The Hill has a video and story up this morning regarding Romney’s offshore accounts. It provides a good opportunity to comment to a readership that is in DC about what you think about this “offshore issue” and FATCA. I posted a lengthy comment, but is now in under review.
Note: You can edit once you post, and that is what I was doing that sent it into moderation. The first post ran all together without paragraph breaks. I think it is the second edit for a spelling error that prompted the review, so be careful.
This is what I posted should it not be allowed out of moderation:
Here we go again. While I have no sympathy for Romney, but this is just demagoging on “offshore accounts” for everyone. “Offshore” is the new negative partisan talking point, or attempt to create an association that offshore must be bad!
There is NOTHING illegal about having your accounts in foreign banks or institutions as long as you meet all the complex legal requirements and Statutes that Congress its self has created over the years. Frankly given how the U.S. dollar is turning to a dollar’ette, it just makes sense to diversify your currency holdings, and anyone with any financial savvy would want to do that. It’s the prudent thing to do.
With a tax return of 250 pages, I am sure Romney is probably doing everything legal and by the book. He might be engaged in legal tax avoidance. That is not a crime. You do it when you buy a house to save on your taxes with your interest deduction. What is disturbing to me, is that many of the Statutes and regulations he is probably following were created by Congress in such a way that only the very rich and elite can avail themselves of these legal opportunities. (And this is a bipartisan practice!)
However, if you want try to attack Romney in a partisan way, and raise questions, then DON’T do it over where he keeps his money. DO IT on the basis of whether or not he has followed the appropriate rules! He would have had to file FBARs for his offshore accounts. Did he do that prior to the 2009 offshore jihad started by Bush appointee Commissioner Doug Shulman? Now starting in his 2011 tax returns he will have had to file FATCA form too and declare all his assets and accounts again (duplicate effort). Did he do that? He is pretty smart, and has good advice. He can afford the best financial advisers, CPAs and Tax attorneys, so I would assume so.
This story hides the real issue, and that is the harm the Dems are doing to Americans living the world over in their hunt for Tax evasion of some homelanders. Did you know that Americans abroad have normal offshore (onshore for them) accounts too, and yet the Dems in their “offshore jihad” using the IRS so called Voluntary Disclosure programs and one size fits all penalty for benign minnows or egregious whales, are doing enormous damage to the IRS reputation and trust with Americans abroad and immigrants.
Even the National Tax Advocate has been very critical of IRS practices in the last 2 reports to Congress. Here, just read one of them to educate yourself about IRS “bait and switch” tactics and the complications of the US Citizenship taxation model and the complexity that results. http://bit.ly/xIqDb7
More concerning is the stunningly hubristic FATCA legislation (passed in 2010 Hire Act) which is turning all Americans living abroad into pariahs. They are being shut out of normal banking activity. Listen to this recent story on PRI’s The World. http://bit.ly/NzufUm
The U.S. is requiring the entire worlds financial institutions (more than just banks) to go on a witch hunt for all U.S. Persons (more than just Citizens resident in America) in the whole wide world and report them to the IRS. This is creating a lot of collateral damage.
This is a Orwellian creation of astounding proportions that the US media fails to report on, for reasons I don’t understand. I assume that they think it would be too complicated for you to comprehend! Google FATCA and start educating yourself about what is happening. Or you could start here: http://bit.ly/NkdIaA
FATCA is a ticking time bomb for the world’s economy, and is adding additional systemic risk at a very shaky financial time. It is throwing sand into the global financial gears, and the collateral damage for that will be in trade and export jobs for Americans in the homeland.
Some ideologues in the Democratic party along with their EU counter parts at the OECD are determined to create a global tax data exchange with total transparency of all individual and corporate assets and income. Call it GATCA if you like, and FATCA is the leverage tool in a first step to force this down the throats of the worlds financial institutions and governments.
They are also forcing this on U.S. banks in a unilateral fashion to turn over non resident interest to the IRS to hand out in reciprocity deals. http://bit.ly/NCPqHi There will be significant unintended consequences from all this, but how would you know, as the US media doesn’t talk about it? There is no public debate.
