IT’S STARTING to rock and roll, with the latest barrage coming at Mitt Romney from Gawker that alleges to go “inside Mitt Romney’s tax-dodging Cayman schemes.”
From John Cook of Gawker:
Mitt Romney’s $250 million fortune is largely a black hole: Aside from the meager and vague disclosures he has filed under federal and Massachusetts laws, and the two years of partial tax returns (one filed and another provisional) he has released, there is almost no data on precisely what his vast holdings consist of, or what vehicles he has used to escape taxes on his income. Gawker has obtained a massive cache of confidential financial documents that shed a great deal of light on those finances, and on the tax-dodging tricks available to the hyper-rich that he has used to keep his effective tax rate at roughly 13% over the last decade.
Today, we are publishing more than 950 pages of internal audits, financial statements, and private investor letters for 21 cryptically named entities in which Romney had invested—at minimum—more than $10 million as of 2011 (that number is based on the low end of ranges he has disclosed—the true number is almost certainly significantly higher). Almost all of them are affiliated with Bain Capital, the secretive private equity firm Romney co-founded in 1984 and ran until his departure in 1999 (or 2002, depending on whom you ask). Many of them are offshore funds based in the Cayman Islands.
The democrats should have a very simple message. A man who has spent his life hiding money and dodging taxes does not give a damn about this country, period.
Just in case a rational reader happens by, here is a link to follow:
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/08/23/gawkers-worthless-bain-files-2/
If the Democrats had a taste for jugular blood, they would do as the Repugs would have done and dropped a few stink bombs in there. More specifically, damaging documents that are flat out lies — as bold face lies as Romney’s welfare ad.
If he wants to deny it let him prove it by disclosing his real tax returns.
Ask Dan Rather how that sort of thing works out.
I can’t believe I’m going to agree with Casualobserver on this one but not for the link he posted.
Imho, Gawker made a mistake in basically doing a dump of 950 pages of financial audits, financial statements, and private investor letters without hiring trained auditors, tax accountants and lawyers specializing in taxes and these types of tax returns. They wanted to be the first to publish these “confidential files” and rushed to do just that without much professional review of what they had in their hands. They even admit as much and ask knowledgeable readers to review their files and make comments in the comments section. Are they kidding me? They look like fools.
These records will take months to go through to make sense out of even for a well-trained eye. They should have given these files to professionals and taken a few at a time to see what was there or not.
I am all for this type of reporting when done properly so a definitive statement and conclusion can be made or not regarding these audited documents.
What they did instead will now take away from the impact these documents may have once professionals do review them because it now looks like gotcha journalism. Although ths is Gawker and calling them journalists is a bit of a stretch.
As far as the link goes. I don’t trust that financial writer from Forbes magazine either as his arguments appear defensive and he really doesn’t say much in the way of providing a counter argument or coming to a conclusion of what all of these 950 documents contain because he didn’t have access to all of it. (Also, he works for Forbes and I don’t expect people who work for that magazine to not be an advocate for someone like Romney (no matter how loud he protests he’s not) when the owner of that mag, Steve Forbes is an advocate of the Flat tax which will take us as a country from having a progressive income tax system to a regressive one where those who earn more in earned income pay less percentage-wise than those who are middle or lower earning tax payers. Which will make things even worse than they are now because on top of that all those like Romney who make their stash in unearned income from hedge funds for one continue to pay pay the lower capital gains tax of 15% instead of the highest earned income tax on ordinary income of 35%.)
Both wrongs don’t a right make.
I’ll wait for independent tax auditors and tax attorney’s to review those documents for a deliberate and comprehensive review of those docs before coming to a conclusion either way.
If he wants to deny it let him prove it by disclosing his real tax returns.
Agreed. But, the Lord and Lady of the Romney mannor protest too much and so they won’t.
ndd1 I have to disagree. Much like wikileaks this appears to be part of the genuine grass roots level activists taking matters into their own hands.
And they WILL come up with gold in these documents….first off proving Mitt da Twit lied through his teeth about leaving Bain…he was and still is involved up to his beady lil eyeballs.
Maybe because of the way this is being done the main stream media won’t carry it but it’s a new world and it will be ALL OVER the web. I say KUDOS and keep hammering the repugnantklan/teabagging anti-American bastards.
newdealdem1 writes:
Nor I. I was going to look up what this writer’s opinions about Lehman, et. al., back in 2007, but it doesn’t appear he’s even been doing this for that long. I don’t remember Forbes being out there in front of the pack talking about how things were about to collapse. Mostly, besides “liberal” economists like Roubini and Stiglitz, I seem to recall there were a few stray voices at Bloomberg and the WSJ. Could be selective memory on my part, of course.
Anyway, there were lots of so-called “rational” people telling us there was nothing to see there. Turns out there was something to see there. It will be a long time, if ever, before I trust financial reporting from the mainstream financial press again.
As for the Gawker dump, I have mixed feelings. While I don’t look forward to another round of self-styled geniuses looking at stuff they don’t want to take the time to understand telling us how everything doesn’t add up (see 9/11 and WMDs), as we’ve observed, the press doesn’t do investigative reporting these days. It’s expensive to hire experts, and it’s expensive to pay reporters to find and interview them, and give the latter the time to get up to speed on the subject. So I guess we need these sorts of dumps, even though the results aren’t always going to be what we’d expect from, ahem, rational people.
