Choose Your Own Romney Tax Return Adventure
Posted by Michelle Moquin on September 20th, 2012
Good morning!
Well, I’ve been back for a little bit but haven’t had much of a chance to connect with many of you. You know how it is when you leave town, and come back to a slew of e-mails and things that need to be handled, not to mention getting back to WORK. The work muscle was feeing a bit weak but I am pumped up now and back into it.
How is everyone doing? I see the blog comments are coming in strong. Lots to talk about these days. My thoughts keep going back to Romney’s revealing tape. It seems MSNBC is keeping it live. Not sure if any other media is even focusing on it. My guess is not so much. It also seems that Romney’s supporters are down in numbers, but again not so much. At least not as much as I thought after this illuminating tape went live, and even though republicans have shown they are distancing themselves from him.
What he said was sickening, and scary, and not the words that I would want to hear from a presidential candidate. The fact that the tape was done surreptitiously, tells you that what he was saying was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth…so…help us God. You would think that any of the 47% (Half of the country!) he speaks of would just run far away from him, but racism runs deep – the numbers speak for themselves.
My feeling is this…it really doesn’t matter what happens before the election…how much foot Romney puts in his mouth, etc., (Although I am into it, and HOPEing that he continues to reveal his true self!) because the bottom line is, the republicans will try and steal the election. It doesn’t mean that we throw up our hands and say “Oh well, we’ve lost”, and give up. Oh no…we have to make it as difficult as possible for them to try. If we give up then, they won’t even have to steal it, we would have given it to them. So that is not an option. We must do our very best to get people to the polls and voting for Obama. It is the only way. As Mike, TM says, “There is nothing the Right will not try to steal this election”. We have to be just as vigilant and do everything we can possible do to prevent them. I’m in. I HOPE you are too.
Before I post a topic, here’s a notice that we all should know about. You can’t miss this:
Tomorrow in New Orleans, President Barack Obama and GOP Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan will speak at AARP’s Life@50+ event and answer questions from AARP members across the country.
What: A conversation with President Obama and GOP VP Nominee Ryan
When: Friday, Sept. 21 (Obama at 10:45 AM CDT, Ryan at 11:30 AM CDT)
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And since I am still on the topic of Romney, and his refusal of showing his tax returns is still a hot topic, and rightly so, this is an excellent article because it reminds people that Romney must have something to hide in his taxes that is so devastating that he is willing to take the chance that he can win by not showing them, than to risk certain rejection if that information is known.
Choose Your Own Romney Tax Return Adventure
By only releasing two years of tax information (and just one tax return), Mitt Romney has done something really fun: given us a mystery to solve! Reporters are siccing tax experts on the few extant bits of documentary evidence about Romney’s taxes to extrapolate what all the returns from before 2010 might contain. Here’s what the sleuths have come up with so far.
Theory: Mitt Romney paid no taxes in 2009.
Theorist: Bloomberg Businessweek‘s Joshua Green
Evidence: The financial crisis in 2008 cost the ultra-rich (wealth above $30 million) an average of 25 percent of their net worth, Green says. Romney fits in that category, and he probably felt major losses. “And it’s possible he suffered a large enough capital loss that, carried forward and coupled with his various offshore tax havens, he wound up paying no U.S. federal taxes at all in 2009,” Green writes.
Counter-evidence: Romney’s campaign denied Wednesday that Romney has ever had a $0 tax bill, Politico’s Alexander Burns reports.
Theory: Romney had a secret Swiss bank account, and revealed it under the IRS’s amnesty program in 2009.
Theorist: Slate’s Matt Yglesias, New York University’s Daniel Shaviro (sort of)
Evidence: Romney had a Swiss bank account, which the lawyer managing his blind trust closed in late 2010. In 2008, a whistleblower at UBS, the Swiss bank where Romney had his account, told the IRS about 4,000 American account holders. The IRS offered an amnesty deal for account-holders who came forward in 2009. Yglesias speculates:
“Romney might well have thought in 2007 and 2008 that there was nothing to fear about a non-disclosed offshore account he’d set up years earlier precisely because it wasn’t disclosed. But then came the settlement and the rush of non-disclosers to apply for the amnesty. Failing to apply for the amnesty and then getting charged by the IRS would have been both financially and politically disastrous. So amnesty it was.”
