The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    jollyroger's picture

    Would you park your assets in the Cayman Islands if you had nothing to hide?

    By jollyroger on Wed, 01/18/2012 - 5:58pm |

    By now you will have heard that included in the tumble of new disclosures (I pay close to (how close? Are you missing above or below?) 15%) from Romney's cabinet of plutocrat horrors, is the tidbit that his tax planning relies heavily on Cayman Island accounts.

    (I fear being tarred forensically with those enemies of freedom who hector those who complain about warrantless surveillance, but, here goes).  I ask Romney (as will we all with one voice),

    What have you got to hide?

    Alternately, if your goal is not evasion of taxes, why have you chosen to incur the penalties in convenience, predictability, security from political upheaval (bet those Havana Banks broke some Mob hearts in 1960...), local American non-corrupt court jurisdiction, slightly less corrupt police, etc., that would militate against ordinary people sending their money to the Caymans instead of Chase Manhattan.

    Furthermore, you dumb schmuck, how could you have the effrontery to come in here running for President with Cayman Island bank accounts and expect that not to draw serious questions?

    You're running for office for Pete's sake!

    Comments

    Oh, give Mittens a break! He had to put the money in an off-shore account in case he got a pink slip from Bain. I'm pretty sure all those schmucks who got fired when Bain took over their companies had millions stashed away in the Caymans.

    by CVille Dem on Wed, 01/18/2012 - 6:52pm

    Well, come to find out that Bain itself maintained one hundred and eighty-fuckin' five accts in the Caymans.

    I think the stated purpose was to facilitate tax evasion by european investors, with a pious (and straight faced!) denial of any domestic ill intent.

    But seriously, on the mere appearance question, wouldn't you think that reasonable persons, evaluating the wisdom of a presidential run, might say, ah, nah, y'know, I got all those numbered accounts, it just looks bad...

    This guy has balls!


    by jollyroger on Wed, 01/18/2012 - 7:01pm

    It will be interesting to watch the likes of Hannity falling over themselves (bumblin' stumblin') to justify the use of Cayman accounts as an expression of the wonderous American free-market capitalism and apple pie consortium.


    by Elusive Trope on Wed, 01/18/2012 - 7:01pm

    Yeah, I was thinking of how their aversion to taxes will morph into enablement of tax evasion.


    by jollyroger on Wed, 01/18/2012 - 7:03pm

    "Gov. and Mrs. Romney have money invested in funds that the trustee has determined to be attractive investment opportunities, and those funds are domiciled wherever the fund sponsors happen to organize the funds." ~campaign official

    Anytime your spin for the public includes the word "domiciled," you're toast.


    by Elusive Trope on Wed, 01/18/2012 - 7:21pm

    If you're explaining, you're losing. (Lee Atwater??)


    by jollyroger on Wed, 01/18/2012 - 8:09pm

    Great story from ABC JollyR, Rmoney:

    "I can tell you we follow the tax laws," he said recently while on the campaign trail in New Hampshire. "And if there's an opportunity to save taxes, we like anybody else in this country will follow that opportunity."

    His patriotism is so glowing and wonderful, as are his five sons, none of whom have defended this country in uniform.  He will 'follow the opportunity' to reduce his taxes further if elected, and raise your taxes, while ending Social Security and Medicare which he can easily get by without. Frankly I think this guy could do more damage to the country than nutty Newt, who is looking 'more like us' than this lying ass greedy spawn of cross-border polygamists.


    by NCD on Wed, 01/18/2012 - 7:27pm

    Yeah, Newt is like, hall-of-fame smarmy, like Jabba the Hutt, unapologetically evil--Romney is bound up in shame, but still does the dirty deed...


    by jollyroger on Wed, 01/18/2012 - 8:10pm

    I just wanna say, (Genghis) that I know what was done to my penultimate paragraph, and it has the ethnic signature that leads straight back to you.

    Not only was my expletive more evocative, it also scans better.

