''That's a good question''

Die legendäre Stellungnahme eines der führenden U.S. Steueranwälte läßt sich in der New York Times vom 9. Juli 2003 (online verfügbar) nachlesen. Sie sei hier auszugsweise zitiert:

"His testimony contrasted with that of an earlier witness, Mr. S., a tax partner at ... in New York who wrote legal opinions on the ...-leasing tax shelters. Under questioning by Mr. H., Mr. S. acknowledged that he never checked out the economic and other assumptions of the deals he gave opinions on. Mr. S. said he did not write down many significant points of his analysis, and that even when one of the ... deals was completely reversed after it was completed, it did not prompt him to reconsider his opinion on the validity of the tax shelters.

Mr. S.'s answers prompted Judge A. of the United States District Court here to question him closely about the reasons that ... gave a weak opinion on one tax shelter, saying it was ''more likely than not'' to survive an audit, and later issued a much stronger opinion that a virtually identical deal ''should'' survive. Mr. S. said he only signed one of the opinions.

The judge also pressed Mr. S. to explain why he never checked the assumptions passed on to him by the three parties to the deal, all of whom used the same investment banker, ...

Judge A. asked: ''How, in the business of writing opinions, can you rely on the representations of strangers?''

''That's a good question,'' Mr. S. said.

Link zum Artikel in der New York Times

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