Assange Embassy Controversy: Britain Threatens To Raid Ecuador's Embassy Over Amnesty Issue
Thursday, August 16, 2012
They're offline again.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Assange Embassy Controversy: Britain Threatens To Raid Ecuador's Embassy Over Amnesty Issue
Livestreaming outside the Ecuador Embassy in London now here.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Assange Embassy Controversy: Britain Threatens To Raid Ecuador's Embassy Over Amnesty Issue
Watch live what's going on outside the Ecuador Embassy in London.
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/occupynewsnetwork
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Ann Romney: No More Tax Returns Will Be Released
Did Ryan and Romney Participate in IRS Tax Amnesty Program in 2009?
It's been speculated that, among many reasons, it's the IRS's Tax Amnesty Program in 2009 that Romney is probably trying to hide.
In 2008, a whistleblower at Swiss bank UBS informed the IRS that American clients held thousands of Swiss accounts at the bank to avoid paying US taxes. UBS initially refused to give up the names of those with accounts citing Swiss law, but eventually caved, gave up the names, and paid a substantial $780 million fine.
But the IRS didn’t prosecute those tax evaders. Instead, it decided to establish (in 2009) the so-called “special tax amnesty program,” which gave legal immunity and limited penalities to those who voluntarily turned themselves in (read: free ride). It also kept these names anonymous.
So then: Did Romney, who disclosed that he had a Swiss bank account at least in 2010, take advantage of this program? Why won’t he come clean with American voters?
And why the cut-off at 2010 for Ryan's returns? Did Ryan also participate in the 2009 amnesty program?
And why aren’t more people asking these questions?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
John McCain: Mitt Romney Tax Returns Show He Paid Uncle Sam (VIDEO)
She flags the Marriott tax shelter as improper, some treatments as particularly questionable, such as the intramarital/intrafamily transfers and the notorious show horse:
Ann Romney’s Olympic horse. Issue: Is Rafalca a business?I encourage you read the article in full. It is very accessible and informative. In closing, Sheppard observes:
Probably not. Before the Romneys can claim any passive loss deduction for Ann Romney’s share of Rafalca’s expenses, the LLC that owns the horse, Rob Rom Enterprises, has to be engaged in a trade or business. For that, it has to satisfy the hobby loss rule for horses, which has a rebuttable presumption of a business if there is a profit in two out of seven years (section 183(c)). Rob Rom has owned Rafalca for six years.
Rafalca’s rider said she would be bred when her show career was over. That may be a stretch, because the horse is 15 and has been in strenuous competition for 11 years. If she could produce a foal or two, it would have to be sold for $500,000 or more.
Moreover, the prize money in dressage competitions doesn’t come close to covering the roughly $120,000 per year for Rafalca’s upkeep and transportation from California to European competitions. So it is unlikely she would ever make a profit for her owners
It is often said that the rich get rich and stay rich by watching every penny. Romney certainly fits that description. He looks for every tax angle, to a degree that is unbecoming in someone who would be the executive in command of the administrative apparatus that enforces the tax law.And that is what is so bizarre about Romney on this issue and many others. He’s not a Perot, who entered politics abruptly and therefore could be expected to have some trouble in making the transition from corporate life to being on the public stage. But Romney is an archetypal member of the 0.1%. He is so far removed from ordinary Americans that he can’t grok what proper behavior is even if he were to try.
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John McCain: Mitt Romney Tax Returns Show He Paid Uncle Sam (VIDEO)
The article discusses nine additional troubling aspects of the Romney returns that have been put on view, and they are instructive and pointed. For instance, finance people always refer to the manage participation in fund profits as a “carried interest”. But as Sheppard stresses, the IRS calls that a “profits interest” and they have specific valuation rules. And she is clearly not happy with how the popular press missed the real issue with Bain’s use of Cayman Islands investment vehicles:
Private equity. Issue: Cayman residence of funds.KEEP READING
The places where some of Bain Capital’s numerous private equity funds are organized — Bermuda and the Cayman Islands — are tax havens. The widespread use of tax and banking havens by large U.S. multinationals and investment funds as an escape hatch from U.S. tax, banking, and securities laws, while offensive, is tolerated and even encouraged by U.S. law and administrative practice.
Mainstream newspapers howl that Romney has assets in the Caymans, but the reality is worse. Bain Capital invests in the United States and other countries, including China, but it organizes its funds in the Caymans to keep investor lists secret while availing itself of British corporate law. Every other investment fund does the same thing.
The practical effect of Cayman registration is that if investors were of a mind to lie to their home governments about the existence of or income from their Bain investments, the secrecy of investor lists makes it easier to do so. As the Romney campaign pointed out, all these investors still owe tax to their home governments (including the U.S. government) on their Bain income.
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