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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBloomberg Business Week: What's Romney Hiding in His Tax Returns? (Paid No Taxes in 2009?)
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-07-17/whats-romney-hiding-in-his-tax-returnsWhat's Romney Hiding in His Tax Returns?
Posted by: Joshua Green on July 17, 2012
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Last night I had dinner with some (non-Bain) private equity executives, and I took the opportunity to quiz them on the topic and test my own theories about Romneys tax returns. Let me emphasize that I have no idea what is in those returns, and neither did anyone I spoke with. What follows is unfounded, though not implausible, speculation. The most intriguing scenario that emerged about what could be lurking in those returns is as follows:
When the stock market collapsed in 2008, the wealthiest investors fared worse than everyone else. (See, for instance, this Merrill Lynch study.) The ultra-richthose with fortunes of more than $30 millionfared worst of all, losing on average about 25 percent of their net worth. There was really nowhere to hide as an investor in 2008, Merrill Lynchs president of global wealth management pointed out in 2009. No region ended the year unscathed.
As a member of the ultra-rich, Romney probably wasnt spared major losses. And its 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. If true, this would be politically deadly for him. Even assuming that his return was thoroughly clean and legala safe assumption, it seems to methe fallout would dwarf the controversy that attended the news that Romney had paid a tax rate of just 14 percent in 2010 and that estimated hed pay a similar rate in 2011.
The zero tax in 2009 theoryagain, this is sheer speculationgains further sustenance when you consider its the only year for which nobody knows anything about Romneys taxes. Hes revealed whats in his 2010 and 2011 returns, and he reportedly submitted 20-some years worth of returns to the McCain campaign when he was being vetted for vice president in 2008. Steve Schmidt, McCains chief strategist in that campaign, said on MSNBC last night that while he didnt examine Romneys returns himself, nothing that McCains vetters found in them disqualified Romney from consideration.
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Green is senior national correspondent for Bloomberg Businessweek in Washington. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaGreen.
Quixote1818
(28,992 posts)Ruby the Liberal
(26,219 posts)Hopefully people will keep posting them until one does!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/125157287
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002964338
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002962358
http://www.democraticunderground.com/125157432
DefenseLawyer
(11,101 posts)Although it may not be only stock market losses, he could have taken a write-off for losses from some company that he bought and bankrupted.
Ruby the Liberal
(26,219 posts)Actually, for the 2008 vetting, he would have submitted through 2007. 2008 has not been seen by anyone else either.
But - he is right. 2009 is a critical return. Surprised he didn't note the 2009 amnesty window for offshore tax havens to "come home" without penalty and with reduced taxes as incentive.
malaise
(269,219 posts)and I found this
Did Mitt Romney Take the 2009 Swiss Bank Account Amnesty
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/07/17/romney_s_tax_returns_is_the_2009_swiss_bank_account_amnesty_what_he_doesn_t_want_us_to_see_.html
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Something like this:
Wealthy U.S. taxpayers, concerned about an Internal Revenue Service crackdown on the use of secret overseas bank accounts as tax havens, are rushing to meet a Thursday deadline to disclose those accounts or face possible criminal prosecution. The concern was triggered this summer when Switzerland's largest bank, caught up in an international tax evasion dispute, said it would disclose the names of more than 4,000 of its U.S. account holders.
The decision shattered a long-held belief that Swiss banks would guard the identities of its American customers as carefully as they did their money, and it raised concern that other international tax havens might be next. Under an amnesty program, the IRS is allowing taxpayers to avoid prosecution for having failed to report their overseas accounts. As a result, tax attorneys across the nation have been besieged by wealthy clients who are lining up to apply even though they will still face big financial penalties.
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. But even though the amnesty would eliminate any legal or financial liability for past acts, it would hardly eliminate political liability.
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This is very interesting to me because this information could be known - just sayin'