"I pay all the taxes that are legally required, not a dollar more," Mitt Romney said in his own defense. Not quite. This is not a matter of Mitt Romney sitting down with H&R Block and itemizing his deductions. Romney has access to expensive tax shelters and private tax opinions that in themselves cost $ millions. They are not available to just anybody.
Even worse, as Vanity Fair revealed, Romney is offshoring untold $ millions of his U.S.-earned wealth in Bermuda, the Caymans, Panama, Switzerland, etc. Moreover, Romney's personal lawyer and trustee of his blind trust is also the president of Romney's Bermuda-based company. That same trustee just happened to invest $10 million in Mitt's son's company because, you know, the fundamentals were sound. It was nothing personal. Mm-hm, right.
Even most millionaires don't have tax shelters this complex. This is financial black ops exclusively for the Top Tenth Of One Percent. Certainly most millionaires don't have $3 million in a Swiss bank account one year (2010) that is is gone the next (2011), arguably to bet against the U.S. dollar. Nice credential for somebody who wants to be POTUS! Even Newt Gingrich remarked, "I don't know of any American president who has had a Swiss bank account."
And how in the world does Mitt have $130 million in a tax-deferred IRA (!!!) from Bain Capital, when the maximum annual contribution by law was $30,000? That's pretty damn incredible, if not illegal.
Worst of all, Bain Capital was bad for the U.S. economy. It pushed leverage and gave its owners big payouts while killing companies -- and employees -- that it acquired. Bain were leeches and barbarians.
Myself, I like my Presidents onshore, firmly rooted in the US of A.
By Nicholas Shaxson
August 2012 | Vanity Fair
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