An editorial from the New York Times underscores what most Americans are wondering: how much effort does Mitt Romney put in to evading paying capital gains taxes, and where does he keep his money anyway? Romney says that he has offshore money in “blind accounts,” meaning that he doesn’t know where his money is specifically invested. But he didn’t blindly put money into Bermuda and the Cayman islands. He chose those places because of their favorable tax policies — tax policies that hurt the United States.
Pebble-free, seaweed-free, tax-free
Romney likens these tax evasion tactics to investing in foreign businesses. It’s strange then that he only invests in the foreign businesses that are located in places that do not tax foreign income, or places that do not have sizable markets like China or India or whose economic growth do not show promise such as Latin American or certain African nations. This also does not include foreign businesses who are operating in the United States by opening up offices and creating jobs. But more importantly, why is the Republican candidate for the President of the United States putting so much money offshore? Surely Mitt Romney is a job creator, and would want to see his money employing people and taking them off government assistance programs, right?
Wrong. Romney only cares about his money, which is why he puts it in the hands of personal wealth managers who navigate the tricky landscape of loopholes, breaks, and foreign capital regulation to effectively eliminate the payment of taxes and milk the system bone dry. These are the 1% that Occupy Wall Street was fighting against, and they get away with scamming the American public out of money earned in America — which should be taxed in America — every single day.
Romney is nothing more than their example, a rich man who has hid his earnings, released only one full tax report, does not disclose how he makes money ($27 million this past year) and who takes his money away from the reach of American tax collectors to increase his wealth by a few fractions of a percentage point at a time. Is this a guy who is standing up for America? Who is being truthful with the American people? The NYTimes summed it up nicely and gave it an important historical context that voters must face:
“What information he did release provides a fuzzy glimpse at a concerted effort to park much of his wealth in overseas tax shelters, suggesting a widespread pattern of tax avoidance unlike that of any previous candidate.”