Why else would Romney want a Swiss bank account, Shaviro told the Huffington Post. “It’s unclear why he would have valued the Swiss bank account secrecy, and it wouldn’t have enabled him legally to avoid U.S. tax… This is why there’s speculation that he was into the amnesty program.”
Counter-evidence: Bloomberg’s Barro explains that Romney listed a “UBS Money Market Account” in a Federal Election Commission disclosure form in 2007. It wasn’t “clearly flagged as Swiss, but it’s there,” Barro says. (Romney failed to report earned interest income on the $3 million account in a 2011 disclosure form, and had to amend it.) “It’s possible that Romney told the FEC about the account while hiding it from the IRS, but that doesn’t seem very smart.”
(Photo via T@H!R via Flickr.)
Theory: Romney might have used his Swiss bank account to hide problematic transactions, like “any politically unpopular investments, clever and complex asset sales designed to lower Romney’s tax bills.”
Theorist: The Huffington Post’s Zach Carter and Ryan Grim
Evidence: When Romney released his 2010 tax return, he did not release a separate document required by the IRS, called a Report on Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts, or FBAR. Romney would have needed to file an FBAR in his foreign accounts, because not doing so would incur a big fine. Other foreign accounts that didn’t generate income, but instead just executed transactions, would not show up on the tax return, but would show up on the FBAR. “Romney may not have engaged in any of those activities” listed above, the Huffington Post says, “but his as-yet-unreleased 2010 FBAR would make it easier to determine whether or not he did.”
Counter-evidence: Just as there is no real evidence for this speculation, there is no counter-evidence yet.
Theory: Romney might have engaged in “aggressive tax planning strategies that are legally, but not politically, defensible.”
Theorist: Bloomberg’s Josh Barro, New York University School of Law tax professor Daniel Shaviro, The New Yorker‘s John Cassidy, The Washington Post‘s Greg Sargent
Evidence: Barro took a look at Green’s theory, and found that though Romney’s taxes show he had no taxable capital gains in 2009, he had other income. Even with a lot of deductions, “it’s unlikely that these factors alone could have added up to a tax bill of $0. Of the 35,000 high income taxpayers with no tax due in 2009, by far the largest share achieved that feat by investing heavily in tax-exempt municipal bonds.” Romney was not heavily invested in municipal bonds. So if Romney has something politically damaging in his tax returns, it’s probably something else, like aggressive tax planning strategies. Likewise, Shaviro says:
Still, willingness to do extremely aggressive tax sheltering (such as through loss generation from circular flows of cash) in 2009 would not come as a huge surprise, even though it seems like a dumb idea if you are preparing to run for president again.
Cassidy notes that while Romney’s tax preparers might have had politics in mind in 2010 and 2011, they might not have thought about that in earlier years.
Counter-evidence: There is no counter-evidence so far, unless you count Tim Pawlenty telling CBS Wednesday that Romney’s “paid a lot of taxes.”
(Photo via Images_of_Money via Flickr.)
Theory: The taxes might just show Romney made a ton of money, had more offshore accounts, and made controversial investments.
Theorist: The New Yorker‘s John Cassidy (sort of)
Evidence: Cassidy seems to think the most likely reason Romney won’t show us the tax returns is that he paid an even lower tax rate than the 14 percent shown on the 2010 taxes. But there are other possibilities. Romney’s retirement agreement with Bain ended in 2009, and “quite probably it allowed Romney to keep pocketing a substantial portion of the firm’s profits.” Or maybe before 2010, Romney’s money managers “were even more aggressive in their use of overseas investment vehicles and tax shields.” Or maybe Bain invested in controversial firms like the medical waste company that disposes of aborted fetuses, a potential problem because ‘even after he left, kept much of his money in investment funds managed by the firm.”
Counter-evidence: Cassidy thinks these three theories are unlikely, because Romney’s name is already tied to the first two — being rich and having offshore accounts — and the controversial investments wouldn’t be worth all this tax return headache.
Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author at ereeve@nationaljournal.com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire.
