OBAMA/BIDEN - SUBJECT: Romney’s Tax Dodge Extended to Businesses He Managed

[kpete]

SUBJECT: Romney’s Tax Dodge Extended to Businesses He Managed




First, CNN published an op-ed by two tax experts who describe in detail a shelter employed by Marriott – and overseen by Romney – to report fictional losses exceeding $70 million. Romney was the head of the company’s audit committee at the time Marriott employed this strategy that the experts, Peter C. Canellos and Edward D. Kleinbard, call “perhaps the largest tax avoidance scheme in history.” Marriott was on the vanguard of tax avoidance, and the op-ed’s authors rightly note that the Republican nominee’s “endorsement of this stratagem provides insight into Romney’s professional ethics and attitude toward tax compliance obligations.”

Second, Bloomberg News reported that under Mitt Romney’s leadership, Bain Capital avoided taxes by funneling the profits it made from buying and selling Italy’s version of the Yellow Pages through a shell corporation in Luxembourg, a widely recognized tax haven. The billion-dollar deal was “one of the biggest windfalls” of Romney’s tenure at Bain.

Additionally, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Romneys went to great lengths to lower their property-tax bill on their $12 million La Jolla, Calif., home. The story raises questions about whether the Romneys grossly exaggerated the devaluation of their beachfront mansion to lessen their tax burden.

................

There are many outstanding and serious questions that have raised about Mitt Romney's
manipulation of the tax laws:
1. The history of Romney’s Swiss bank account, which he failed to properly disclose on his
personal financial disclosure reports and was revealed only by the single full year of tax
returns Romney has disclosed so far.
2. How and when the Bermuda corporation Romney has owned for nearly 15 years – but
had transferred to a blind trust in his wife’s name the day before he was sworn in as
Governor – ended up back in his full ownership of outside of the trust, as reported on his
2010 tax return.
3. The details he recently promised ABC News (a promise on which he then reneged) about
whether he ever paid a lower income-tax rate than the 13.9 percent he paid in 2010, far
lower than what many Americans pay.
4. Details of Romney’s personal interests in at least 12 Bain Capital holdings in the Cayman
Islands, worth as much as $30 million.
5. How Mitt Romney’s IRA grew to become worth as much as $100 million despite an
annual contribution limit of $30,000.
6. To what extent was Romney personally involved in the tax trickery that Italian taxpayers
are still paying a price for.
7. To what extent Romney gained financially by turning a blind eye to the largest tax
avoidance scheme in history when he led Marriott’s audit committee.

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the rest:
http://secure.assets.bostatic.com/pdfs/labolt-memo-tax/labolt-memo-tax.pdf
MORE:
http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/08/10/reid-aide-adds-more-details-on-romney-tax-return-source/

[brooklynite]

1. My wife knows the guy who wrote the CNN piece

...he knows his tax stuff and is digging for whatever new goodies he can find.

[BlueToTheBone]

2. Is it possible to hope for a perp walk?

It's flagrant evasion. Most people despise Rmoney and Leona Helmsley (also despised) did go to prison for the same thing. Maybe his wife could go too. I understand prison health care is great so she'll do just fine.

[BumRushDaShow]

3. And this is probably the tip of the iceberg

And one wonders how this guy flew under the radar for so long and how many others are out there similarly flying?

[flamingdem]

4. Busted again, better get on it CNN n/t