Bloomberg News: Romney ‘rented’ Mormon church’s exemption to defer taxes for 15 years
By David Edwards
Monday, October 29, 2012 15:08 EDT
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney used a loophole to “rent” the Mormon church’s tax exemption status and defer paying taxes for 15 years, according to a new report.
Tax returns obtained by Bloomberg News through a Freedom of Information Act request indicated that Romney set up a charitable remainder unitrust (CRUT) in June 1996 just before Congress cracked down on the loophole in 1997.
“In this instance, Romney used the tax-exempt status of a charity — the Mormon Church, according to a 2007 filing — to defer taxes for more than 15 years,” Bloomberg’s Jesse Drucker explained. “At the same time he is benefitting, the trust will probably leave the church with less than what current law requires.”
Estates lawyer Jonathan Blattmachr told Bloomberg that Romney’s trust benefits from the Mormon church’s exempt status because charities don’t pay capital gains taxes when they make a profit from the sale of assets.
“The main benefit from a charitable remainder trust is the renting from your favorite charity of its exemption from taxation,” Blattmachr said, adding that the charitable contribution “is just a throwaway” and the church would receive little if any financial benefit from the trust.
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American presidents have been on the whole relatively wealthy more often than not. Some, like both Roosevelts, were very wealthy... and did not for the most part exercise their privileges to the egregious disadvantage of ordinary Americans. They seemed to have some ability to comprehend what it is like to be ordinary, or poor, or flat broke and on the street, even as they never were themselves.
Then there's Myth Rmoney.
The class schism has grown almost without bounds in America in my lifetime. The 99% are struggling down here and the 1%, especially the 0.001%, live in the economic stratosphere. And they have absolutely no since of noblesse oblige... none whatsoever. Does this mean they are "bad people"? IMHO, yes. And Myth Rmoney is one of those bad people.
If you want to support the Myth Rmoneys of the world on your tired backs for the rest of your life, go ahead and install this one in the presidency, or allow him to steal it.
If not... fight like bloody hell for the next few days. Your grandchildren's lives may depend on it.
(H/T ellroon.)
There is another aspect to Romney hiding his financial/tax history and that is the Cayman trust/bank holdings. Son Tag Romney used his investment firm to buy for his father investments in the millions in Texan fraudster---Allen Stanford's billion dollar Ponzi scheme, which laundered the money in----The Cayman Island's bank.
ReplyDeletekarmanot, a former boss of mine vacationed in the Cayman Islands and said it was a lovely place. I wouldn't know; neither I nor my money has ever been there. There are two points about Rmoney's trickery: one, it isn't available to ordinary mortals (as a state of Texas employee for a few years, I tax-sheltered some money in a plan specifically for state employees, and when I take it out, I'll pay the going rate, not something special like Mittens), and two, it is business-as-usual for guys of his socioeconomic rank: it never occurs to them for a moment not to do it, or that other people can't do it. In America, luck favors the wealthy, almost to the exclusion of everyone else. Unlike Mitt, I don't want any special breaks, but I am mighty tired of playing the dupe.
DeleteStanford is in jail for a good long time. Why isn't Rmoney?