Advisor Pleads Guilty in Tax Shelter Case

A former investment advisor has pleaded guilty to helping Ernst & Young market illegal tax shelters.

Charles Bolton, 46, of Memphis, was charged in February with helping the firm sell the tax shelters beginning in 1999 (see More Defendants Charged in E&Y Tax Shelter Case). He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and will face up to five years in prison when he is sentenced in April, according to The New York Times. Bolton helped Ernst & Young's VIPER (Value Ideas Produce Extraordinary Results) unit sell the tax shelters, which were known as contingent deferred swaps, to wealthy individuals.

Separately, in another tax shelter case involving Ernst & Young, corporate jet and helicopter manufacturer Textron won a ruling from the First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowing it to withhold its tax accrual workpapers from the Internal Revenue Service. The appeals court also ordered a lower court to reconsider whether the IRS can force it to release audit documents from Ernst & Young. The IRS is probing transaction that it claims are similar to SILO (sale in, lease out) tax shelters.

An Ernst & Young spokesman declined to comment on either case.

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