    I suppose I must reconcile myself--this is a family site...


    by jollyroger on Wed, 01/18/2012 - 8:38pm

    Guilty as charged, you schmuck. It's the price you pay for front page billing.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 01/18/2012 - 11:59pm

    Hence my (uncharacteristically) restrained pissing&moaning.


    by jollyroger on Thu, 01/19/2012 - 12:14am

    It only makes sense to use Cayman accounts, or to incorporate in the Caymans if you have enough money that you do not need to repatriate your savings and pay taxes on them until some future date or, of course, if you don't plan to live in the U.S. ever again (ie, you're retiring in the Caymans or elsewhere).

    Romney's plan is likely a large tax deferral scheme.  He has tons of money already in the US that he can use for house buying, toy buying and presidential bids.  The rest is all just part of the family's net worth.  He could repatriate it now and pay taxes on it now, or allow the principal to grow, tax free, in overseas investment accounts.  It's like a tropical 401(k).  Someday, he or his heirs will pay taxes on that money when they bring it in from abroad.

    Or, given that every time there's an economic downturn some Republican suggests "cutting or eliminating the tax on repatriated funds," and given that Romney can afford to wait, why not leave it in the Cayman's and let Congress open a window for him to bring the money back at reduced or even zero tax rates?


    by Michael Maiello on Thu, 01/19/2012 - 12:40pm

    Isn't illegally laundering the money another option, or have I just watched too much TV? Of course, given your last paragraph, perhaps it's not worth the risk.


    by Verified Atheist on Thu, 01/19/2012 - 1:00pm

    I suppose is a reason to use offshore accounts but first, I don't suspect Romney of laundering anything.  He made his money legally (inheritance and finance).

    But, the point of laundering money is to make ill-gotten gains look legitimate.  Sending the cash to the Caymans and repatriating it is only going to make banks and regulators suspicious, if that's what you're up to.  If you're out to launder money, you use a friend's medium-sized business where he has lots of clients and money going in and out.  Or you start your own business with legitimate revenue and augment it with the illegal profits.  Take your drug money and open a night club so that if anybody asks how you could afford the new BMW you can point to your thriving business.  You're much better telling the IRS that you have a night club in Phoenix than "I have a business oversees that, um... does consulting work!"

    I've thought too much about this.


    by Michael Maiello on Thu, 01/19/2012 - 1:47pm

    Yeah, that makes sense. When it comes to money laundering, I probably know a little less than Peter Gibbons from Office Space.


    by Verified Atheist on Thu, 01/19/2012 - 1:53pm

    Duplicate.

     


    by Oxy Mora on Thu, 01/19/2012 - 2:38pm

    I don't see it as fair at all.  If I were king, I wouldn't allow companies that principally do business in the U.S. to wall money away in offshore accounts the way most major U.S. corporations do.  I would even let foreign companies do it.  The U.S. has a massive consumer base.  Companies want access to it.  We should tell them no, if they won't pay local taxes.

    The issue with Romney is less about offshore corporate accounts than it is about a giant, unlimited 401(k).  When I put money into my 401(k), I don't pay taxes now and agree to pay them later, when I access the money.  In financial planning they say "A tax deferred is a tax cut," and, in a lot of ways, it is.  It lets me have a bigger pile of money to invest.  It bargains that when I want to take the money out, I'll be retired and this in a lower tax bracket then I will be in the prime of my working years.  But the IRS demands one concession from me.  I can only put $16,500 in for any one tax year.  This is for fairness' sake.

    Let's face it, most people don't have the luxury of meeting the $16,500 maximum.  But, if you make half a million a year and there were no limit, you could shelter half your income from taxes every single year and still live on 5 times the median household income in the U.S.  So, there's a limit.  There's no limit to how much money you can store offshore.  So, yeah... unfair!


    by Michael Maiello on Thu, 01/19/2012 - 2:43pm

    All right!

    Great analogy of the giant unlimited 401(k). 


    by Oxy Mora on Thu, 01/19/2012 - 3:02pm

    As long as you're thinking about this, let me suggest a run of the mill wholesale business, instead of a nightclub.