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Readers: And no, I haven’t even begun to read the 90 something comments that came in yesterday. Buy hey, blog me anyway.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
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michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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September 20th, 2012 at 11:56 am
Glenn, why are you so sure she’s married, could’ve been a happily single/divorced or widowed woman enjoying your scene from afar. Or did you neglect to mention the part where a man was looking over her shoulder or you were blinded by her left hand bling from three stories away…? What’s your intent in asking? Often men set up little sexual scenarios like this to get women to agree it’s something (harmless, ok, just having fun, horrible, cheating…) and then turn it on them when it’s YOU who are (with some unknown intention) inferring something, but what? I’m not being harsh, just curious. Luv, Zen Lill
September 20th, 2012 at 1:13 pm
Romney made his millions hidden in offshore accounts by working for Heidi Fliess. He was the official condom depository for those who had cummunicable diseases and he was labeled as a bio-hazard by the EPA. The stigma from this cause Mitt much embarrasment.
Republicants please wash your hands if you shake with o’le Mitt.
September 20th, 2012 at 2:32 pm
Romney failed again. He has said in the past it would be easier for him to get elected if he were Hispanic. Check the news for the photos of him intentionally wearing darker face makeup while courting Hispanic voters yesterday. What’s next, black face?
/SB
September 20th, 2012 at 2:45 pm
$20 million advance to Monica Lewinsky for writing a book about blowing the president? Really?
Damn, I guess I do need to suck dick!
/SB
September 20th, 2012 at 3:23 pm
Sorry for my typo peeps – i meant to write $12 million. That’s still a lot of clams!
September 20th, 2012 at 5:42 pm
It is not the dick you suck, it is THE dick you suck.
September 20th, 2012 at 9:47 pm
Theory: Romney’s tax returns would reveal what kind of theif he really is. Those returns will also show how little regard Romney has for his fellow Americans. Not everyone can take advantage of the loopholes the mills and bills can, so we PAY TAXES, unlike many who could actually pay a high percentage and not affect their lifestyle one bit.
There are many who pay a higher percentage than Romney who cannot afford to feed their familys well.
Theorist: Me
Evidence: Romney has to stash his cash in hidden offshore accounts and will not offer any transparency toward his finances. He is also an acting BISHOP of a cult like religion that is also full of secrecy. What do we really know about the mormons hierarchy and the churches true agenda. Everything I know about them is bad and most is secretive. They take an oath to cut their throats before revealing these secrets. I wonder what they are?
Which will he give top priority to: The mormon church, the U.S. Govt. and the American people, his personal wealth and that of his cronies? Will we all be learning new ways to handshake, will Romney try to let his moron of a church influence American Law and empower Moronism? There are many conflicts with the Romney campain. He doesn’t care about half of the country by his own admission.
Yes, there is much that is hokey about Romney’s presidential campain. Who is this MORON? I would rather not have to find out what the LSOS has up his sleeve. I do not believe he is free of conflicts of interest or of sufficient character to be elegible to run for this high office.
Counter Evidence: There isn’t any.
September 20th, 2012 at 10:44 pm
It seems that much was left out of Mitt Romney’s biopic…first, he forgot to mention that his father’s family moved to Mexico so that George Romney’s grandfather could marry his fifth simultaneous wife, a move that was illegal in Utah when Utah became a state.
He also failed to mention that during a Mexican revolution, Mitt Romney’s grandfather lost his property and land, and as an immigrant to this nation, qualified for assistance that was passed by the federal government to help refugees escaping political strife.
So as a young immigrant, George Romney’s family took federal funds to get back on their feet.
I guess, perhaps, the taxpayers helped out Mr. Romney’s family. And perhaps he owes everyone an apology for implying that the federal government didn’t make him the man he is today.
Without those assistance programs, that he ridicules in his ads, I wonder where his family would be today.
No word as to whether his grandmother was forced to work to continue getting benefits paid for by hard working Americans.
September 20th, 2012 at 10:47 pm
I almost never post, but this was so close to a theme I’ve been thinking about for many, many years I had to reply.
To me you see two kinds of thinking about how things should work, I call it generous and non-generous thinking.
For the non-generous thinker the way they see it is – Hey I went through hell without help, everybody else should have to suffer just as much.
