The WSJ has this story about potential trouble for the Wylys. Tomorrow a U.S. Senate panel called the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will hold a hearing to decipher the legality of an off-shore tax-avoidance method the Wylys, and rich people like them, employ. The article’s lead gives a good example of how it works: Sam Wyly suggested a tax-exempt company based in the Isle of Man buy a $41,125 pocket watch once owned by FDR. Wyly himself doesn’t own, but he says the company has loaned it to him, which is why he gets to keep it in his house. Same goes for jewelry family members wear, some Aspen vacation home they use, and the $287,000 painting Sam’s daughter has hanging in her home.
In addition to the Senate hearing, a federal grand-jury investigation here in Dallas is checking out “the Wyly’s family affairs,” as the WSJ puts it. Developing.