Is there really that much difference between Romney/Bain and Obama Administration/Carlyle Group?
Nice move posting a link to what I suppose you think is some “damaging” thingy about Obama but you have to subscribe to the rag to read…anybody here subscribe to it? Didn’t think so.
Funny, I don’t suscribe to it, but it was viewable. maybe its a one looksy thing. Anyway google it Obama Administration, Carlyle Group and throw in the word refinery. It will pop up. No need for me to provide a link. since it will be automatically discredited by you. If you want to look go ahead, if not doesn’t bother me one bit.
Again I say, plumb the depths of his corruption. There have been so many lies who knows. Today he said he’s not disclosing his taxes because of his religion. Maybe he didn’t give 10% every year, who knows? That would destroy his reputation in the Mormon Church, and he has more fear of that than of losing the election. If that is the reason, he will stonewall even if it costs him the election.
Or, he had a huge donation against Prop 8. Or he had major questionable offshore tax shelters. Or he had an unfavorable IRS audit. Or he lied to become Governor of MA. Any or all of those could be true. None of them are far-fetched.
This comment was off topic and has been deleted.
Masturbat ….OOPS masterful job of trying to deflect away from Mitt da Twit…NOT! You guys are really off your game…not that you had game to start with.
At the least, most of the other conservatives who post here seem to me to be sincere even if I may never agree with them or not agree with them all of the time,
But, there is something in your posts that is relentlessly filled with asshattery.
I’ve tried to treat you fairly by responding to your queries when I thought it would help further the conversation.
But, you are a hopeless, blind, and tone deaf radical partisan who will never listen to reason.
Consider this the last time I will ever even recognize you as a poster on this blog. And, I don’t give a rats ass what you think of this post or me.
I’m done.
This post was addressed to PWT.
Now I’m truly done.
ndd1 I have to disagree.
Dear sec, we will have to agree to disagree here.
Much like wikileaks this appears to be part of the genuine grass roots level activists taking matters into their own hands.
I think whistle blowers are hero’s/heroine’s but I don’t agree with each and every grass roots outfit who does leaks. Re/ Wikileaks, I have mixed feelings. The couple of things they revealed in their file dumps were important to reveal things that were horrific. What comes to mind was that video that showed an American helicopter targeting innocent civilians and then killing them as if they were involved in some video game. That was horrible to watch and it was morally wrong and should have been exposed to the light as it was.
That said, some of the other stuff that was revealed by Wikileaks was something that I would expect to find on TMZ or Gawker, the gossip sites. I don’t give a rats ass about how someone in the State Department thinks of the former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. How many of us didn’t know what a jackwad, sexist buffoon he was/is. And, other gossip laden pages about State Department diplomats who made other judgemental comments about foreign subjects from the German Foreign Minister to Peru’s Foreign Minister.
In addition, I am against document dumps by well-meaning whistle blowers like Wikileaks because they mostly haven’t redacted names of operatives in various hot spot nations who have provided the West with important info about legitimate persons who would do harm not only to our country’s citizens but to citizens of other nations with whom we may have diplomatic relations.
I am not a fan of Julian Assange. I don’t know if he is guilty or not of sexual assault but I want him to face the Swedish authorities and the two women who accused him of sexual impropriety. Even if the Assange accusations didn’t exist, Assange is his own worst enemy as he comes off as a sexist, egotistical attention-starved person who cares more about his own self than about helping those who are abused at the hands of fascist governments with or without the help of the US. Assange is not the best person to represent the embodiment of Wikileaks. Wikileaks needs to get itself another leader.
And they WILL come up with gold in these documents….first off proving Mitt da Twit lied through his teeth about leaving Bain…he was and still is involved up to his beady lil eyeballs.
That very well may be true, sec, and I am more wont to believe he and his wife have something to hide financially than not because of how they have behaved in all of this as if they were guilty (they certainly haven’t helped themselves in making the larger public trust them).
But, I’m a Auditor and have been trained professionally to back up what I find that is irregular or flat out fraudulent by providing evidence and proof of what I am reporting. It’s the only way to roll, sec. It’s like the police not reading a suspect his/her rights or doing something egregious that makes it possible for a truly guilty person to be let go. And, I don’t want Romney to be let go if he was shown not to have paid his fair share of taxes even if what he and his accountants and lawyers did was not illegal. There is a difference between legal and moral.
What I don’t want to happen is for Romney to get away with the moral bankruptcy of his taking advantage of what he and his class have fought for by having their well-compensated lobbyists speaking on their financial behalf while the rest of us have to rely on the principled advocacy of our elected representatives, most of whom are influenced by various money operatives.
Maybe because of the way this is being done the main stream media won’t carry it but it’s a new world and it will be ALL OVER the web. I say KUDOS and keep hammering the repugnantklan/teabagging anti-American bastards.
I just think it’s important to do this the right way and maybe that ‘s because as a liberal I don’t have the stomach to do this any other way but by the book becaue that is the way this stink sticks to Mr and Mrs Romeny.