• The Offshore Portfolio Investment Strategy (OPIS) was a tax avoidance product offered by accounting firm KPMG.

  • OPIS was one of many tax avoidance schemes offered by accounting firms in the 1990s.
  • These accounting schemes will create shell companies and record fake transactions and investments that will result in losses. These losses were used to offset the company’s profits, resulting in a reduction in the amount of taxes due.
  • The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) ultimately declared these tax schemes illegal because they served no purpose other than to lower taxes and deprive the government of tax revenue.
  • Companies involved in tax scandals had to pay millions of dollars in damages.