Maybe The Hill could look behind the FATCA curtain and start educating its readers about what is happening rather than leave it to discover in the paper years later like with the current Libor scandal.
@Just Me
Fantastic comment. As I watch the Obama campaign unfolding, I see a campaign that does one thing and one thing only – attempt to discredit Romney. As time goes on, people are going to get sick and tired of this. My thought is to start focusing on Obama’s “Offshore activities” – example include: “offshore” drone strikes, the state of his “offshore family”, his “offshore” fundraising with George Clooney, suggesting possible “offshore” campaign contributions, his possible “offshore birth”, his brutal attack on “offshore” U.S. citizens.
Welcome to the 2012 campaign – it’s about “offshore”
Also, here is an interesting comment from a Boston Globe article on the “offshore stuff”:
“Mitt Romney had a successful career in the private sector, pays
every dime of taxes he owes, has given generously to charitable
organizations and served numerous causes greater than himself,” Romney
spokeswoman Andrea Saul said in a statement.
“Barack Obama has become what he once ran against — a typical
politician willing to use false and dishonest attacks to save his job
after failing to do his job,’’ Saul said. “The American people expected
more from this president, and he continues to let them down.”
http://www.boston.com/politicalintelligence/2012/07/08/president-obama-campaign-hits-mitt-romney-foreign-assets-calls-for-more-tax-returns/wPmJwcgpoYLvDqnc00lknK/story.html
Great comment Just Me. You might want to post it on CBS as well:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505245_162-57468440/democrats-want-romney-to-explain-offshore-accounts/
While it is totally fine for Romney to have offshore accounts, why won’t he release more than 2 years of tax returns? He might eventually do it, just like Obama eventually released his birth certificate, but why would he just end the controversy and just release the darn returns. By not doing it, I agree that it makes it look like he’s hiding things. It might just be political theater…
Are political candidates in the US automatically audited? Would he be at risk of something to be found, which would have a negative impact for him?
@just me
I once has a comment ejected by posting the word ‘fatwa’. Maybe ‘jihad’ flagged your comment.
@ Just Me
A perfect comment, one of your best and they are all terrific. It was tailor-made for the article which was itself sub-par and I will be watching eagerly for it to emerge from moderation. (I see comments by Julian Hudson there but still haven’t spotted yours.) I fear Romney as president as much as I am disgusted by Obama as president but I have no say in the matter. I hate that the term “offshore account” will tar all outlanders and immigrants with the same brush as the big fat cat tax cheats and it will make it ever harder for our voices of reason to be heard.
Obama’s spokeswoman kindly claimed that my Swiss checking account is “unseemly and disgusting”. Well, gee, thanks Obama! I’ll continue banking in Switzerland no matter how much such disgusts you.
“If highlighting the fact that Mitt Romney had a Swiss bank account and put his money in offshore tax havens is ‘unseemly and disgusting,’ perhaps he shouldn’t have done it in the first place,” Obama spokeswoman Lis Smith told TPM
TalkingPointsMemo
@Christorphe…
I don’t know why he doesn’t. He could have a “tin ear” for all I know. If all of this is technically legal, then I don’t know what harm there would be in the transparency. He is vulnerable to this I think, but frankly I don’t like the dis-ingeniousness nature of the attacks either.
Maybe he thinks this information isn’t important to the average voter, and he would just like to maintain some transparency. Maybe he has a trust for a second or third wife or plans for which trust will support his family on the planet he will receive as a Mormon. Who knows? LOL. (Not a fair joke, I know)
Once he gets into government, he can be as opaque as he wishes, (Government and executive privilege is what they all love) but as one running for the position, you would think he would error on the side of his father’s example. Reveal all, and remove the target. He is rich. We know it. I think can handle the detail, don’t you?
However, we may be disgusted by the sausage making of the tax engineering that has occurred, even it it is legal. Maybe it is on the technical edge, I don’t know. Just like the financial engineering, it may leave us cold in disgust when we see the game playing laid bare and manipulation of the rules and regs to one’s advantage. Are you following the Libor story? Same thing in principle. When the details are reveal, the mystery of that rate that our mortgage was tied to is gone and the rotten chore of corruption emerges. Confidence is shaken, and “Bank” becomes the newest 4 letter swear word, as in “What a friggn’ Bank he is!
