Romney’s Wife Had $3 Million in Secret Swiss Bank Account Through 2010; Not Reported...

[babylonsister]

Friday, February 3, 2012
Romney’s Wife Had $3 Million in Secret Swiss Bank Account Through 2010; Not Reported in Federal Disclosure Forms


Remember how peculiar it was that presidential candidate Mitt Romney refused to release his tax returns? That was predictably a non-starter. Most voters probably assume the reason he resisted was to avoid the controversy over his strikingly low tax rate.

Another factor appears to have played into this decision. The release of the tax returns shows Romney neglected to disclose some required financial information in his personal disclosure form filed with the Office of Government Ethics last year. His team apparently timed the release of his tax records with the hope that State of the Union hooplah would dominate news coverage and result in his finances getting less attention than they might otherwise. And that appears to been correct. His failure to divulge information about 23 investments, and more important his use of secret Swiss bank accounts, has been given a free pass. As Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington director Melanie Sloan observed, “Mr. Romney says the errors are minor, but then again he also claims earning $374,000 in speaking fees isn’t much money.”

This anodyne coverage in a Los Angeles Times article from last week is typical:

Some investments listed in Mitt and Ann Romney’s 2010 tax returns — including a now-closed Swiss bank account and other funds located overseas — were not explicitly disclosed in the personal financial statement the Republican presidential hopeful filed in August as part of his White House bid.

The Romney campaign described the discrepancies as “trivial” but acknowledged Thursday that it was reviewing how the investments were reported and would make “some minor technical amendments” to Romney’s financial disclosure that would not alter the overall picture….

The campaign has emphasized that Romney has paid all required U.S. taxes on his foreign funds….

Among the assets omitted is a Swiss bank account in Ann Romney’s blind trust that held $3 million until it closed in 2010. The account was listed on a financial disclosure Romney filed in 2007, but it was mistakenly named as an asset held by the couple, not as part of Ann Romney’s trust. A campaign spokeswoman said Thursday that Romney will file amendments to both his 2007 and 2011 financial disclosures to correctly identify the bank account.

That account was at UBS. Pretty much anyone who follows the financial press known of the pitched battle between the US government and first UBS, then Swiss banking regulators, over Swiss bank secrecy. The US engaged in a series of prosecutions that led one UBS unit that catered to wealthy individuals to be shuttered as part of a deal in which UBS also turned over the names of several thousand US customers that the US suspected of engaging in tax evasion. This case effectively ended Swiss bank secrecy; the efforts of the Swiss to avoid divulging the names of its customers was front page news in the Financial Times for the better part of two years. This is the summary in Wikipedia:

more...

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/02/romneys-wife-had-3-million-in-ubs-unit-closed-for-helping-us-citizens-evade-taxes.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

[Scuba]

1. Romney's pile of shit is approaching skyscraper proportions.

[Tx4obama]

2. They've so much money they can appartently forget about having it & forget about where it's at n/t

[Jackpine Radical]

5. Jeez, I lose spare change all the time too.

Just last week I turned up a couple million I had forgotten about in an old coat pocket.

[Tx4obama]

8. Wow, well I am unemployed right now.. can I borrow a few thousand? I'm sure you wouldn't miss it ;)

Btw, toss those old coats out (after you check all the pockets) and buy some new ones, looks like you can afford it

p.s. I grew up with my grandparents, so I heard this story told quite often...
Long before I was born, when my mother and aunt were young, in the late 1940s someone came to the door from the Salvation Army asking for donations - my grandmother gave them some old clothing and old shoes. When my grandfather came home from work he noticed his old pair of shoes were missing. All hell broke loose. It turned out his 'secret money hiding place' was in the toes of that old pair of shoes my grandmother donated.
My grandmother, mother, and aunt spent several hours the next day looking through a mountain of shoes at the Salvation Army for his old shoes

[Boombaby]

9. I hate it when that happens!

Plus I've got tickets to the Super Bowl and---wouldn't you know it!---my Lear jet's left engine is shot. I'm gonna have to fly commercial!

