Taxes, Offshore Accounts and Corruption

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lee-a-saunders/taxes-offshore-accounts-a_b_1710549.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

Posted: 07/27/2012 12:38 pm

This week, the U.S. Senate passed legislation backed by President Obama extending tax cuts for the 98 percent of Americans who need it, while allowing the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans to expire on schedule at the end of this year. These cuts benefit the working men and women who are struggling during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Yet, Mitt Romney and the right-wing politicians who control the U.S. House of Representatives stand in the way of enacting these cuts. They are holding hostage middle-class tax cuts in their pursuit of additional cuts in taxes for the wealthiest people in America. In fact, the tax plan released by Romney in March of this year would cut taxes for the top 1 percent by nearly $150,000 per year, while the bottom 20 percent of working Americans would have their taxes increased. That makes no sense, but it is the plan pushed by Romney and his backers.

Romney is among the right-winger ideologues who claim that the wealthy need tax cuts to invest in jobs. They ignore the historic fact that tax cuts for the top 1 percent have never produced jobs. We tried that experiment in the Bush years and got the worst job creation record in the history of the American presidency. While it has never worked in the past and won't work now, it would also greatly increase the deficit, unlike the legislation supported by President Obama and the Senate. According to the Tax Policy Center, Romney's plan would add $900 billion to the deficit in 2015, when the changes would go into full effect.

But Romney has other problems on taxes. Romney has only released one year of his tax returns. His father, George Romney, released 12 years of tax returns when he ran for president in 1968. President Obama has released every tax return of his since 2000. Romney's determination to hide his returns suggests that there is something in them that he does not want the American people to see. We know from the one year return that he has released that Romney may have sheltered millions of dollars from taxes in places like Switzerland, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. He claims that he didn't save a dollar in taxes, which seems absurd. Equally troubling, however, is Mitt Romney's response to the demands that he release his tax returns to give the American public a clearer picture of his financial holdings and obligations. He says he's given us enough, most recently in an interview on the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams which aired on Wednesday night.

Why is this important? Who cares that a man we know is wealthy put money in overseas accounts and created shell companies overseas with hidden assets? All of us should care. A study released earlier this week by the Tax Justice Network calls the fight against tax havens "one of the great challenges of our age." The Tax Justice Network is an independent organization launched in the British Houses of Parliament in March 2003. Their report estimates "the amount of funds held offshore by individuals is about $11.5 trillion - with a resulting annual loss of tax revenue on the income from these assets of about 250 billion dollars." Mitt Romney and Bain Capital have helped to create and sustain this international system where the rich can hide their wealth, while everyone else plays by a different set of rules. Needless to say, at a time when federal, state and local budgets are squeezed here at home, Romney's off-shore financing may be hiding assets that are not taxed, thereby increasing the taxes of everyone else who pays for vital public services.

[upi402]

1. kick n/t