Bank of America has announced it's buying out Countrywide Financial for a cool $4.1 billion and taking a huge tax break by writing off the losses that Countrywide brings to the table from the collapse of the subprime mortgage market, and shifting the tax burden right on over to the taxpayers (many of whom were bitten by the subprime crisis and are now without homes). That's a nice bit of tax policy the commercial banking sector bought with its hundreds of millions in campaign contributions to federal candidates.