All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, all men are Socrates. (Love & Death, Woody Allen).
Mitt Romney (R-MA) seems to have succeeded in becoming persona non grata overseas, but his money is welcome everywhere.
That Romney has docked hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars in foreign tax accounts whose only purpose is to hide it from paying taxes and yet has the chutzpah to run for President of the United States while trashing those who pay no income taxes is shocking enough. But, Lindsey Graham (R-SC) thinks this is just peachy dandy. And, Chris Christie (R-NJ) aspires to have his money hiding in the Cayman Islands' someday.
Finding this all a bit mind-boggling -- imagine what "anti-American" screams would be belching forth from the right if President Obama had even one dime of his money in the Caymans -- I wanted to find out how the right-wing justified these alien havens.
What I came upon was pure poetry. With a logic only Woody Allen (see above) could love, the Cato Institute argues that we should all rejoice because the Romney tax havens benefit all us poor sots. Now I understand what Romney meant when he said that if he did not take every loophole available, he would not be qualified to be president -- because he would be hurting us by paying taxes he could be evading.
Shame on me for thinking Mitt was doing this all for himself! And, shame on the rest of you who did not praise Mitt for avoiding all these taxes to help you out! I willingly accept a session of waterboarding as expiation for my sins -- well, since waterboarding isn't torture, perhaps Mitt has something more painful in mind.
Or, perhaps I can atone for my sin by explaining to the rest of you how the Romney tax havens are really there for your benefit. That way, you do not have to wade through the briny beaches of the Cayman Islands, nor scale the Eiger to understand the magnitude of this selfless gift bequeathed to you.
According to Cato, we should thank Mitt for his foreign tax havens because, you see, your taxes are lower because the Cayman Islands enables the Romneys to shelter their income from taxes. If there were no Cayman Islands (and Bermuda and Switzerland), so goes the argument, Ronald Reagan would not have lowered your tax rates.
One may be forgiven if one foolishly believed that Reagan cut taxes because of trickle-down economics based, on what a recent non-partisan definitive study has shown was the faulty theory that tax cuts caused job growth.
If U.S. tax rates were higher, goes the Romney foreign tax haven defense, then Mitt Romney would have put his money in tax havens depriving the United States of his taxes... and, we know he didn't do that!
Cato's second defense of the Romney foreign tax haven is that the U.S. itself is a foreign tax haven. By not taxing foreigners, so goes the argument, the U.S. attracts a lot of foreign capital. Exactly how that bolsters the case for Americans benefiting from the Romney tax havens is, to put it mildly, baffling.
Here is the dirty little secret: the so-called "foreign money" is not all foreign. Say, for example, that the Romneys set up a Bermuda-based partnership and put money into it (not that they would do such a thing, right?). That partnership then sets itself up in the Caymans. The Caymans partnership invests this "foreign Bermuda money" into the U.S. -- and voila! No taxes on this "foreign" investment.
Cato's third defense of the Romney tax havens has nothing whatsoever to do with the tax rate. These havens enable potential victims of dictatorships to hide their assets in another jurisdiction, and thus protect them from vindictive dictators. Of course, it also allows vindictive dictators to hide their assets so they can, if the occasion demands, flee and live a very comfortable life from the money and wealth they had looted from their own citizens. It also facilitates criminal organizations to hide their money from drug, and other criminal activities.
In any case, secrecy and zero tax rates have nothing whatsoever to do with each other, and that was Cato's key point.
Nor does this situation apply to the Romney and his fellow-travelers. Protecting the politically vulnerable by protecting their money can be handled by requesting special treatment in the same way that political refugees themselves get asylum. Finally, there are only a small number of people who are both wealthy and under attack in their home countries that need such financial asylum. The overwhelming majority of the tortured and oppressed are ordinary citizens who have little to no money to bask in the sun of the Caymans.
So, like much of right-wing commentary, Cato's defense of the Romney foreign tax havens is pure sophistry. It is without substance.
There is, however, a lot of substance behind what the Romney foreign tax havens cost the rest of us.
