In some cases, even steps that were supposed to ease the situation, like the federal program aimed at helping homeowners modify their mortgages to reduce what they owed, had actually contributed to the mess.
"They realised that we had actually brought the debt down by about £16m - £25m when you consider outstanding money we owed on players," said the former chairman.
In 1997 seven times as many taxpayers as actually owed AMT had to complete the arduous 54-line "Form 6251, Alternative Minimum Tax".
He says in the case of the dog, the money was actually owed by the dog's owner, who had set up a credit card account in the dog's name.
Mr. Griffen said he had lost his job because of an accident and, furthermore, he actually owed only $800.
Raptor actually owed Enron money on the hedges, she said, but because Raptor was backed by Enron stock that had also lost value, it could not make good on the deal.
As Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi observed, "Countless credit card borrowers would now have collection agents chasing them for money they did not owe," and in some cases, according to a key witness, Chase actually owed the customer money.
Albert Pirro's lawyer, Gustave H. Newman, has said that his client voluntarily turned over his records to the Internal Revenue Service and even repaid the government $150,000 more than he actually owed in back taxes and interest.
According to legend, the Nabokovs had a hundred dollars of their own, which Mrs. Nabokov nearly bestowed on their first New York City cabbie, an honest man, to whom she actually owed ninety cents.
"To this day the government doesn't know how much is actually owed," Judge Brieant said.
