McGreal reports: "Robert Gibbs says 'nobody knows' if Republican presidential candidate broke the law and calls on him to release tax returns."
President Obama's top campaign adviser joined other Democrats in calling for Romney to release his tax information. (photo: Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)
Obama Aide Hints at Romney Tax Evasion
09 July 12
Robert Gibbs says 'nobody knows' if Republican presidential candidate broke the law and calls on him to release tax returns.
he Obama campaign has called on Mitt Romney to release years of tax returns to prove he did not break the law following claims that the Republican presidential candidate held secret accounts in foreign tax havens.
Robert Gibbs, the president's former spokesman and now a top campaign adviser, said on CNN that "nobody knows" whether Romney committed tax evasion after Vanity Fair reported that he kept parts of his multimillion dollar fortune in more than a dozen entities in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Switzerland.
Vanity Fair reported that among other things Romney parked some of his money in a Bermuda corporation entirely owned by him which he transferred to his wife's name the day before he became Massachusetts's governor and then failed to list it on financial disclosure forms.
It finally appeared on his 2010 tax return.
"Quite frankly he offshores most of his own personal investments, presumably to shield them from taxes," said Gibbs.
The Obama aide continued: "Nobody knows why he has a corporation in Bermuda, why he failed to disclose that on seven different financial disclosures, why he transferred it to someone else's purview the day before he became governor of Massachusetts.
"The one thing he could do to clear up whether he's done anything illegal, whether he's shielding his income from taxes in Bermuda or Switzerland is to do what every other presidential candidate's done and that is to release a series of years of their own tax returns... The best way to figure out if Mitt Romney is complying with American tax law is to have him release more of the tax returns."
The Obama campaign also released a web video on Sunday pressing the issue.
"Mitt Romney is effectively saying he has not technically broken any laws by keeping his money in offshore tax havens. Here's the question. Is not technically breaking the law a high enough standard for someone who wants to be president of the United States?" it said.
The Romney campaign rejected the criticisms saying that the Republican challenger "pays every dime of tax he owes".
"The Obama campaign's latest unfounded character assault on Mitt Romney is unseemly and disgusting," said Andrea Saul, his campaign spokeswoman. "Barack Obama has become what he once ran against - a typical politician willing to use false and dishonest attacks to save his job after failing to do his job."
The issue of Romney's offshore accounts plays into attacks over how he made his vast fortune including accusations he shipped American jobs overseas when he was running Bain Capital and will protect tax breaks for millionaires as president.
"I pick a bank because there's an ATM near my home," said Gibbs. "Romney had a bank account in Switzerland."
Several other prominent Democrats joined the assault on the Republican candidate on the Sunday talk shows.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, also pressed the issue on Fox News.
"I'd really like to see Mitt Romney release more than one year of tax records, because there's been disturbing reports recently that he's got a Bermuda corporation, a secretive Bermuda corporation that no one knows anything about, investments in the Caymans, kind of Swiss bank account," she said.
"Americans need to ask themselves why does an American businessman need a Swiss bank account and secretive investments like that?"
Romney has released details of his taxes for the last two years but declined to make earlier ones public.
Some of his opponents speculate that is because before he decided to run for president he paid a significantly lower proportion of tax - a politically sensitive issue as Republicans resist Obama's demand to scrap the Bush-era tax breaks for the very wealthy.
Two years ago the president signed a bill extending across the board tax cuts as part of his efforts to revive the economy. But Obama now wants to scrap the break for the rich while preserving cuts for the middle classes and poor.
"He is 100% committed to it," said Gibbs. "Let the wealthy in this country, that have been doing fine for years and years and years, begin to pay their fair share."
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Comments
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http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=31825
The Collapsing US Economy and the "End of the World"
by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Global Research, July 9, 2012
paulcraigroberts.com
In a recent column, “Can The World Survive Washington’s Hubris,” I promised to examine whether the US economy will collapse before Washington in its pursuit of world hegemony brings us into military confrontation with Russia and China. This is likely to be an ongoing subject on this site, so this column will not be the final word.
[...]
Stock owners are ultimately responsible for the acts of the corporations. The managers always tell us their first responsibility is to their stock holders. So when Bain loots companies and off-shores jobs, it is all done for Romney's benefit and done because Romney wants it. He wants the short term profits. He really does not care what the methods are.
Maybe what the US really needs is a real corporate criminal in the Whore House on Pennsylvania Avenue. In the Bush/Cheney regime we had real imperialists and war criminals and most people understood that. Obama is too nice for the Whore House. He speaks well and expresses lofty sentiments. But in the end his policies are the same as Romney's, Cheney's, Bush's, and Wall Street's. Maybe a little honesty would put Romney or Jamie Diamon in the Whore House. Then we could not deny that the USG is a corporate controlled entity.
I'll have a few bucks at the end of the month and I'll inveigle a friend with plastic into sending you a donation at the end of the month...stay strong. I admire your work greatly, and wish I had a couch nearer DC I could crash on, betcha I'd nail a story or two for you. but you're doing fine so far! Stay strong...
