Mitt Romney made millions through tax loop-holes, Dutch newspaper

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05 Nov 2012

by admin

Just 24 hours before the United States Citizens went to polling, a Dutch newspaper, de Volkskrant, has dropped a big bombshell by claiming that Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney received millions through tax loop-holes.

It wasn’t clear as to why the newspaper waited till the eleventh hour to publish such a damning report.
The newspaper said that Romney received the funds through his involvement with Bain Capital that he established in 1994 and in 1999 he received a severance deal in tax gains rather than a salary as such.
It further said that Romney and his wife continued investing until at least 2009 and received tax-free income in 2010 and 2011.The newspaper claimed that Bain capital avoided millions of dollars in dividend taxes in Netherlands.
Netherlands offers huge tax breaks for multi-national companies to woo investors.
Bain Capital was registered in Bermuda, but moved its headquarters to Ireland after Obama’s administration started cracking down on off-shore companies in Bermuda. In 2004 Bain capital managed a major Irish pharmaceutical company, the Warner Chicot.
In 2010, Bain moved its interest in Warner Chilcott to Dutch firm Alter Domus, which provides administrative services for multi-national companies.
If a Dutch company owns more than 5 per cent of the shares in another firm, then that firm is exempt from paying capital gains tax.
The report claims that there is a discrepancy between Mr Romney’s tax filings in the U.S. and the tax-exempt shares worth $450,000 that he donated to his son’s charity the Tyler Foundation in 2011.

Big business: Mr Romney received a severance deal when he departed Bain Capital in 1999 that paid him in capital gains tax rather than a salary, it is alleged
The investigators came to their conclusions by studying Bain’s tax returns, Mr Romney’s own tax filings and Dutch Chamber Of Commerce documents.
According to an investigation by Bloomberg News published last month, Mr Romney has benefited from a now-outlawed loophole that enables him to use the tax-exempt status of the Mormon Church to reduce his own tax bill.
Then the chief executive officer of Bain Capital, he set up the arrangement in June 1996, the year before Congress clamped down on the practice.
As someone whose arrangements were already established, he was allowed to keep them in place.
Called a charitable remainder unitrust, it is one of several strategies Mr Romney has adopted to reduce his tax bill. Such tax avoidance is legal and common among very rich people but it has been turned into an issue by the Obama campaign.
In the second presidential debate, President Barack Obama slammed Mr Romney for paying ‘lower tax rates than somebody who makes a lot less’.
In this case, Mr Romney used the tax-exempt status of Mormon Church to defer taxes for more than 15 years.
While Mr Romney will benefit, the trust will probably leave the church with less than what the law now requires, according to tax returns obtained by Bloomberg this month through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Charities don’t usually owe capital gains taxes when they sell assets for a profit and trusts like Mr Romney’s permit funders to benefit from that tax-free treatment.
Mr Romney has donated tens of millions of dollars to charities, principally the Mormon Church.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2228262/Romney-millions-using-tax-loophole-Netherlands-Dutch-newspaper-claims.html#ixzz2BOF48but