Romney and his pals cost the U.S. $1 trillion over a decade. We need to build and re-build about $2 trillion in our roads, bridges, water systems, electric grids and so forth. Closing the Romney foreign tax havens, as Bill Clinton was close to achieving prior to George W. Bush becoming president, would pay for half of that.
And, no increase in tax rates of any American who does not park their money in exotic foreign tax havens is required.
That is the 99.998 percent.
Follow Paul Abrams on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pabrams2001
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When Wall Street arranges for a large corporation to avoid taxes by registering in the Cayman Islands, who picks up the deficiency to maintain roads and bridges, pay for police and fire protection, and educate our children? The answer is the main street businesses and individual taxpayers left behind. In America, the revenues lost to tax havens are estimated at $100 billion, a gigantic transfer of wealth from ordinary taxpayers to Wall Streeters and a nifty competitive advantage for big corporations.
The problem spans the globe. The Cayman Islands alone (population 55,000) now has $1.9 trillion on deposit, three times as much as all the banks in Manhattan. Former Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou declared that his country might have avoided a bailout if it had not been robbed of funds funneled into tax havens.
Last Spring, Robert Morgenthau, the former Manhattan district attorney, complained in the New York Times that, “secrecy laws in these tax havens are at the root of serious crimes: fraud, money laundering and international terrorism. Follow the trail of nearly any major financial scandal and you will enter one or more of these notorious jurisdictions.” We need to elect someone to help, not hinder, law enforcement to end this mess and stop these massive diversions of funds that are crippling our global economy.
Money laundering, tax evasion, bribery?
Grease the right palms, buy the right person, grease the wheels, and it's payday!
Mitt Romney Started Bain Capital With Money From Families Tied To Death Squads http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/08/mitt-romney-death-squads-bain_n_1710133.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
Las Vegas Sands Target Of U.S. Money-Laundering Probe, WSJ Says http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/04/las-vegas-sands-target-of_n_1741855.html
Bain Capital's Tax Dodge http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-callahan/bain-capitals-tax-dodge_b_1827925.html?utm_hp_ref=politics&ir=Politics
I know that is a grossly simplified statement.
However, it seems to me that Mr. Romney thinks the nations infrastructure, and dare I even say, military, isn't worth his money being invested in. As such, how is really viable as a candidate?
Followed by UAW Orgainzers in China !
I have been buying Canadian Dollars for six months now, must be a Foreign Tax Haven ?
Ditto the Unions and most Mutual Funds, etc.
It's a Global Economy................ !
Small One for Paul.
Apparently, they love American so much, they don't want to invest in the very thing that makes the country great by paying their fair share of taxes, and hide their taxes elsewhere. What patriotism! What national pride! What a way to "give back" to the country that has given you so much!
Seriously though: What is wrong with these people? Why do they hate America and poor Americans? Just how selfish and greedy does one need to be to have that kind of mindset?
"Noblesse oblige" is generally used to imply that with wealth, power, and prestige come responsibilities. It suggests a general obligation for the more fortunate to help the less fortunate.
In ethical discussion, it is sometimes used to summarize a moral economy wherein privilege must be balanced by duty towards those who lack such privilege or who cannot perform such duty.
Finally, it has been used recently primarily to refer to public responsibilities of the rich and powerful to provide good examples of behaviour or to exceed minimal standards of decency.
As to how to get them to take the medicine? No idea. One can lead a horse to water....
OBAMA - BIDEN 2012
If you have nothing specific outside of paranoid fantasies, quit commenting until you do.
And then publish the retraction. Just replace the word Obama with Romney.
Unfortunately, the reality would be that the GOTP would keep the fake publication and publish stuff on it every day even after the retraction. Like "We Built That", debunked, but still popular in conservative circles.
Thanks for this. I don't try to be deliberately obtuse, but tax law is among the things that just defies understanding for me sometimes.
But the underlying fact is still, to me, simple. It's acceptable, morally justifiable, and legal for Mitt to avoid paying taxes on his income, but it is utterly unacceptable, morally reprehensible, and representative of victimhood for someone making $20K a year to do so. Legal? Sure. But nobody but the Mitt Romneys of the world should take advantage of tax loopholes. Everyone else has an obligation to give all of their money and most of their skin for the privilege of living in this country.
That's the America Mitt Romney sees.