Pretty colors – for an ugly truth. I took this chart from this story. The figure given, globally, for the amount of money that the uber wealthy send out of the countries where they allegedly live into secretive tax shelters is 32 trillion. It isn’t just Willard Mitt Romney – it is Russian oligarchs, Korean billionaires, you get the picture. The more they have, the less they care about the rest of us. Do they plan to terraform new planets? Live under glass domes? Think they will live forever in cloned bodies? I have not a clue except that it is the future of the planet the uber wealthy are playing with. I have news for them: We only have one planet. We all need to live on that planet. And just because they lie, cheat, and steal on a grand scale, that doesn’t make them better than the rest of us – no, in fact it makes them bent, broken, evil – and in a moral sense, as helpless and clueless as blind grubs, at least in moral matters.
When Ann Romney said that the Romneys had disclosed all “you people need to know” that was because her people are different, don’t need to follow the rules or same standards as “you people” must follow. If disclosing the truth, that her husband valued Bain stock at zero (or thereabouts) to put it in his 401k, and that is why the public part of the 401k is worth over $100,000,000 rather than the $500k or so at the maximum allowed contribution, well it was his Bain Stock, he was the sole shareholder, and why shouldn’t he do whatever he wants with his stuff?
It is true no two people are identical. Some of us are smarter, or stronger, or healthier. I am not as good as you, you are not as good as me, we are each only as good as our day to day choices make us given what our “endowment” was at birth. But, seriously, there is no liberty and no rule of law unless the laws work the same for everyone. Someone who undervalues stock, puts the undervalued stock into an IRA or 401k and reaps extraordinary tax free income is nothing more than a thief, grand larceny against their own country and its future. Nothing to honor there! So no wonder Ann Romney says something along the lines of “Move along, nothing to see here.”
The ranks of climate deniers are full of these folks who send their money overseas to avoid paying taxes, leaving honest hard working folks to carry the weight of society while they steal from all of us. When you say “trickle down” I hear a very loud sucking sound – the sound of the gross national product of my country being sucked into a big black hole known as the tax shelters and dodges and cheats of the uber wealthy.
I fear it is my old nemesis, Mammon, who is having the last laugh on Romney and the oligarchs, and when they leave this mortal plain, it is Mammon who will dine well.
Think about it – all these Red Meat types who claim to follow Jesus Christ pile up so much money they cannot spend it in secret caches. They do not ensure that the hungry are fed, that the planet blooms, that sickness and disease are cured because the necessary research is fully funded. No, indeed. Their money might as well be Smaug’s horde for all the good it does.
Maybe this should be the new icon of the Republican party – and we should stop maligning elephants who do, after all, take care of one another. Welcome to my proposed icon/image for the current Republican party, and all oligarchs:
My proposed new mascot for the Republican Party and its allies – Smaug and his horde, courtesy of Carole Emery and the Tolkien Gateway. The wealth held by those who send their vast wealth, 32 trillion of it, into hiding does this planet and the human race as much good as Smaug’s horde did anyone. Perfect archtype, don’t you think?
But, again, you don’t have to take MY word for it:
…is why it should matter where the money is stored. Taxation should be based on where the money is MADE. Anything that Mitt Romney accumulates should be taxed as income, preferably by a graduated formula. Where he parks his after-tax money is up to him.
would appear to lead to the conclusion that Governor Romney and other Dreamers of Avarice ought to be permitted to make all the dough they like in foreign lands and then not owe poor Uncle Sam a nickle.
Though possibly fair in itself–maybe–that plan would have a really bad effect on domestic job creation. ¿Would it not?
Happy days.
I think taxation of wealth should be based on the PERSON WHO CONTROLS IT, not where it is earned or where it is kept. The problem I have with the enormous amount of offshore wealth described in the thread-starter is NOT that the wealth is offshore, it is instead that it is put there in order to (a) hide the identity of those who own it and (b) stop authorities from taxing it.
