Romney Failed to Disclose Swiss Bank Account Income, admits Ron Paul is awesome

[Hardrock69]

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/romney-failed-disclose-swiss-bank-account-income/story?id=15447680#.TyT3bVaa9hI


By MATTHEW MOSK and BRIAN ROSS (@brianross)
Jan. 26, 2012

Mitt Romney's campaign is amending the financial disclosure form he filed in 2011 to acknowledge that a Romney trust earned interest income from a Swiss bank account, a detail that had been missing from the report.

"An amendment is being filed to address this minor discrepancy," a campaign official told ABC News in an email Thursday in response to questions about the apparent omission.

"The inescapable fact is that by releasing over 600 pages of information regarding his finances, Mitt Romney is clearly coming down on the side of disclosure," said Andrea Saul, a campaign spokeswoman, in a subsequent statement. "Any document with this level of complexity and detail is bound to have a few trivial inadvertent issues. We are in the process of putting together some minor technical amendments, which will not alter the overall picture of Gov. and Mrs. Romney's finances as disclosed in August."

The discovery that the Romneys had $3 million in an account with the Swiss bank UBS came only after the Republican presidential candidate released his tax returns for 2010 on Tuesday. The campaign had maintained that it was not necessary to disclose the Swiss account because Romney's money manager, Brad Malt, had shuttered it in early 2010.

Several Republican election lawyers told ABC News Thursday that the account still needed to be disclosed because a Romney trust earned about $1,700 in income on the account during 2010. The campaign's decision to amend the forms was first reported by the Los Angeles Times.

At the same time, questions from ABC News about undisclosed income that appeared on Newt Gingrich's tax return have led Gingrich to announce that he, too, will be amending his financial disclosure report. Gingrich's returns showed he received $252,500 in wages from Gingrich Holdings Inc. in 2010, but those wages do not appear anywhere on his presidential disclosure report.

"An internal account review found the need to amend the reporting," said a Gingrich campaign official. "It was done immediately."

Romney also decided to amend the report from his 2007 run for president, a decision first reported by the New York Times. That form identified a UBS money market account, but did not clarify that it was held by his wife's trust. UBS has branches in the United States, so it would not have been readily apparent that the account was in Switzerland. Those who track the finances of presidential candidates said they found the failures to disclose these key financial details distressing. Bill Allison, editorial director of the non-profit watchdog group the Sunlight Foundation, said the whole purpose of the disclosure reports is for candidates to provide an honest look at their finances to voters.

"Obviously, if you don't give them the information before the vote, it defeats the whole purpose of disclosure," Allison said.

Melanie Sloan, executive director of the non-partisan group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said she, too, was dismayed -- noting that while in Congress, Gingrich had been called out for failing to include information on his disclosure reports.

"You'd think someone once sanctioned by the House of Representatives ... would be a little more careful with his financial disclosure forms," she said.

The discovery that Romney's vast holdings included an account in Switzerland, a country long notorious for helping the very wealthy hide their assets, came during his release of his tax return earlier this week. Malt, who oversees Romney's blind trusts, acknowledged during a conference call with reporters that he decided to shut down the Swiss account because he worried it could create a headache for Romney's campaign. "It might or might not be consistent with Governor Romney's political views," he said. "The taxes were all fully paid … it just wasn't worth it. And I closed the account."

That suggests, Allison said, that the campaign had a motivation to exclude any evidence of the Swiss account from the candidate's forms. The Romney campaign called the omission an oversight.

Allison noted that there is generally no penalty for a candidate who leaves something off a disclosure report, and then goes back to amend the report if the missing information is discovered.

"Nobody is going to get into trouble for this," he said. "That is the problem with the disclosure system."

[Hardrock69]

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/romney-parks-millions-offshore-tax-haven/story?id=15378566



Romney Parks Millions in Cayman Islands

Although it is not apparent on his financial disclosure form, Mitt Romney has millions of dollars of his personal wealth in investment funds set up in the Cayman Islands, a notorious Caribbean tax haven.

A spokesperson for the Romney campaign says Romney follows all tax laws and he would pay the same in taxes regardless of where the funds are based.