For the generous thinker – Hey I went through hell without help, it was awful. I don’t think others should have to go through that.
A perfect example is a boss who is jerk because his bosses always treated him badly, he returns what he received. But the generous approach is not repeating behavior you didn’t like, trying to be a good, fair boss, not being jerky just because you had to put up with it.
Same is true for how you raise kids, how you think about religion. (others should have to do what I do vs. others are different and that’s ok)
I see the republicans and democrats as lining up along this split in non-generous and generous thinking respectively.
I’ll stick with those who think generously, thank you very much.
:)
September 20th, 2012 at 10:55 pm
So Romney’s father came to america and got a welfare check. Bet he built that welfare check all by himself.
The definition of INSANITY: Voting Republican over and over and over and expecting the economy to get better.
September 20th, 2012 at 10:58 pm
Mike,TM
You got me googling. I found this: Mitt’s great great grandpa was murdered by the husband of the wife he married in bigamy.
His great grandpa married two sisters.
They’re a creepy creepy family.
It’s bigamy across the board, all up and down the family tree in recent history.
It wasn’t always that way, but starting with his great great grandparents, they all went bigamy.
September 20th, 2012 at 10:59 pm
Mike,TM:
You got me googling. I found this: Mitt’s great great grandpa was murdered by the husband of the wife he married in bigamy.
His great grandpa married two sisters.
They’re a creepy creepy family.
It’s bigamy across the board, all up and down the family tree in recent history.
It wasn’t always that way, but starting with his great great grandparents, they all went bigamy.
September 20th, 2012 at 11:01 pm
Mike,TM;
I was trying to quickly look up information on the beginning of Welfare. What we know as Welfare didn’t exist until the Depression. AFDC and Social Security were passed about the same time.
The article I was reading indicated that there were programs for the poor prior to that (George Romney came here in 1912-13?), but they required that recipients work in a work house (whatever that is).
Since there were no child labor laws at that time, I’d be curious to know how young George Romney was when he began working. His early life made him a very different person than his born-into-wealth son.
Your left is my right—Mort Sahl
September 20th, 2012 at 11:19 pm
I’m a Mormon and proud of it.
http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/62602/Finding-refuge-in-El-Paso.html
September 20th, 2012 at 11:44 pm
GOOD MORNING FROM DAILY EVENTS!
Happy Thursday, which means press day here at Human Events. Please enjoy our web offerings this morning, including John Gizzi’s piece on Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s U.S. visit.
Have a good day and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.
– Adam Tragone, Managing Editor
September 20th, 2012 at 11:48 pm
LETS see! The Republicans don’t like women (Brown’s performance tonight), Latinos, 47% of Americans, the smart elite set, media types, scientists, and older preple (on medicare) and now the Vets! Am I leaving anyone out?
Who do they like besides angry old rich white guys?
September 20th, 2012 at 11:54 pm
This vote against our Veterans by the Republicans perfectly summarizes the political environment faced by President Obama.
The Republican party that issued a blank check to George Bush on every issue not only refuses a modest investment to help veterans, but once again uses the anti-democratic tool of the filibuster to stop legislation with a mere 40 votes.
No president in history has been forced by the minority party to muster 60 votes to pass every bill. This shameful band of treasonous hacks have permanently stained their party’s brand.
September 21st, 2012 at 8:22 am
No white man or woman would ever vote Republican these days. Only white RACIST’s would ever think of voting republican, and just so to remove Obama. The romney camp is running soley on bigotry and hatred, no one other than a racist would vote for that idiot.
I am not black, but there are too many times I am not very proud to say that I am white. I suppose there are some (very few) white folk who are genuinely fooled by the GOP’s message of prosperity, but how many can that be?
Besides the filthy rich who will profit finacially, I don’t think Romney could muster up one vote from a white man. Lest he be a bigot who does not like having a black president. What the hell is wrong with people that would cause them to be so bigotted and full of hate I will never know, but the welfare of The United States Of America is at stake here.
Too many people are voting out of hatred for the black man and this is sickening me to the core of my essence. I just wish people would do what they know to be the right thing.
Wishful thinking? Probably so.
Henry