page_title: Charles Rangel
section_title: Defense of tax shelter
hierarchical_section_title: Charles Rangel / U.S. House of Representatives / 2008–2010: Ethics issues and censure / Defense of tax shelter
caption_attribution_description: English: U.S. Consul General Slayton presents a copy of the book, Four Centuries of Friendship, to U.S. Congressman Charles Rangel at their meeting in Hamilton, Bermuda.
context_page_description: Charles Bernard Rangel is an American politician who was a U.S. Representative for districts in New York from 1971 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the second-longest serving incumbent member of the House of Representatives at the time of his retirement, serving continuously since 1971. As its most senior member, he was also the Dean of New York's congressional delegation. Rangel was the first African-American Chair of the influential House Ways and Means Committee. He is also a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
  Rangel was born in Harlem in Upper Manhattan and lives there to this day. He earned a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for his service in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, where he led a group of soldiers out of a deadly Chinese army encirclement during the Battle of Kunu-ri in 1950. Rangel graduated from New York University in 1957 and St. John's University School of Law in 1960. He then worked as a private lawyer, Assistant U.S. Attorney, and legal counsel during the early-mid-1960s.
context_section_description: In November 2008, following reports by The New York Times, Republican Congressmen asked the House Ethics Committee to look into Rangel's defense of a tax shelter approved by his Ways and Means Committee.  One of the four companies that benefited from the loophole was Nabors Industries, which opened headquarters in Bermuda as a foreign corporation.  Under the loophole, Nabors receives tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks.  In 2004, Rangel had led opposition to the tax breaks.  Nabors donated $1 million in 2006, and $100,000 later, to the City College of New York school named after Rangel.
  Its CEO said the donations were unrelated to Rangel's February 2007 promise to oppose closing the loophole.  He denied there was any quid pro quo, and called the article about it "malarkey".  Rangel said The New York Times had ignored facts and explanations, and denied the charges.  The House Ethics Committee voted in December 2008, to expand its investigation of Rangel to the matter.  Eventually the Ethics Committee would not make a specific charge over this matter but did include it in the supporting documentation for the overall charge that Rangel had solicited Rangel Center donations from those with business before his committee.
caption: Rangel receives book written by US Consul General Gregory Slayton, in Bermuda in 2009
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