As the race for the Republican nomination heats up, Mitt Romney is finding it increasingly difficult to maintain a shroud of secrecy around the details about his vast personal wealth, including, as ABC News has discovered, his investment in funds located offshore and his ability to pay a lower tax rate.

"His personal finances are a poster child of what's wrong with the American tax system," said Jack Blum, a Washington lawyer who is an authority on tax enforcement and offshore banking.

On Tuesday, Romney disclosed that he has been paying a far lower percentage in taxes than most Americans, around 15 percent of his annual earnings. It has been Romney's Republican rivals who have driven the tax issue onto center stage. For weeks, Romney has cited a desire for privacy as his reason for not sharing his tax returns -- a gesture of transparency that is now expected from presidential contenders.

"I can tell you we follow the tax laws," he said recently while on the campaign trail in New Hampshire. "And if there's an opportunity to save taxes, we like anybody else in this country will follow that opportunity."

But tax experts tell ABC News there are other reasons Romney may not want the public viewing his returns. As one of the wealthiest candidates to run for president in recent times, Romney has used a variety of techniques to help minimize the taxes on his estimated $250 million fortune. In addition to paying the lower tax rate on his investment income, Romney has as much as $8 million invested in at least 12 funds listed on a Cayman Islands registry. Another investment, which Romney reports as being worth between $5 million and $25 million, shows up on securities records as having been domiciled in the Caymans.

Official documents reviewed by ABC News show that Bain Capital, the private equity partnership Romney once ran, has set up some 138 secretive offshore funds in the Caymans.

Romney campaign officials and those at Bain Capital tell ABC News that the purpose of setting up those accounts in the Cayman Islands is to help attract money from foreign investors, and that the accounts provide no tax advantage to American investors like Romney. Romney, the campaign said, has paid all U.S. taxes on income derived from those investments.

"The tax consequences to the Romneys are the very same whether the fund is domiciled here or another country," a campaign official said in response to questions. "Gov. and Mrs. Romney have money invested in funds that the trustee has determined to be attractive investment opportunities, and those funds are domiciled wherever the fund sponsors happen to organize the funds."

Bain officials called the decision to locate some funds offshore routine, and a benefit only to foreign investors who do not want to be subjected to U.S. taxes.

Tax experts agree that Romney remains subject to American taxes. But they say the offshore accounts have provided him -- and Bain -- with other potential financial benefits, such as higher management fees and greater foreign interest, all at the expense of the U.S. Treasury. Rebecca J. Wilkins, a tax policy expert with Citizens for Tax Justice, said the federal government loses an estimated $100 billion a year because of tax havens.

Blum, the D.C. tax lawyer, said working through an offshore investment vehicle allows the investor to "avoid a whole series of small traps in the tax code that ordinary people would face if they paid tax on an onshore basis."

Wilkins agreed, saying the "primary advantage to setting those funds up in an offshore jurisdiction like the Cayman Islands or Bermuda is it helps the investors avoid tax."

"It helps U.S. investors avoid U.S. tax," said Wilkins, "it helps foreign investors avoid taxes in their home country, so it's not illegal or improper to set those funds up in a foreign jurisdiction, but it makes it more attractive to investors because it helps them avoid paying taxes on that income."

Bain Accounts in the Cayman Islands

Bain's presence in the Cayman Islands is not something the firm advertises. The Los Angeles Times first disclosed Romney's offshore accounts in 2007, during his initial run for the presidency. ABC News found references to the firm's accounts in the Caymans in the footnotes of securities filings. When ABC News went to the office address listed for Romney's Bain funds, lawyers in the Caymans were not eager to answer questions.

Asked if he could confirm the existence of the Bain accounts, David Byrne, the chief marketing officer for the law firm Walkers, listed on documents as Bain's Caymans' representative, said he could not. "No, I can't at all," said Byrne. "Unfortunately, I can't comment at all on that."

There is now less secrecy than there was even two weeks ago surrounding Romney's tax rate. The money he made through Bain investments was taxed as capital gains at a 15 percent rate, instead of the higher tax rates borne by most Americans. Newt Gingrich told reporters Wednesday that his income was taxed at 31 percent.


