Romney says he pays about 15 percent in income tax

[Papa_Complex]

Originally Posted by Amber Lamps

Correct, If I earn through wages $100,000/year, I'm taxed right? Let's say 25% just for fun. Now I invest $20,000 in Dildos Inc and they turn a profit and I get a $5,000 dividend. I then pay 15% on that dividend. It's not double taxation.

The point is that I paid taxes on the money when I earned it, I pay taxes on the interest if I save it, I pay taxes on the money that I spend and I pay taxes on the gain if I invest. Why is that okay with everyone and why do you think that Romney or anyone else should pay more? The stupid thing with Romney is that he "only" pays 15% because he's earning money solely from investments for the most part. He is not doing anything shady or illegal and it is evil and blatantly irresponsible for the media to portray it any other way.

If it's income, why shouldn't it be taxed? I don't see the problem here.

[Amber Lamps]

Originally Posted by askmrjesus

OK, look at it this way;

Romney bought and sold companies that were vulnerable. High debt, over leveraged, etc. Let's say he invests a million in Dildos Inc., and then sells off all the Dildo making machines for two million. He pays 15% on the million he just made. Illegal? No. Shady? Kinda.

Why? Because in addition to selling off all the Dildo machines, he also fired all the Dildo helpers.

Romney claims he knows how to help the middle class. He wants to deregulate business to the point where people like him have less hoops to jump through, when it comes to firing people, moving jobs offshore, and paying benefits. That doesn't help anyone in the middle class. It only helps douchebags like Mitt Romney.

JC

So what should happen to those companies? Should they get a govt bailout for running their businesses into the ground? Instead of having "douchebags" buy and strip them, I guess that we taxpayers should support them..... Otherwise, they just go out of business anyway.... I'm sorry but when in doubt, I go capitalism every time. No one forces those companies to go out of business or sell. If no one wants dildos, manufacture something else. Diversify. Is it the shark's fault that you swam out to the deep water and couldn't swim?

[goof2]

Originally Posted by askmrjesus

OK, look at it this way;

Romney bought and sold companies that were vulnerable. High debt, over leveraged, etc. Let's say he invests a million in Dildos Inc., and then sells off all the Dildo making machines for two million. He pays 15% on the million he just made. Illegal? No. Shady? Kinda.

Why? Because in addition to selling off all the Dildo machines, he also fired all the Dildo helpers.

Romney claims he knows how to help the middle class. He wants to deregulate business to the point where people like him have less hoops to jump through, when it comes to firing people, moving jobs offshore, and paying benefits. That doesn't help anyone in the middle class. It only helps douchebags like Mitt Romney.

JC

As I understand it he would pay 15% on the million he made only if it is a long term capital gain. If selling off the machines qualifies as a capital gain (I'm not sure it would, but lets assume so for simplicity) the money would have had to be invested for more than a year before realizing the gain, otherwise it is a short term capital and taxed as regular income.

Where you really seem to have an issue is with Dildos Inc. helpers being fired. I don't like people losing their jobs either, but the reality is Dildos Inc. is failing. Those employees are losing their jobs, its just a matter of whether it is through liquidation or bankruptcy. At least with liquidation those who Dildos Inc. owes money to don't get screwed as well.

[askmrjesus]

Originally Posted by Homeslice

But if Romney was just a partner of Bain Capital, then he wasn't using HIS money to invest in Dildos, he was using the collective's (Bain's) money. Same with the profits, they wouldn't go straight to him, they'd go through Bain first.

Hell, even if he was the sole proprieter at Bain, I doubt he could hide all those profits from the IRS.

It doesn't matter whose money it is, Bain was likely paying capital gains rates, since most of their income came from returns on investment. The whole fucking thing is rigged.

Romney didn't have to worry about the IRS. Between all the lawyers and tax accounts on staff, and a convenient office in Luxembourg (a country with extremely secretive banking laws), all Bain had to do was bury the IRS in paperwork. Not even the mighty IRS has enough people to track down all the details of multiple shell companies in multiple countries.

These guys essentially build giant moats of quicksand around themselves, and dare you to walk through.

JC

[askmrjesus]

Originally Posted by goof2

As I understand it he would pay 15% on the million he made only if it is a long term capital gain. If selling off the machines qualifies as a capital gain (I'm not sure it would, but lets assume so for simplicity) the money would have had to be invested for more than a year before realizing the gain, otherwise it is a short term capital and taxed as regular income.

That's the beauty of the system Romney wants to expand. He takes the money he made from Dildos Inc, and re-invests it in Dildos International, and short term gains become long term gains. The dude ain't living from paycheck to paycheck. He has time to work the system to full advantage.

