“If challenged in court, Bain would lose."

[ProSense]

Documents Show Details on Romney Family Trusts

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE, FLOYD NORRIS and JULIE CRESWELL.

Hundreds of pages of confidential internal documents from the private equity firm Bain Capital published online Thursday provided new details on investments held by the Romney family’s trusts, as well as aggressive strategies that Bain appears to have used to minimize its investors’ and partners’ tax liabilities.

The documents include annual financial statements and investor letters circulated to limited partners in more than 20 Bain and related funds where Mitt Romney’s financial advisers have at times invested large parts of his personal fortune, estimated at more than $250 million.

<...>

Bain private equity funds in which the Romney family’s trusts are invested appear to have used an aggressive tax approach, which some tax lawyers believe is not legal, to save Bain partners more than $200 million in income taxes and more than $20 million in Medicare taxes.

<...>

In a blog post Thursday, Victor Fleischer, a law professor at the University of Colorado, said that there was some disagreement among lawyers, but that he believed: “If challenged in court, Bain would lose. The Bain partners, in my opinion, misreported their income if they reported these converted fees as capital gain instead of ordinary income.”

- more -

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/us/politics/documents-show-details-on-romney-family-trusts.html?pagewanted=all

Gawker Posts 950 Pages Of Bain Documents (updated 2x)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021186310

[pnwmom]

1. Yay! Glad to hear this isn't just a major snow job. n/t

[Frustratedlady]

2. Surely Obama's campaign has/is spent some time going over these documents?

If there is anything that looks wrong, then they should insist an explanation. Is this the SOB they have been talking about? I think that's the acronym. Fitting, actually.

[FarLeftMale]

3. kdfshdusogds

Wow. I also read that the Romney-Ryan ticket might not even be legal. Interesting stuff but I wonder if anything will come of it?

[Fumesucker]

4. Welcome to DU!

I hope you enjoy your stay!

[ProSense]

5. Actually,

"I also read that the Romney-Ryan ticket might not even be legal."

...they're "legitimate" assholes.

[jsmirman]

6. The details (management fees) are outrageous

How can management fees be anything other than ordinary income???

They look like ordinary income, the walk like ordinary income, they are ordinary income.

Their defining attributes are those of ordinary income. This is income created in the course of ordinary business, not by holding a long term asset.

Unless I'm missing a great counter-argument, this seems ridiculous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinary_income

Ordinary income is usually characterized as income other than capital gain. Ordinary income can consist of income from wages, salaries, tips, commissions, bonuses, and other types of compensation from employment, interest, dividends, or net income from a sole proprietorship, partnership or LLC. Rents and royalties, after certain deductions, depreciation or depletion allowances, and gambling winnings are also treated as ordinary income. A "short term capital gain", or gain on the sale of an asset held for less than one year of the capital gains holding period, is taxed as ordinary income.

Ordinary income stands in contrast to capital gains, which is defined as gain from the sale or exchange of a capital asset. The definition of capital asset under the tax law can be explained by noting that your house is a capital asset to you the homeowner but if you bought it from a land developer who had many houses on many lots, each of those houses was inventory when he sold them and hence was not a capital asset to him, just as clothing would be inventory and not a capital asset to a department store.

[MannyGoldstein]

7. Good. I expect the Executive branch to indict them any day now.

[ProSense]

8. First they have to investigate, but

wouldn't it be cool if Bain's predatory past and tax evasion finally comes back to bite them in the ass?

The victims of their vulture capitalist activities would certainly cheer.

[starroute]

9. Bain sounds like nothing so much as an illegal money-laundering scheme

I was going through some old notes earlier today and found stuff I'd saved about the World Finance Corporation during the Duke Cunningham scandal that sounded exactly like the Bain setup as revealed in the documents obtained by Gawker:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Finance_Corporation

World Finance Corporation (abbreviated WFC; it was later renamed simply WFC Corp.) was a financial corporation founded in 1971 and headquartered in Coral Gables Florida. When WFC Corp was headed and controlled by Guillermo Hernandez-Cartaya (a former Cuban banker who was an agent of the CIA, and believed to be an agent of the Mafia, Fidel Castro, and also of various Colombian drug lords) through the WFC Group shell company. . . .

