowners.
Now it turns out the deal is even sweeter for the lenders than it appears: Taxpayers will subsidize them for the money they’re ponying up.
The Internal Revenue Service regards the lenders’ compensation to homeowners as a cost incurred in the course of doing business. Result: It’s fully tax-deductible.
Critics argue that big banks that were bailed out by taxpayers during the financial crisis are again being favored over the victims of their mortgage abuses.
“The government is abetting the behavior by not preventing the deduction,” said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. “The taxpayers end up subsidizing the Wall Street banks after the headlines of a big-dollar settlement die down. That’s unfair to taxpayers.”
Under the deal, 12 mortgage lenders will pay more than $9 billion to compensate hundreds of thousands of people whose homes were seized improperly, a result of abuses such as “robo-signing.” That’s when banks automatically approved foreclosures without properly reviewing documents. HuffPo
Just for the hell of it, remember that Today is the last day to apply for your insignificant portion of the settlement proceeds. Click Here