Bain Files: Inside Mitt Romney’s Tax-Dodging Cayman Schemes

The Bain Files: Inside Mitt Romney’s Tax-Dodging Cayman Schemes

Mitt Romney's $250 million fortune is largely a black hole: Aside from the meager and vague disclosures he has filed under federal and Massachusetts laws, and the two years of partial tax returns (one filed and another provisional) he has released, there is almost no data on precisely what his vast holdings consist of, or what vehicles he has used to escape taxes on his income. Gawker has obtained a massive cache of confidential financial documents that shed a great deal of light on those finances, and on the tax-dodging tricks available to the hyper-rich that he has used to keep his effective tax rate at roughly 13% over the last decade.

Today, we are publishing more than 950 pages of internal audits, financial statements, and private investor letters for 21 cryptically named entities in which Romney had invested—at minimum—more than $10 million as of 2011 (that number is based on the low end of ranges he has disclosed—the true number is almost certainly significantly higher). Almost all of them are affiliated with Bain Capital, the secretive private equity firm Romney co-founded in 1984 and ran until his departure in 1999 (or 2002, depending on whom you ask). Many of them are offshore funds based in the Cayman Islands. Together, they reveal the mind-numbing, maze-like, and deeply opaque complexity with which Romney has handled his wealth, the exotic tax-avoidance schemes available only to the preposterously wealthy that benefit him, the unlikely (for a right-wing religious Mormon) places that his money has ended up, and the deeply hypocritical distance between his own criticisms of Obama's fiscal approach and his money managers' embrace of those same policies. They also show that some of the investments that Romney has always described as part of his retirement package at Bain weren't made until years after he left the company.

Bain isn't a company so much as an intricate suite of steadily proliferating inter-related holding companies and limited partnerships, some based in Delaware and others in the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, and elsewhere, designed to collectively house roughly $66 billion in wealth in its many crevices and chambers. When Romney left in 1999, he and his wife retained significant investments in many of those Bain vehicles—he claims they are "passive investments" and that they are managed in a blind trust (though the trustee isn't blind enough to meet federal standards of independence). But aside from disparate snippets of information contained in his federal and Massachusetts financial disclosure forms, his 2010 tax returns, and SEC filings, the nature of those investments has been obfuscated by design.

The documents are exceedingly complicated. We don't pretend to be qualified to decode them in full, which is why we are posting them here for readers to help evaluate—please leave your thoughts in the discussion below. We asked an attorney who specializes in complex offshore corporate transactions, including ones involving Cayman Island entities, to review them and help us understand them. (We also asked the Romney campaign. It hasn't responded yet.) The full set can be read here.

http://gawker.com/5936394/the-bain-file ... an-schemes

Whoooeeeee... The stuff is about to hit the fan... No wonder he wants to keep those tax returns secret...

Hey, Mitt, how's that "[you little people] don't need to see any more of our tax returns" strategy workin' out for ya? :Whistle

To answer the next question, "Is that all you got?"

Not by a long shot... I'll keep digging until I show enough stuff on this slimebag to show what kind of tax-evader he is...

Here's what we've found so far:

Equity Swaps, AIVs, and Mitt Romney's Other Tax-Dodging Tricks

Mitt Romney's Endless ‘Retirement' Package

How Mitt Romney Puts His Money Where Obama's Mouth Is

Derivatives, Short Sales, and Mitt Romney's Other Exotic Financial Instruments

Mitt Romney Is the National Enquirer's Banker

A little "light reading".... :Whistle

So, is anything in there illegal?

I wouldn't know...

But I would have bet money that the lowest threshold that the Righties would use would be: "Is it illegal?"

Is it immoral? Probably... Is it tax-avoidance? Certainly (Whether or not it rises to the level of "illegal", I guess we'll have to wait and see...)

Democracy4Sale wrote: I wouldn't know...

But I would have bet money that the lowest threshold that the Righties would use would be: "Is it illegal?"

Is it immoral? Probably... Is it tax-avoidance? Certainly (Whether or not it rises to the level of "illegal", I guess we'll have to wait and see...)

Due to the morality level of the current crop of politicians, I'm afraid that "Is it Illegal?" is about the highest we can hope for.

Certainly on the GOP side....

So...
One candidate knows economics and tax laws and understands the world of finance. Has made money in many different industries and worked in diverse areas.
The other candidate made most of his money off two fictional autobiographies, a undistinguished career in the Illinois house, and a 1/2 term in the Senate marked mainly by his present votes.

The only people concerned about tax law and offshore accounts were already going to vote for Barack. Middle America wants jobs not just whining and a worsening economy like Obama provides.

Democracy4Sale wrote: Certainly on the GOP side....

What is worse, avoiding taxes with overseas accounts or insider trading from Pelosi and Reid?

Would that be like the "middle America" that consists of women who dislike Romney by a large percent? Hispanics who dislike him by over 68%? Seniors who are are tilting more negative? LGBT who dislike him by 90%?

Yep... He's got the angry white male, and christian bigot vote sewn up...Think that'll be enough? The rest of the country is starting to see that his crap about "paying his share of taxes" is a ruse...

Good luck with that....

Pelosi and Reid aren't running for president...

How about that Randy “Duke” Cunningham? Bob Ney? Rick Renzi?

Last I heard, the Congress voted itself an exemption to being able to trade on insider information that it obtained through hearings and lobbyists... Imagine that? A Democrat proposed a bill to outlaw it, and it was defeated by the Republicans... Imagine my surprise....