In my view, the problem we must solve is excessive concentration of wealth in the hands of the top 1%. It doesn’t matter to me whether that wealth is kept abroad or at home — it needs to be put back into circulation, so that the 99% have the wealth needed to restore and then sustain our consumer economy.
but people should be able to do whatever they want t=with their wealth. ANYTHING! It is “their” wealth. If they want to bury it in a box, invest it in Albania, buy a small country… none of my business, or yours.
Many Americans seem to understand that we have a global economy now but they don’t understand that we also have global investments which we want and we encourage.
Taxes… I’d suggest we ask our leaders(?) like John Kerry and Scott Brown what they are going to do to the tax code to prevent people from avoiding taxes. That is where the problem is, not with the individuals. Are people who take their mortgage deduction on their taxes cheating the system? How about if someone invests in US bonds which allows the interest to be free of state taxes, cheating? NO! Someone created these loopholes for a reason and if we don’t like them then we should change them.
… when you say “people should be able to do whatever they want” you mean they should be able to pay $0 taxes.
I know you don’t mean that, so please rephrase.
Tom was saying people’s wealth needs to be “put back in circulation” much like I heard others comment on the 3 trillion in capital the private companies are sitting on needing to be put back in play. I don’t think we can tell individuals or corporations to get their money back “in circulation”. I think people should be able to do whatever they want with their money (after they pay their legal taxes).
a great slogan, but what are the ramifications? No taxes? What are the ramifications of no taxes? No government.
You’re right, John, that a large problem with our tax code is tax avoidance. Even without loopholes, exemptions create huge complications. If we were going to design a tax system from the bottom up would it make sense to have exemptions for children and homes? Maybe. Would it make sense to exempt fringe benefits like health insurance?
Redesigning the tax code makes a lot of sense in a perfect world, but in ours, capital writes the system. It’s unlikely Kerry or Brown could do anything to make it better. I wouldn’t even want to see them try.
But we need to keep pressing for some sort of tax reform.
I actually think “their wealth” is a good slogan. My concern with Obama’s latest gaffe about nobody making it on their own… is he would refer to it as “our wealth”, well it’s not. You own your stuff and I own my stuff. “WE” own the public stuff.
I want government… and I have never said I didn’t. We all need structure and we need the collective power that goes with a country contributing to its best interests (roads, police and yes… the Internet…). Don’t confuse people who critique government waste (both within departments and completely wasteful department) with someone who hates all government. I would even pay more for many services if I truly thought it was being managed well. I happily support people in need on SNAP and other programs while I disdain the people who are not deserving of those programs.
John, your comment on another thread confirms that you KNOW that this “gaffe” is yet another egregious GOP lie. There was no “gaffe” by President Obama. There was, instead, a repudiation of the GOP dogma of unrestrained self-interest.
You are putting words in the President’s mouth. He didn’t say anything about “their wealth” or “our wealth”. His precise words are quoted on that thread, and you commented on the thread. Why do you then distort what he said?
Here is the quote again:
Surely our standard should be to address what our public figures actually say.
He said…
Really? I have a number of friends who literally ‘built” their business, they built the building, they built up a customer base… they built their business. DONE!
“That” refers to “this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive” together with “roads and bridges”. I think that’s obvious, you have to willfully misread his words to come up with any other interpretation.
Meanwhile, please note he DID NOT SAY “their wealth” or “or wealth”. Nowhere.
is accurate. It’s neither our wealth or theirs. It’s a combination of both. It’s more clearly looked at two overlapping circles (also known as a Venn diagram). Or maybe salt, a compound of both that can’t be separated without destroying it.
Are you aware of the walruses collecting six figure state pensions, and they pay zilch in state income taxes? But, there are the usual defenders on this board who justify it.
Are you aware Harvard Univ. has a $32 billion endowment fund that earned 20% return last year and guess what they paid in taxes. 0.0000000000%. Poor Watertown, Harvard gobbled up some property there, and took it off the tax rolls. Guess who made up the difference?