It is not pretty when you are confronted head on with the reality of how one obtains and maintains wealth these days. It isn’t because you built better widgets and more of them than the other guy. It is because you use the structures that have evolved to give you an edge up. Just like folks thought the mortgage derivatives were giving them better ways to manage risk and make commissions, but the reality, as we have seen, it isn’t that pretty. Read Liar’s Poker and you will better understand why.
@Just Me, don’t see your amazing comment on the site ????
Here’s Uncle Carl claiming that “there’s no such thing as an ordinary Swiss bank account”
That the IRS promised those who came forward and paid their taxes wouldn’t face any penalties, and that 33,000 or so did that
And that there were some Americans, like those who live in Switzerland, had normal bank accounts……….
@Christorphe…
I put a shortened comment on CBS site you recommended.
@noble dreamer…
I tried 3 times, and kept having moderation issues. I finally posted a shortened comment with a link back here, and in spite of all the spaces I put into it, it all ran together as a long paragraph, but gave up.
Carl Levin is a real beauty, isn’t he…?
https://twitter.com/FATCA_Fallout/status/222565997624827904
@Swisspony..
I sent a twitter message to that TPM journalist..
https://twitter.com/FATCA_Fallout/status/222432503787560960
mvh
This guy is evil.
Barry had previously posted this response from the Grand Duchy of Fenwick. It still applies. It is about the only logical thing for these clowns.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/formsubmissions/109/ed2a0ecf35d441658093120f082a75e2.pdf
Levin ‘there may be a few exceptions where you have Americans living in Switzerland who a who have Swiss bank accounts’…
As bad as it is that the Levin is demonizing Swiss bank accounts by stating that the vast majority belong to wealthy US tax evaders, I think it would be very difficult for any politician to substitute ‘Canadian’ for ‘Swiss’ should that politician try to paint all ‘overseas’ bank accounts as belonging to wealthy US tax evaders. Swiss banks have for a long time been been the poster child for hidden bank accounts, so there’s little risk for him to drive yet another stake through the beast’s heart without presenting much in the way of facts.
Why Romney is Afraid to Let Anyone See His Tax Returns
Henry Blodget says he doesn’t think Mitt Romney is trying to hide anything illegal by refusing to release his tax returns. Rather, he thinks Romney simply doesn’t want it to become clear just how carefully he’s structured his income over the years. If it did, everyone would learn that:
1. This “structuring” of income has likely taken full advantage of things like the ludicrous “carried interest” tax exemption that allows private-equity investors to pay capital gains taxes on income that is actually fees…..more
2. This “structuring” has also likely taken advantage of offshore accounts, the contribution of hard-to-value securities at low valuations to Romney’s IRA …more
3. This structuring, which (let’s be honest) is done primarily to avoid paying taxes, will look bad to most Americans,…more
….And yet, it somehow seems as though there must be a little more there than just evidence of aggressive tax avoidance…..
Looks like Romney is going to be audited by the IRS…
“A spokesperson for the IRS claims that Romney’s staunch refusal to provide the returns in order to clear up misconceptions about his business dealings over the past few years has finally raised a red flag for federal auditors.“
http://glossynews.com/top-stories/politicos-and-polticians/201207160704/irs-admits-culpability-in-mitt-romney-tax-return-controversy/
Looks like Romney is going to be audited by the IRS:
http://glossynews.com/top-stories/politicos-and-polticians/201207160704/irs-admits-culpability-in-mitt-romney-tax-return-controversy/
“A spokesperson for the IRS claims that Romney’s staunch refusal to provide the returns in order to clear up misconceptions about his business dealings over the past few years has finally raised a red flag for federal auditors.“
@christophe
This is bordering on comedy, Keystone Cops style.
@Christophe, what a waste of taxpayer dollars. Looks like Uncle Sam knows how to spend the money and not how to pay back debt.
@Christophe, this “story” is just rather unfunny satire. From glossynews.com: “Glossy News is an accredited online satirical publication and a contributing member of HumorFeed.”