[Jackpine Radical]

13. Where you at? Maybe I could pick you up on the way with Jackpine 1--

assuming you're near an airstrip big enough to land it.

[KharmaTrain]

3. The Damned Problem Of Being Filthy Rich...

You tend to lose track of it...especially if you're trying to shelter it. Be assured that Millard's accountants have been earning their big retainers in shuffling the money and trying to make it disappear. And they used every trick in the book to create deductions and losses that will show that for years...probably the better part of the past three decades, that he paid almost no taxes at all. He quickly embraced the 15% line cause he hoped that would stem the bleeding of the corporate media poking too deeply into his finances.

[babylonsister]

4. I love that his "15%" only inspired more curiosity

and had the exact opposite effect.

[morningfog]

6. What's the big deal? I found a dollar bill wadded up in my pants after laundry.

You can't expect him to keep tabs on all that money. Regular man of the people, he is.

[Orangepeel]

7. Romney thinks $3 million in a Swiss bank account is "trivial."

If that don't just say it all.

[hedgehog]

10. Pin money

[ellisonz]

12. Eat the rich. n/t

[romneyjustmade]

14. check out how much romney makes with this calculator

www.romneyjustmade.com

[geekd]

15. bag of shit

Man, I do not know anyone could tell the difference between these 2 cheesedicks. Anyone found having a swiss bank account at any point of time should be barred from public office until they have at least paid the interest for being a "tax protester". A statement wouldn't hurt either. Something to explain why they think its ok to break the law.

[Octafish]

16. After carrying water for deregulation in Senate, Phil Gramm became UBS Vice Chair...

He's the Meyer Lansky of the War Party.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4055207

Someone found a need to protect all the money gained through Reverse Robin Hood and filled it.

[alcibiades_mystery]

17. There's little doubt now that Romney was part of the amnesty settlement

for rich tax cheats.

That his family accounts were part of the UBS deal would seem at this point obvious.

It's fucking shocking beyond measure, really. The frontrunner for the GOP nomination is a literal tax evader. Beyond ridiculous. Count on the Obama camp to really pump this out come August, probably during and in the wake of the GOP convention. Ads all day: tax evader, tax evader, tax evader. They'll tattoo it on Romney's fucking tax cheat forehead before they're through.

[TheTruthSquad]

18. You hit the nail on the head!

When Mitt's father ran for president in 1968, he released 12 years of tax returns. He stated “one year could be a fluke, perhaps done for show.” Mitt has released one year, and that revealed he had declared accounts in Bermuda, The Cayman Islands and Switzerland. All countries that are tax havens and have secrecy laws to protect depositors. Not illegal, but highly suspect. Why not Germany, France or Italy? He may and I repeat may release a later year tax return, but he can't release a previous year. You see Mitt doesn't like to pay taxes. When he worked for Bain, they lobbied for the tax break that allows them to pay 15% on carried interest. When they wanted to close the loophole, Bain spent millions again on lobbying. When he was on the board of directors of Marriott, he was Audit Chairman. He reduced their tax rate to 6.8% through offshore tax dodges and sleazy loopholes. Enough of this, the real story starts below.
In 2009 the IRS had a tax amnesty for people that had money in undeclared Swiss bank accounts. The IRS was given a list of 4,500 names, and let the financial world know they were going to go after these people. More than 30,000 people came forward and the government collected 2.7 billion in taxes and penalties. The company that came forward with these names was UBS, the same company that Mitt has his "declared" account with. Some believe up to 10 trillion dollars are stashed in tax havens by Americans. His staff was sweating bullets in January when he released his tax release. Now that there are calls for him to release his previous tax returns, they are back in panic mode. They have no way to explain the mysterious appearing accounts and the sudden surge in assets. If he does release them, look for white out and a copy of Photo Shop at his campaign office.