All I know is the Romney’s pay more taxes in a month that I or most wil pay over a lifetime. I laugh at the notion of all the complaints about those who LEGALLY avoid taxes by sending THEIR MONEY overseas, yet, not even a mouse squeak of the millions of good paying jobs that were shipped overseas or lost as a result of the free trade agreements. Thank you Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy, and John Kerry for being the sell-outs you are to hard working folks who use their hands and back to make an honest buck.
So the government doesn’t have enuff revenue b/c people ate not making what they use to or should be because their factory or plant moved elsewhere. I say, too bad, you get what you deserve.
John Forbes (no relation to Steve) Kerry paid $5 million for a yacht that was built where, New Zealand? Too bad he couldn’t spread it around to a few American workers.
If we believe all the speculation about Mitt avoiding taxes and knowing the ins and outs of all the loopholes, then this tells me he would be the best person who knows what loopholes to close in order for his administration to lower the deficit and create private sector jobs. Otherwise, he too, will be a one term POTUS. Fair to say Obama has no clue since he had 2 years with super majorities, and NOTHING was done about it?
We have followed the policy you describe, and the result is that a full FIFTY PERCENT of Americans live one paycheck away from abject poverty, while we all live in the wealthiest nation on Earth.
I want our economy to sustain the society we choose to live in. That, in turn, is about PEOPLE. I think we have inverted our value system, so that we treat human suffering as entries on a balance sheet subjugated to enriching the wealth of the already wealthy. In my view, our economy should sustain our society rather than vice-versa.
No matter how we structure our tax code, so long as we preserve and increase the obscene wealth concentration that we see today we will suffer. Economists above my paygrade have a better view of what changes are needed in our tax code to accomplish this. So long as we perpetuate an essentially religious dogma that says “no new taxes”, we ALL will lose.
We peons in the 99% can scrabble and fight for scraps as much as we want — so long as we fail to correct this problem, our passionate arguments only perpetuate the problem.
while the 99% keep electing people who don’t change anything? Shouldn’t enough peons be able to make a difference? Have you noticed how the Occupy movement has been such a colossal disaster? I predicted the whole Occupy movement would start, stall and crumble here on BMG and was right. I think the reason it flopped and so many Americans scream about taxes is not just the amount but that we think it is used poorly. We hear about GSA waste, Defense department contract waste… Has anyone here been following the F-35 Fighter program? How much per plane?? How many problems? The increases in plane pricing makes the Big Dig look cheap. Government spending, or MIS-spending like this is what causes regular and rush folks to cringe when asked to pay more taxes, IMO!
Corporate interests owned by the 1% manage our mass media, and that mass media works very hard ensure that we stay as close to 50/50 as they can manage. Both major parties are largely dominated by the same 1%, candidates from either side are beholden to the 1% for the funding needed to obtain and keep public office. The Citizens United decision strengthens the grip of the 1%.
The perception that the Occupy movement has been a “colossal disaster” is yours. As you observe, you’ve been nay-saying it from the start. I think the evidence is all around us that the movement has been quite successful.
I don’t hear the GOP or “rush folks” criticizing the defense department, can you offer some links? Instead, Mitt Romney is proposing to INCREASE military spending — by as much as $2.1T over the next ten years.
It seems like you not only attack Barack Obama for saying things he did not say, you also applaud the GOP for proposing things it doesn’t propose (like reduced defense spending).
I’m for cutting defense in a big way. I was slapping ALL of our pols for falling down on this issue. Both Sen Kerry and Brown vote in favor of the F-35 for the jobs it brings to MA without any concern for the program’s merits or what is does to our deficit. This is what I meant by we all support the people we like even when they do things which they should be scorned for.
The Occupy movement was a huge fiasco and all it did was make a bunch of people look foolish. Nothing substantial was accomplished.bThe Tea Party movement was a tremendous success for the Tea party and had huge implications in politics.