The so-called "carried interest" rule has been the source of extensive debate in Washington, with opponents criticizing the allowance to tax those earnings at 15 percent a glaring loophole that benefits only the wealthiest Americans. Under the carried interest rule, income that is determined to be capital gains – like the profit reaped by hedge fund managers -- is subject to the lower 15 percent rate.

Wilkins said Romney's arrangements reminded her of the now famous remarks by billionaire financier Warren Buffet, who revealed in 2007 that he was paying taxes at a lower rate than his receptionist.

"Well, I think it's the issue that is sort of on the front page every day, when we look at the Occupy Wall Street movement and that people are really losing patience with the idea that a lot of multinational corporations have and a lot of wealthy people have that while they benefit from everything this country has to offer … they don't seem to be willing to pay their fair share," she said.

Romney, who left Bain in 1999, has confirmed that his earnings largely come from investments, and the tax rate he pays is consistent with that "because my last 10 years, my income comes overwhelmingly from some investments made in the past, whether ordinary income or earned annually. I got a little bit of income from my book, but I gave that all away. And then I get speaker's fees from time to time, but not very much."

[Hardrock69]

http://www.truth-out.org/romney-collects-more-donations-five-biggest-banks-all-other-candidates-combined/1327760394

Romney Collects More in Donations From the Five Biggest Banks Than All Other Candidates Combined


Saturday 28 January 2012
by: Pat Garofalo , ThinkProgress | Report

Mitt Romney has been leading the way in the 2012 presidential race when it comes to donations from Wall Street, pulling in millions from the financial sector since he launched his campaign. And the industry’s favor for Romney comes across even more when looking at just the five biggest banks in the U.S.: JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and Goldman Sachs

In fact, as McClatchy News noted, Romney has received more in donations from employees of the nation’s five biggest banks than all of the other presidential candidates combined:


Employees at the five largest U.S. banks by assets, including Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co., had given Romney about $600,000 through the first three quarters of 2011, according to the most recent filings available from the Federal Election Commission.

The second-largest recipient of bank employee contributions, President Barack Obama, had far less, about $200,000, the analysis showed. The Republican presidential hopeful with the second-highest total, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, dropped out of the race in mid-August.

Romney received more from employees of those top five banks than all the other candidates combined.

To read more from the quoted article above, check out:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/01/15/135945/big-banks-have-picked-their-candidate.html#storylink=cpy

So far, the financial industry has made 69 percent of its donations in the presidential race to Republicans, a trend that, if it continues, “would mark the most skewed to one party the spending has been in more than two decades.”

The financial industry’s support for Romney is unsurprising, as he has made attacking the Dodd-Frank financial reform law a centerpiece of his campaign. He has even likened financial regulators to “gargoyles.” While he has paid lip service to needing some sort of financial reform, he has yet to propose any plan of his own.

[Nitro Express]

I have some money in UBS. It's a popular bank worldwide to hold long-term money. There are no names on the accounts only account numbers and they will even hold your statements at the bank. It's the old adage of not keeping your eggs in one basket and today it's smart not to keep your money in one country. I have enough money overseas if things got bad here I could just leave anytime and be fine. Lot's of people do that. People were doing that in Hong Kong in the late 70's out of fear of the British lease ending and China taking over again. Everyone had money out of Hong Kong and a residence usually in Vancouver BC. A lot of Americans are buying property out of the US and moving their money out as a hedge.

Anyone that has assets to protect does the same. I'm more concerned over if a candidate is going to serve the people under constitutional law or if they are just going to be another bought off law breaker serving multi-national corporations. For me when Mitt said Dick Cheney would make a good vice president that pretty much showed where the guy is coming from. He's a CFR shill.

[Seshmeister]

You have to worry about someone that spent over two years trying to convert people to Mormonism in France.

Trying to sell a religion to the French which forbids sex outside marriage and drinking alcohol??!!?!?

[Dr. Love]

When you have that much money, it's easy to forget about some of it, right?

[Nitro Express]

You have to worry about someone that spent over two years trying to convert people to Mormonism in France.

Trying to sell a religion to the French which forbids sex outside marriage and drinking alcohol??!!?!?

