Gawker: Equity Swaps, AIVs, and Mitt Romney’s Other Tax-Dodging Tricks
Equity Swaps, AIVs, and Mitt Romney’s Other Tax-Dodging Tricks
John Cook
This story is part of a package on Mitt Romney's Bain holdings. For the full report, go here.
Vanity Fair, the Associated Press, and others have reported a great deal on the extent to which Romney's wealth has been routed into offshore accounts, including a Bermuda shell corporation wholly owned by Romney and a secret Swiss bank account. Eight of the entities we've obtained documents for are based in the Cayman Islands; Romney's 2011 holdings in them amounted to at least $4.6 million (though the actual number could be many times higher).
The audited financial statements we've obtained from those offshore funds are refreshingly clear on the tax consequences of not being located in the United States. Here's how the 2009 audited financial statement for Bain Capital Fund VIII LP, a $3.7 billion fund in which the Romneys had invested more than $1 million as of 2011, put it:
The Partnership is a qualified intermediary and intends to conduct it operations so that it will not be engaged in a United States trade or business and, therefore, will not be subject to United States federal income or withholding tax on its income from United States sources.... Under the current laws of the Cayman Islands, there are no income, estate, transfer, sales, or other Cayman Islands taxes payable by the Partnership.
more: http://gawker.com/5936864