“I think taxation of wealth should be based on the PERSON WHO CONTROLS IT, not where it is earned or where it is kept.”
Are you saying that a person who lives in Europe, never enters the US, but controls and make most of his money in the US should not pay taxes on this money?
I don’t know, probably not (they probably should pay taxes on the money they earn here).
That’s not the problem we currently have to solve, though. The wealth concentration that hurts us is the wealth concentration of our own top 1%. I think if we can solve that, and put our own economy back on its feet, then we can address the scenario you describe.
Apple has $74 Billion sitting in overseas accounts on products sold outside the US. They have not paid any taxes on that money and won’t unless they want to bring the money back into the US.
Of course, this story loses its luster if they mention that part.
If you are a US resident you are subject to tax in the US on all of your income, regardless of where the account is located. If you put money into a numbered swiss bank account and don’t report the income earned in that account then you have committed tax fraud. Just to restate that, there are no legal loopholes to allow Romney or anyone else to avoid paying US tax on money invested offshore. Failure to do so is an act of criminal fraud.
These offshore locales (e.g., Cayman, Bermuda, Luxembourg, Ireland), in order to attract business, generally do not impose local taxes on the entities that are formed under their local laws.
Romney’s IRA notwithstanding, the largest investors in these offshore funds are pension plans (e.g., CALPERS) and university endowments (e.g., Harvard). They invest in offshore funds because US tax law would force these otherwise tax exempt entities to pay US tax on investments in an identical fund organized in the US. Here is a perfect opportunity for sensible tax reform because US tax law as currently written generates no revenue but incentivizes investors to invest offshore, costing us jobs and taxes on the business that would otherwise be conducted onshore.
I agree with much of your comment, yet I fear you miss the point. I don’t doubt, and I have written here many times, that Mitt Romney’s offshore investments are perfectly legal — that is the problem.
When my mother worries about the gift/estate tax consequences giving one of her grandchildren money for college, while Mitt Romney establishes a tax-free one hundred million dollar trust fund for his children, we have a problem.
If the GOP played ANY SORT of constructive role in solving these problems, then all this might be less of an election-year story. Yet the truth is that GOP fights ANY tax increases on the wealthy tooth-and-nail. They already destroyed the economy in 2008, did everything in their power to destroy it again in last years debt ceiling fiasco, and STILL pursue the same garbage now.
Mitt Romney exemplifies and personifies this wholesale hijacking of our tax system and the obscene wealth concentration that results. That’s why Mitt Romney has a political problem with this.
Nonetheless, as I wrote above, I mostly agree with you that it doesn’t matter where the wealth is stored. We must, however, IMMEDIATELY address the wealth concentration problem — and that isn’t going to happen without changing our tax code so that the 99% recaptures enough of the wealth plundered by the 1% to get our consumer economy back on its feet.
We need it badly. You have in the past suggested a wealth tax, which I think makes a lot of sense. I don’t understand why we want to tax people’s productive efforts. An annual excise tax on accumulated wealth makes far more sense, combined with a VAT type tax on consumption. We do not have the political will to do this now and probably will not for a very long time. The best we can hope for is to have an adult conversation about taxes that leads to a simpler and fairer income tax system.
It would be more effective to say that we would rather reform our tax code to make our country the most attractive place to put that money. We want that money invested here, not taxed here and wasted on more government programs.
Lowered taxes again and again on the wealthiest
Termed any tax code scammer and financial grifter a job creator
Incentivized pollution
But is’s never enough because you just want more: more tax cuts, more adulation of tycoons who create nothing of value, and more “cheap” energy where the cost of pollution is always nothing
32 years of Reagan world when even Reagan would now appear ‘moderate’ in some ways–rock on!
currently has 138 such sub-companies headquartered in the Cayman Islands that allow for shelters from the IRS.
How these companies shelter income from the IRS.
