For the love of money

KPMG just got charged by the federal government with a felony count of conspiracy to commit tax fraud, and will be paying 456 million in fines as part of a settlement that puts the firm on probationary status while allowing KPMG to avoid prosecution for its crimes. The company had stolen several billion from the government and US taxpayers (netting a profit of $115 million for KPMG.)

The IRS said the schemes generated at least $11bn of “phoney tax losses” that individuals could offset against income and capital gains in their tax returns, and cost the US at least $2.5bn in revenues.