How about Romoney doing like his dad did and release multiple years of his returns for the experts to see. His magic secret underwear should shield him from harm.
Does the I.R.S. get P&L statements on every US citizen from every country where one does business? No shrewd businessman hides anything from the I.R.S.?
Tax laws are far from simple.
I agree, Herb. Unsubstantiated claims are the meat of the GOP. If they're found to be false, it gives Romney a leg up. I'd rather see the Dems dig a little deeper before making claims of any sort. But money spread around like that does lead to lots of questions, doesn't it? Between Bermuda, the Caymans, and Switzerland, the only dollar amount stated was $3 Million in the Swiss account, supposedly closed out in 2010.
Just as an aside, if a person took home $50,000 a year, it would take 60 years to amass a $3 Million fortune - and that's without spending any of it. But that's small potatos to a guy who clears $21 Million from cap gains EVERY year!
The situation is suspect and bears watching.
Romney probably broke no laws, but that's not the idea. The point is to show how Romney, and his "class" of people, use existing tax laws, and the lack thereof, to pay an even smaller effective tax rate than the absurd 15% rate now allowed on investment and capital gains income. It is also a way to paint Romney as a sneaky, conniving, filthy rich hypocrite who doesn't give a good goddamn about the American people, or at least the American people who make less than $10 million a year.
Shouldn't we be able to be more certain than that? It wasn't that many years ago that Republicans were combing through every financial transaction the Clintons had been involved in since about 1975 in hopes of finding something that would send them to prison. Evidently the shoe pinches when it's on the other foot.
You ship the washing machines back to the USA and make a tidy profit from your new company in Mexico and pay less tax to Mexico that you would have paid in the US. Can you take that tidy profit and park it in Bermuda so you don't have to declare it as taxable income in the USA?
If you're a voter in the USA, would you want to know your candidate had been off-shoring profits derived from destroying US companies and the lives of their former employees (your neighbors)? Would you want your candidate to be hiding profits and avoiding taxes that are necessary to fund the military that protects us all, and to maintain the roads and bridges over which his washing machines must travel to market?
I think this is about determining the character of a candidate and figuring out if he has Americans' best interests at heart, or if he's just another one of the Greed One Percent who's going to treat us all merely as a source of revenue for himself and his fellow Greedy One Percenters.
BTW, Midwest Tom, No, surprisingly often, the IRS doesn't know- see my remarks on TBOP above. Just because you can't afford to hire a CPA to show the IRS the error of its ways doesn't mean the Mitt is equally laid back about his TB.
Your point being...?
Yes, and how the 'corporate welfare queens' like BP and Exxon not only do not pay their fair share of taxes on their exorbitant profits, but actually get SUBSIDIES from middle class and working people's taxes!!
SUBSIDES!..We have been subsidizing Romney his whole business career, with our middle class tax dollars having to cover every dollar he avoided paying [someone has to pay the light bill, here], "so he could create more JOBS!" people. Them being outsourced, overseas jobs,that is.
That is why until I see the tax returns and get an explanation for all those overseas accounts, I will not trust that Romney has acted entirely within the law on all of his dealings.
SHOW ME THE MONEY!
You have reminded us of a very serious character flaw in this coward(aka: "bully") that has been somewhat dismissed by most folks everywhere as not very significant anymore. They are so very wrong. I've been researching the bullying since 1990, after losing my best friend and Mother of our 3 children to a vicious attack of a 16 yr old bully in her school. There is nothing about Romney's behavior in the hair cutting assault that should be minimized. He planned days in advance; pulled his gang(some of whom were bullied to be a part of the gang) together, req.their participation, and as an audience to later show adulation for his magnificent performance. This psychopathic behavioral process has been a common theme, and very successful for him throughout his life, particularly in all of his business dealings. Not understanding this, will most likely be devastating to most of us(avoidable deaths among the poor), should he succeed in his run for the Presidency. As far as his taxes; the real ethical question that everyone should be asking is how many $$ has he shorted the US Treasury in his whole business career, operating outside the US as opposed to the few 1%, who kept their wealth in the US? Maybe, to be given the chance at the highest office in the country, he should reimburse us before being sworn in. "Don'tja think?"
--F. Scott Fitzgerald
To which I add, the rich are different from you and me, they think the laws that apply to the rest of us don't apply to them.
The Repubs can do it but can never take it.
Everyday, at the beginning of each show. A genuine, unpretentious, sincere, and so heartfelt new U.S. citizen who tells all of us everyday, how important and proud being a citizen is to him. He knows more about America and our history than most of us, including Mittens ever knew. BUT, Craig can never be President; while on the other hand, the only thing that technically, makes Mittens a citizen is being born here....or WAS he?? Quick, where are the "No,It's Not About Race, BIRTHERS" when you really need them, anyway?
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