Since the Cayman Islands do not report information on their investors’ accounts to other nations, however, such sub-companies don’t merely help foreign investors avoid U.S. taxes, they help investors avoid paying taxes in other nations, as well. The ploy can even help American taxpayers invest in U.S. companies without accruing a tax bill with the IRS. By establishing personal offshore entities, Americans can pose as foreign investors and avoid paying U.S. taxes on investments in American firms.
“Even a U.S. investor pretending to be a foreign investor, by using a Bermuda or Cayman Islands shell entity, can avoid U.S. tax this way,” Wilkins told HuffPost. “And we know that’s going on. We know that U.S. investors are evading taxes by pretending to be foreigners.”
There is nothing in your link that suggests that Bain is using these offshore entities for fraudulent purposes. It’s kind of like saying anyone that owns a gun is a murderer because some people use guns to murder other people.
And yes, foreign investors invest through foreign entities. How is this a problem?
Here is a fair (I think) summary of what Mr. Romney has been doing with his offshore entities:
1. He contributed Bain stock to offshore IRAs, valuing the stock at essentially 0. This
evadedavoided the $100,000 limit on individual IRA contributions.2. He set up offshore “blocker” companies to shield the massive gains he expected on his highly-leveraged stock from US taxes.
3. His stock turned out to be worth many (I’ve seen estimates ranging from tens to hundreds of millions — we can’t know, because the accounts are secret) millions of dollars.
4. His blocker companies successfully stop him from paying UBIT.
5. His special “carried interest” deal with Bain causes him to pay taxes on the resulting income at rates under 15%.
It appears that he has
evadedavoided tens of millions in personal tax liability — using tax laws that he and his ilk want to make even MORE favorable to themselves while half our population lives in poverty or near poverty and while we bemoan the national debt.All of this is legal. That is the problem.
I wish it was the (only) problem.
None of it should disqualify him from being president, which is the topic of this thread and about 10 other ones on this site. We have a pretty low bar for that, actually.
Note also that he hasn’t avoided taxes, he has deferred them. He (and his heirs) will pay nominally more tax than he otherwise would have with this structure, but at a later date. By putting this all in his IRA he has forgone capital gains tax rates and will pay tax at ordinary tax rates when the money is distributed. There is no step up upon death for undistributed earnings from an IRA so his estate will pay tax on the value of the IRA upon death and he and his heirs will pay income tax when the money is distributed. It’s possible he could end up paying more even on a discounted basis with this strategy.
You can roll your 401K into a IRA – when you leave your job I would think this is what happened.
Unless you are a congressman’s spouse – don’t dare mess with the IRS – don’t report your overseas earnings – chances are you will go to jail. I got fined $4,000.00 for paying my payroll withholding one day late due to a family emergency.
Just thinking – what country has overseas currency controls – Argentine – a country that has fallen from one of the top economies in the world to the 61st.
I think I’ve seen that the material Mitt Romney has already provided shows that he stayed within the IRA limit by reporting very low valuation for his Bain stock. Similarly, he (legally) valued his Bain profit interest at “0” when gifting his $100M portfolio to his children.
You seem to have all that business acumen; read this and tell me otherwise:
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/08/investigating-mitt-romney-offshore-accounts
I’ll never have to worry about an off-shore account.
I must have missed the part where they actually found something substantive.
Oh, I think the scrutiny is just beginning. Nope, so far, presidential candidate Romney has done nothing wrong – just a consigliere for the world’s wealthiest scumbags – but nothing wrong, no.
Instead of talking about how to fix the problems we have in this country we are spending all our time talking about this crap. No wonder we are in the soup.
offshore banks in the Cayman Islands…I didn’t build that!”
-Mitt Romney, sometime in September 2012
I’m defending the practice. And how do you know you don’t have a few offshore accounts? In a pension plan? Work for a non-profit? They almost certainly do.
you sure sound like it.