Originally Posted by goof2

Where you really seem to have an issue is with Dildos Inc. helpers being fired. I don't like people losing their jobs either, but the reality is Dildos Inc. is failing. Those employees are losing their jobs, its just a matter of whether it is through liquidation or bankruptcy. At least with liquidation those who Dildos Inc. owes money to don't get screwed as well.

Well, they don't get screwed as much. They're offered a percentage of the debt, and they take it, because the only other option is the left over crumbs after bankruptcy is filed, and Mitt has already sucked the capital out of the company anyway.

Yes, I have a problem with the workers being fired, but not because I'm an anti-capitalist. Far from it. I have a problem with the way Mitt does things, because he's running on a platform of restoring the middle class, when he's gone out of his way to make that status unavailable for thousands of people.

I don't need a President that wallows in corporate greed like fat girls at an all you can eat KFC buffet. I just want to show up, and find a couple of pieces of chicken left. Maybe some corn and a roll too.

I ain't asking for much.

JC

[goof2]

Originally Posted by askmrjesus

That's the beauty of the system Romney wants to expand. He takes the money he made from Dildos Inc, and re-invests it in Dildos International, and short term gains become long term gains. The dude ain't living from paycheck to paycheck. He has time to work the system to full advantage.

"He" can certainly do that and it is completely legal. How does Romney want to expand it?

Originally Posted by askmrjesus

Well, they don't get screwed as much. They're offered a percentage of the debt, and they take it, because the only other option is the left over crumbs after bankruptcy is filed, and Mitt has already sucked the capital out of the company anyway.

Yes, I have a problem with the workers being fired, but not because I'm an anti-capitalist. Far from it. I have a problem with the way Mitt does things, because he's running on a platform of restoring the middle class, when he's gone out of his way to make that status unavailable for thousands of people.

I don't need a President that wallows in corporate greed like fat girls at an all you can eat KFC buffet. I just want to show up, and find a couple of pieces of chicken left. Maybe some corn and a roll too.

I ain't asking for much.

JC

How in your previous hypothetical does Romney go "out of his way to make that status unavailable for thousands of people"?

[pauldun170]

Why do all conversations about Romney evolve into conversations about plastic dicks?
Oh...wait
Nevermind

[EpyonXero]

Speaking of offshore accounts...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/busine...TEQ_story.html

Romney’s offshore accounts have up to $32 million; legal tax strategy could defer payments

By Associated Press, Published: January 20

WASHINGTON — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney owns investments worth between $7 million and $32 million in offshore-based holdings, which are often used legitimately by private equity firms to attract foreign investors. Such offshore accounts also can enable wealthy investors to defer paying U.S. taxes on some assets, according to tax experts.

An Associated Press examination of Romney’s financial records identified at least six funds set up in the Cayman Islands, a small Caribbean island chain that has long been used as a base for international investments because of low tax rates and financial secrecy. Romney has acknowledged that some of his investments are based in the Caymans, but he has not identified all of the specific accounts and the amounts based there. There is no indication Romney uses the accounts to dodge any U.S. tax obligations.

The Caymans have often been associated with individuals and corporations seeking to avoid paying U.S. taxes. However, it is legal for U.S. residents to own investment accounts that are set up there — if they file the proper forms with the Internal Revenue Service and pay the appropriate taxes.

“If you file the forms and report the income, you are 100 percent legal,” said Kevin Packman, a Miami lawyer who chairs the offshore tax compliance team at the law firm of Holland & Knight.

Independent tax policy experts said Romney’s use of the Cayman-based investments was legal, but some criticized the strategy as a province of wealthy investors allowed by a tax code studded with loopholes.

“The bottom line is, they’re taking advantage of a system that’s flawed,” said Nicole Tichon, director of Tax Justice Network USA, part of a global network promoting tax transparency. “It may be legal, but these are loopholes that show problems in our tax code.”

The six Romney offshore holdings are in investment funds run by Bain Capital, the private equity powerhouse he led in the 1980s and 1990s. The six funds are listed only by name and a range of amounts in Romney’s financial records, but the Cayman addresses are in other corporate documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and in foreign investment portfolios.

Five of the Cayman-based funds are included within a blind trust for Romney’s wife, Ann, and worth between $2.8 million and $7.6 million.

A sixth fund, called Bain Capital Investment Partners Trust Associates lll, is part of Romney’s IRA retirement account and worth between $5 million and $25 million.

In a financial report last August, Romney declared a family fortune worth as much as $250 million. The six Cayman funds are among dozens of investments the Romneys have owned since he left Bain in 1999 to organize the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City and then pursue a career in politics.

