Anything to this? Tax Expert Smells A Rat in Romney's Taxes:

[amborin]

"In case you missed this by Zach Carter at Huffington today (Oct 29, 2012) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... "respected tax attorney and deficit hawk" Calvin Johnson has outlined his suspicion of major tax fraud by Mitt Romney, in a letter to the editor of Tax Notes (which I can't access because I'm not a subscriber).


The letter, by University of Texas Law School Professor Calvin Johnson, focuses on two trusts Romney has set up: one for his children, which is worth over $100 million, and an $87 million retirement trust. These trusts have grown at an enormous rate -- Johnson notes that they have been more than 10 times as profitable as Warren Buffett's investments over the same time frame. Johnson writes that Romney may have played fast and loose with the law by undervaluing Bain Capital assets that were contributed to the trusts. By undervaluing the assets, Romney could avoid paying gift taxes.
Quoting from the letter,
Misvaluation of that order of magnitude is subject to a penalty of 400 percent of the tax at issue, without regard to the subjective state of mind of the contributor. For Romney, the misevaluation penalty would be many tens of millions of dollars.
For the few voters who haven't made up their minds, this sounds like a timely reminder that Romney's 2009 tax return probably contains information that disqualifies him from the Presidency. .

Tue Oct 30, 2012 at 8:31 AM PT: Here's the (nope, part of the, due to secretarial error) full letter, published Oct 29, 2012 (I received it from the author, with the words "at your service" - the rest is on its way):

Did Romney Cheat on His Taxes?

To the Editor:

When he released his 2010 tax return, Romney said that he had paid all the tax that was legally due. There is good reason to be skeptical.

Romney is reported to have a trust for his kids with more than $100 million in it, and his retirement plan trust is reported to have $87.4 million in it. Both of those great sums are supposed to have grown from modest contributions by Romney to the trusts. The gift to the kids’ trust was supposed to have been worth less than $1 million when he set it up, or gift tax would have been due, and the Romney campaign says no gift tax return has been filed. Contributions to his retirement trust were capped at $30,000 when he was working for Bain Capital.

Even if Romney’s trustees were the world’s smartest stock pickers, a contribution of $30,000 a year for the 15 years he worked for Bain Capital would not grow to be worth $87.4 million by 2012. Warren Buffett, who may well be the world’s smart- est stock picker, made 14 percent a year over that period, but under his hand the pension contribu- tions would have grown only to $7.4 million — less than 10 percent of the results that Romney says were achieved.


more here:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/29/1152276/-Tax-Expert-Smells-a-Rat-in-Romney-s-Taxes

[Berlum]

1. Republicans: Tax dodgers & draft dodgers. What a drain they are to America

[djean111]

2. Maybe he contributed stock that was deliberately and severely undervalued?

Or stock options, much like the CEO gets stock options at a ridiculously low price, while employees get options that are priced so high they are useless.
If he did that, then of course the fund would grow exponentially.

[jenw2]

3. Wow that's dumb

I work at HR Block during tax season and have run into this twice. It's dumb because taxes have to be paid on the amount the investment increased so while you're saving on the tiny gift tax that's assessed in this country. He is ripping off his children by undervaluing the investment by pushing the tax liability to them.

This doesn't need to be pushed as a fraud issue. It needs to be pushed as proving he doesn't care about his children.

[djean111]

5. I think contributing deliberately undervalued stock or stock options to a retirement fund is fraud.

I am sure he has some assholeishly barely legal way to get around having his kids pay more taxes.
Yes that is a word. I just invented it.
While we cannot tell if he cares for his children as "people" I feel we can be sure he would take any means necessary to avoid any Romneys paying taxes.

[jmowreader]

6. It needs to be pushed as a fraud issue

Mr. What-can-my-country-do-for-me is running for president in part because he wants to kill the estate tax. He'll also kill any other tax that might apply to these trusts.

I don't think there's ever been a presidential candidate this self-serving.

[hedgehog]

4. Undervaluing stock when it suits him seems to be a pattern with Mitt

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/25/mitt-romney-divorce-testimony_n_2017111.html