WFC came to national attention when an investigation in 1976 by the District Attorney of Dade County, Florida, (along with four other governmental agencies; besides the Dade County Public Safety Office, the FBI, the IRS, the DEA, and the Comptroller of the Currency all participated in the joint investigation) revealed that the WFC held the dubious distinction of being the longest running (and largest) launderer of money for Colombian cocaine smugglers. . . .

Cartaya used the bank as the centerpiece of an elaborate corporate labyrinth, through which the funds and bad loans (to Cartaya and his associates) were filtered and "laundered". An example of the labyrinth: WFC Corp. was 100% owned by the WFC Group, which itself was owned by Cartaya to the amount of %24.7; another %23.3 was held by "Neo-Floridian Development Company"- of NFDC, %54.4 was held by Cartaya, again.

A considerable proportion of the money was funneled through a bank in the Bahamas called the Cisalpine Bank, and from thence to the Vatican Bank to Swiss numbered accounts; this bank was owned by Vatican Bank manager Archbishop Paul Marcinkus and notorious dirty Italian banker Roberto Calvi. Interestingly, the Cisalpine bank seems to have also been laundering heroin profits through the Nugan Hand Bank bank for the Grey Wolves.

[ProSense]

11. Previous speculation:

Experts’ Best Guesses On Romney’s Swiss Bank Account

Brian Beutler

<...>

Romney’s unwillingness to disclose more information about his finances has fueled speculation that Romney used the account to hide money from the IRS, and may have even had to avail himself of an amnesty program that allowed U.S. owners of certain Swiss bank accounts to come clean to the government without facing legal recriminations. (The Romney camp is now specifically denying that his UBS account was connected to the IRS investigation and the amnesty program.)

But even if Romney paid his taxes as required, the question becomes, Why would a person with national political ambitions open himself to the political risks associated with having a Swiss bank account in the first place? Plus there’s another hitch: Why run the risk for an account that was relatively small? It was open on behalf of Ann Romney’s blind trust in 2003, held about $3 million, and generated a mere $1,700 of interest in 2010. Big bucks for ordinary folks, but not for Romney.

<....>

Theory #1: Romney was actually helping some of Bain’s foreign investors avoid U.S. taxes and scrutiny — not himself.

<...>

Theory #2: Romney and his financial advisers lost track of the Swiss account.

- more -

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/07/experts_best_guesses_on_romneys_swiss_bank_account_1.php

Tax professionals have doubts about Romney's tax returns

by Christian Dem in NC

This morning's Morning Edition led off with a story that asks some pretty brutal questions about Mitt Romney's tax returns. Romney has been adamant that his 2010 and 2011 returns are all the public will get. But a couple of tax professionals looked at Romney's 2010 return and saw a lot in there that raised their eyebrows.

Lee Sheppard of the journal Tax Notes and Southern Cal law professor Lee Kleinbard were somewhat skeptical about the massive size of Romney's IRA. It's worth at least $21 million, and Sheppard and Kleinbard don't know how Romney could have gotten that much in the account since he could only legally put $30,000 per year in it.

<...>

That's a question we really can't answer with just two years of returns.

<...>

The Bloomberg story highlights another Romney-approved tax strategy that drew the IRS' ire. From 2000 to 2002, it took $1 billion in deductions from an employee stock-purchase plan. The IRS objected, and in 2007 Marriott had to pay $220 million in back taxes.

Romney has staked his campaign on his business record. But with this much evidence of his questionable handling of taxes, can we really trust him with our money?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/19/1111836/-Tax-professionals-have-doubts-about-Romney-s-tax-returns

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021035433

[Amonester]

10. K & R

Make sure the campaign knows about this (link in my sig), hopefully, to be used following their convention (if any).

[Omaha Steve]

12. K & R