A Romney spokeswoman, Andrea Saul, said the Cayman funds “are taxed in the very same way they would be if those funds were established in the United States.” She noted that because many of the funds are in a trust directed by a Boston lawyer, the Romneys played no role in deciding how the money was invested.

Saul said the decision to set up the funds in the Caymans was made by the funds’ sponsors — in this case, senior partners at Bain Capital, not Romney. A Bain spokesman declined to comment on the funds’ origins.

Tax experts and lawyers said using offshore funds to attract foreign investors is a legitimate and standard business practice. Increased foreign investment in a U.S. fund based abroad could increase financial returns for American investors. Offshore funds offer advantages for U.S. investors looking to diversify their portfolios and for foreign investors seeking to avoid U.S. reporting and tax-withholding requirements.

“If you have a foreign investor who is making income largely abroad and doesn’t want to be subject to U.S. regulations and reporting, it’s a plus,” said C. Eugene Steuerle, co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and former deputy assistant treasury secretary for tax analysis.

Under American law, U.S. investors must pay taxes on profits made from offshore investment funds. However, U.S. investors may be able to defer those taxes until later as they bring the profits into the U.S., depending on how the fund is structured, said Kevin Packman, chairman of his firm’s offshore compliance team at Holland & Knight of Miami.

Some hedge fund and private equity managers route IRA retirement holdings through an offshore entity set up as a “blocker corporation,” an affiliate of a private equity fund that acts as a way-station, storing the retirement funds while investing an identical amount in the actual fund. This complicated maneuver allows the investor to defer paying a 35 percent tax on earnings that the IRS considers “unrelated business income,” said Michael J. Graetz, a Columbia University law professor and an authority on national and international tax law.

The 35 percent tax is aimed at pension funds, university endowments, hospitals and other nonprofit organizations when they invest in private equity funds that borrow large amounts of money to buy other companies. But nonprofits can use the offshore blocker funds to defer those tax payments, and similarly, IRA accounts can be routed through blocker accounts, depending on how tax plans are structured, Graetz said.

“One of the major functions of tax planning is to defer payments and deal with them down the road instead of today,” Graetz said. “For an IRA account, it’s not so much a tax rate game as it is a timing game.”

Romney’s other offshore-based investments would not benefit from that structure, Graetz said. But their earnings could be boosted by blocker corporations that promote investments by nonprofits, he said.

Romney’s taxpaying strategy may become clearer when he makes his 2012 tax returns available in April as he has promised.

Congress has tried to make it harder for investors to defer tax payments by broadening requirements that U.S. investors in foreign-based funds pay taxes as they earn profits. But aggressive tax planners can still find ways to get around the rules, experts said.

“You have to look at each investment and its structure before you can pass judgment,” Steuerle said.

Benefits to deferring tax payments include the ability to reinvest the deferred taxes, earning higher returns before bringing the money into the U.S. A wealthy investor who has no immediate need for the money would be able to keep the investment offshore indefinitely, never paying U.S. taxes on it.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

© The Washington Post Company

[Captain Morgan]

Originally Posted by EpyonXero

Speaking of offshore accounts...

Benefits to deferring tax payments include the ability to reinvest the deferred taxes, earning higher returns before bringing the money into the U.S. A wealthy investor who has no immediate need for the money would be able to keep the investment offshore indefinitely, never paying U.S. taxes on it.

Glad they said this at the end, as I was thinking it the entire time I was reading the article. Somebody who doesn't need to money to live on could just leave the money there, then eventually buy a place in the Cayman's to retire and just pull the money out while living in the Cayman's.

[Amber Lamps]

Oh lord, no wonder we are 15+ trillion in the hole. Romney has 32 million in offshore investments....

Romney didn't write the damn tax code. I guess that none of the rich democrats in the world have ever taken advantage of tax loop holes. Of course not. You are all being lead astray of the real issues here. Where anyone chooses to invest their money is not what's fundamentally wrong with this country. Quite frankly, I'm more concerned with all of the welfare rats that pull EIC credits every year when they don't pay ANYTHING in taxes in the first place. How about the fact that half the country doesn't even pay federal income tax? What do you expect people to do? Do you pay taxes on your 401k? Don't you take every deduction that you can? Oh don't tell me, you guys pay in more than you have to to the federal govt just to be nice, right? Class envy, entitlement mentality, etc is what is fundamentally wrong with this country. Most have nots are also work nots in my experience. I don't fault rich guys trying to hold on to their money, that's what I do as well. Shit, all the feds are going to do is give it to some welfare rat, a foreign country or blow it on some bullshit project/study.... I may as well take 30% of my pay and light it on fire.