    What makes money laundering work so well is the stupidity and punitive nature of the internel revenoo survace. Invoices for revenue are not audited nearly as much as expenses. Revenue is considered the American way so you can, speaking entirely hypothetically, bill me for two truckloads of flour and send me $10 grand---well, $9,564.00 since anything over $10K is reported (I think that's how they got Spitzer) and round numbers are frowned upon---and I'll send it back to you. Whatever happened to that flour? But be careful on the expense side because that's where they are looking for bad behavior. Here, the nightclub tab comes in handy. They gig you on it, but it justifies their existence and it's a small matter.(I read a lot of George Higgins novels, Boston Mob, great reads)

    BTW, aside from being legal, do you see the Cayman thing as "fair"? Or is that a separate subject?

     


    by Oxy Mora on Thu, 01/19/2012 - 2:26pm

    .Prez: "On the campaign, I used to talk about the outrage of a building in the Cayman Islands that had over 12,000 business — businesses claim this building as their headquarters. And I’ve said before, either this is the largest building in the world or the largest tax scam in the world."

    I suppose we should, in fairness, distinguish Cayman Islands headquartered entities from Cayman Island banking customers...


    by jollyroger on Thu, 01/19/2012 - 3:58pm

    Let's do be fair. 

    What happened to my favorite firebrand?


    by Oxy Mora on Thu, 01/19/2012 - 4:09pm

     Rebecca J. Wilkins, a tax policy expert with Citizens for Tax Justice, said the federal government loses an estimated $100 billion a year because of tax havens.


    by jollyroger on Thu, 01/19/2012 - 4:18pm

    I feel like this blames the tax havens.  I don't.  I shouldn't be telling the Cayman Islands or Turks and Caicos what their policies should be.  The U.S. loses this money because U.S. law allows for citizens and companies who primarily due business here to headquarter themselves offshore and to live by the laws of that land (so long as they don't repatriate the money).  The U.S. doesn't have to do that.  Indeed, it creates a perverse incentives for people to make dollars here and squirrel them away elsewhere.


    by Michael Maiello on Thu, 01/19/2012 - 5:58pm

    I wasn't blaming the tax haven, I was blaming the tax fugitive...in this instance, since the guy wants to be president, we might usefully deconstruct the word:

    "repatriate", as in repatriate money.

    The root, of course, shares its origin with "patriotism".

    Used, then, in a sentence:

    "You can show your patriotism by not  placing your funds somewhere from which they need repatriation"


    by jollyroger on Thu, 01/19/2012 - 6:50pm

    Ah. Patriotism has a price!


    by Michael Maiello on Thu, 01/19/2012 - 9:08pm

    Well, a spread, anyway. Vive l'arbitrage!


    by jollyroger on Thu, 01/19/2012 - 11:51pm

    He just likes to keep his assets warm.


    by Rootman on Fri, 01/20/2012 - 2:01pm

    Give us a break. I guarantee that Mitt pays more in taxes in a week than you do in a year.

    Living as I do in the Cayman Islands I can assure you that one cannot make investments in the USA tax free.

    There is a 30% withholding tax on ALL dividend income from USA shares. That's right, while a USA citizen pays 15% on dividend income a person or company resident in Cayman pays 30%.

    The USA is the only country in the world, along with Eritrea, that taxes its citizens on their worldwide income no matter where in the world they live.

    British, French, German indeed citizens of every other country only pay tax in their home country if they live there. Citizenship in the USA includes Green Card holders, who are forever obliged to pay taxes on their world wide income, even if they no longer live in the USA.

    And this is why companies are formed in the Cayman Islands, to allow Europeans to legally not pay taxes on the income they earn there. If Bain Capital wants to attract them as investors it better be ready be prepared to keep them out of the USA tax net.


    by Cayman Resident (not verified) on Sat, 01/21/2012 - 11:27am

    "Once you discover the islands, mon, you'll come back again and again (to visit your money )" (Cue Calypso music )

    by jollyroger on Fri, 07/06/2012 - 2:41pm