You say we need a complete revamping of the tax code and I agree. But you suggest in the meantime that we support Romney. What is his motivation to revamp the tax code?
Where?
Rehashing…
He said…
If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that.
Really? I have a number of friends who literally ‘built” their business, they built the building, they built up a customer base… they built their business. DONE!
johnd @ Mon 23 Jul 3:53
And you built the tax code!
Sorry – IE browser today
It takes a JohnD to expect a non-incorporated, unfunded populist movement and impulse to own buildings, get fair news coverage, and seek to elect candidates. That all being said, did he follow NATO2012? Did he monitor the national gathering (NatGat) of 82 Occupies in Philadelphia this month? No? Than it is mere pontificating ignorance. A movement of leaders takes a very different form, and is very very active – staffing eviction blockades in so many locations that I could not fit the list here -supporting workers intoo many job actions to list, having events, actions, cookouts, marches(including the post NatGat march from Philadelphia to New York). I don’t report on all of this here first, because I don’t have time, and second, because supporting my husband through Stage IV Pancreatic Cancer does mean I have had rather less time for politics, Occupy, and BlueMassGroup. Life is full of changes, but I assure you, the energy that led to the wave of encampments has continued to mature and there IS a whole lot going on. I will report but only on major items (but local action has become the focus of the Occupiers) so there are not as many mega events but a whole lot more local events.
Nothing. No results. and nobody cares. I’m sorry for people like you who want things so bad that they will “wish” for results but unless you can get results either by electing people or changing rules/laws then in my book it has failed. Even when someone here writes a post on the Occupy activities, nobody even comments.
I like grass root movements, like the Tea Party movement in 2010. But I was very unimpressed with the movement of the Occupy “fill-in-the-blank” in every city. Very poorly run…
If you and others who participated got something out of it, then I am happy for you… sincerely. I participate in many things (fund raisers, volunteering, community activities…) where I get personal satisfaction but can’t show much progress/results. Outwardly they look like failures but I get pleasure, but they are right that they’re failed activities.
It would be interesting to find out how many of those who oppose raising tax rates for the wealthy even understand marginal tax rates.
It might also be interesting to find out how many people who support raising tax rates pay ZERO Federal Income Taxes. As I have been saying, it’s easy to support raising taxes when it’s someone else that will be paying those higher taxes. It’s like going out to lunch at work where people are picking the expensive restaurant to eat but it’s easier for them since they don’t pay the bill.
We already went over this ground last week.
The data shows, rather clearly, that the states (like Montana) who most loudly object to paying taxes are also the states where federal spending greatly exceeds federal taxes collected. It’s like going out to lunch with people who order a $15 entree, bitch and moan during the whole lunch about how expensive it is, and then say “I only have a five in my wallet, you’ll have to pick this up for me”.
The reason that so many people don’t have a federal tax obligation is that the GOP economic policies that you so passionately advocate for have destroyed the economy. They don’t pay taxes because they’re broke. They have no jobs because there aren’t any jobs, they have no money because they have outrageous student loans, they can’t do what all the wealthy fat cats do and simply declare bankruptcy because those fat cats made it nearly impossible for mere mortals.
It’s like going out to lunch at work with a bunch of boorish naysayers who complain about the food, complain about the cost, complain about the noise, complain about the boss, complain about the customers, and then stick me with the bill.
Ergo, they are building dynasties and not interested in supporting a stable, democratic, society where anyone outside their class has security. The premise of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, which is the putative “Bible” of capitalism is that a worker must be paid sufficiently to support a family of four in decent housing, decent education, and decent food and clothing, and that otherwise, the system cannot be sustained. I contend that what we have now is neo feudalism prentending to be the capitalism of Adam Smith. THEY, and I think JohnD as well, disingenuously “talk the talk” of Christian, Adam Smith, Capitalism but they are far closer to Louis XIV in their consumptions, sense of entitlement, and grasping natures where as far as they are concerned, everything is “theirs” and only because they deserve to keep everything, too.