Good Mormons serve two year missions when they are 19 years old. You go where the church leaders tell you to go. Mitt didn't choose to go to France. He served the mission because that's what good Mormons do and then when you get home all the cute Mormon girls want you. Those missions aren't really about converting people. It's about the church taking control over a young man at the age he is the most likely to bolt from the church. At 19 you leave home and go into the world. You go to college and start thinking for yourself. The church would lose a lot of it's younger members so they create a social mechanism to get young men away from their own freedom and tied up in a high pressure church infused indoctrination program. Then the Mormon girls are told to have nothing to do with a non-returned missionary. So those guys you see with those black name tags and suits aren't really serving the Lord. They are trying to fit in with a system their family is stuck in and hoping to land a nice piece of pussy when they get home. Most missionaries that go to France for two years never convert anyone but most those missionaries that return home marry a Mormon girl and stay in the church. The church gets at least 10% of Mitt's money because he served in France and came home and married a Mormon girl. Get the concept now? It's all about retaining the Mitt's not converting the French. Most the money that comes into the Mormon church come from the western United States. But then it's Mormon prophecy that the church would fill the whole earth so the missions around the world help keep this illusion going. Most the Mormons live in Arizona, California, Utah, and Idaho. Outside of those areas they are a very small percentage of the population but the church is still worth $80 billion in asset. Like all things, it's about pussy, power, and money. No different than any other church. It's just that the hocus pocus differs a bit.

[Seshmeister]

I've heard two or three comics over here already do gags about how Mitt being able to speak a bit of French is actually being used against him in attack ads.

Only in America... :)

[Seshmeister]

Good Mormons serve two year missions when they are 19 years old. You go where the church leaders tell you to go. Mitt didn't choose to go to France. He served the mission because that's what good Mormons do and then when you get home all the cute Mormon girls want you. Those missions aren't really about converting people. It's about the church taking control over a young man at the age he is the most likely to bolt from the church. At 19 you leave home and go into the world. You go to college and start thinking for yourself. The church would lose a lot of it's younger members so they create a social mechanism to get young men away from their own freedom and tied up in a high pressure church infused indoctrination program. Then the Mormon girls are told to have nothing to do with a non-returned missionary. So those guys you see with those black name tags and suits aren't really serving the Lord. They are trying to fit in with a system their family is stuck in and hoping to land a nice piece of pussy when they get home. Most missionaries that go to France for two years never convert anyone but most those missionaries that return home marry a Mormon girl and stay in the church. The church gets at least 10% of Mitt's money because he served in France and came home and married a Mormon girl. Get the concept now? It's all about retaining the Mitt's not converting the French. Most the money that comes into the Mormon church come from the western United States. But then it's Mormon prophecy that the church would fill the whole earth so the missions around the world help keep this illusion going. Most the Mormons live in Arizona, California, Utah, and Idaho. Outside of those areas they are a very small percentage of the population but the church is still worth $80 billion in asset. Like all things, it's about pussy, power, and money. No different than any other church. It's just that the hocus pocus differs a bit.

Indistinguishable from a cult but all religions are to a degree.

Would his Mormonism be enough to stop you voting for him?

[Nickdfresh]

I've heard two or three comics over here already do gags about how Mitt being able to speak a bit of French is actually being used against him in attack ads.

Only in America... :)

And Newt just called him a "liberal!!!" OMG!!!

[LoungeMachine]

Mitt could be forced to quit.....

and Newt could suspend right behind him.....

Rick could follow citing family reasons.....

AND RON PAUL WOULD STILL LOSE TO WHOMEVER STEPPED UP

:gulp:

Christie, Jeb, Daniels...hell McCain would beat him

[Dr. Love]

I think you're lost ... the Ron Paul thread is -> that way

[kwame k]

I thought all threads in the FL were dedicated to Ron Paul;)

[Dr. Love]

I can make that happen. ;)

[kwame k]

Thought you already did;)

[Dr. Love]

this is only the beginning

[kwame k]

I can feel the groundswell of support going Paul's way........

He can, at will, come in 3rd anywhere in the primaries:lmao:

First is so overrated;)