Mitt Romney still has not released his tax returns, and
offshore accounts designed to avoid higher taxes may be the reason.
Romney is heavily invested in Bain Capital, the private
equity firm that made him millions. Bain keeps many of its investment holdings
in foreign accounts, which may have helped Romney pay taxes at lower foreign
rates.
“Bain funds in which Romney is
invested are scattered from Delaware to the Cayman Islands and Bermuda,Irelandand Hong Kong,” writes Sam
Youngman at Reuters, who appears to have been the first to notice Bain’s
offshore accounts in connection with Romney’s refusal to release his returns.
“[Romney’s] tax returns could shed light on how Romney and Bain use offshore
strategies to avoid taxes.”
The Washington Post’s Greg
Sargent notes
that Romney has agreed to release his tax returns from this year, and suggests that Romney may have been manipulating his
current finances to elide the offshore accounts.
If true—and, without the returns, we don’t know for certain
what Romney has invested where—the news is potentially devastating for Romney
in the general election. None of Romney’s offshore tax moves would be illegal,
but they would further perpetuate the narrative that the former executive gamed
the economy while millions who feel that they played by the rules are
unemployed.
Romney got something of a pass on his participation in Bain,
largely because his rival Newt Gingrich was unable to press the point very hard
due to his own limitations as a candidate. Bain is already slated to make a
reappearance in the general election, when it will be used by Democrats to
paint Romney as a corporate tycoon who buys companies, guts their employees,
and sells them at a profit, all for his own personal benefit. Offshore tax
maneuvers will underscore this image, as well as link Romney all the more to
the excessive and unfair practices that led to the financial crash.
The speculation will almost certainly increase demands that
Romney release his previous tax returns. When he does so, he will have a
difficult time explaining why, if what he did wasn’t wrong, he was so reluctant
to release the returns in the first place.
By the by, I really hope that whenever Romney’s offshore
bank account was contacted by the press, it went something like this:
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