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Tax Fairness High on the President’s List & a Video on Mitt’s Offshore Accounts

Greg Sargent is reporting in his Morning Round-up on the Plum Line that President Obama will today reiterate his intention to end the Bush-era tax cuts on affluent people making more than $250,000 annually. To be precise, the reversion to higher rates, those that prevailed in the 90s when the economy did much better than in the 2000s, would actually apply only to that portion of their income above $250K, not on the amount below it. This fact won’t quell the outcry from the right-wing who are already claiming it’s a tax hike on small businesses, but that’s just rhetoric. As Sargent explains, the key point of tax fairness is one that the president will be campaigning on through the fall, offering potent contrast with Mitt Romney’s stated policies, and to Mitt’s own taxes. The Obama campaign will also use the issue to highlight the Republican candidate’s stunning lack of transparency about his finances, and the rate at which he pays taxes.

In this same vein, be sure to read Paul Krugman’s column today, Mitt’s Gray Areas, where as Sargent observes,

“Romney’s refusal to be transparent about his own finances suggests he doesn’t want to reveal the extent to which he would personally benefit from the policies he’s advocating, because so doing would be deeply damaging.”

Meantime, on my tumblr I’ve posted a new video from the Obama campaign, asking key questions about Mitt Romney’s offshore investments, including Sankaty High Yield Assets, the fund he transferred to his wife in 2003, the day before he was sworn in as MA governor. For convenience, the video is also right here. Share it around if you like, as Mitt’s offshore holdings bear a lot more scrutiny. Clearly, the Obama campaign is hoping that the media will continue reporting on Mitt’s opaque finances, with many unanswered questions about his investments and holdings.

 

A Jet-Ski Vacation

Fresh off revelations in Vanity Fair and on the AP wire that Ann Romney had become the sole owner of an opaque investment vehicle called Sankaty High Yield Assets the day before her husband was sworn in as governor of Massachusetts in 2003, the candidate’s wife gave a rather bizarre interview on CBS TV Thursday morning. Over at my Great Gray Bridge tumblr, I’ve posted commentary on this with the ridiculous photo of Ann and Mitt Romney jet-skiing around their lakefront vacation home earlier this week.

I should add that Ann Romney, though reputed to be an electoral asset for her husband, has hit a few bumps along the campaign trail:

  • There’s her lordly and expensive sport of dressage, which I posted about in 2011;
  • On that matter of Sankaty High Yield Assets, she was Mitt’s sole beneficiary for the fund which for unknown reasons he transferred to her under the wire before taking the governor’s office. He then failed for years afterward to report it on his federal elections filings, as he was required to do, according to those Vanity Fair and AP stories.

More Questions about Mitt’s Money

Update: The Obama Campaign jumped right on the AP story on Mitt’s finances that I blogged about yesterday. Above is the video they’ve made about the issues raised by the story. It includes numerous statements from voters on Mitt’s offshore money. In the statement accompanying the video campaign press secretary Ben LaBolt says,

“Yesterday’s Associated Press story raises serious questions about whether Mitt Romney established a Bermuda corporation to avoid U.S. taxes and attempted to hide it from the public. According to the report, Romney transferred the mysterious corporation to a blind trust in his wife’s name one day before taking office as Governor in order to avoid disclosure. In fact, he left this entity off of seven different personal financial disclosure statements he was required to file under state and federal law since 2001. We already know about Romney’s $3 million Swiss bank account and millions of dollars of investments in foreign tax havens like the Cayman Islands. Bermuda does not tax corporate income or capital gains. Until Romney releases additional years of tax returns, the American people will never know whether he created this shell corporation to intentionally avoid paying U.S. taxes. What is Mitt Romney trying to hide?”

For my part, I hope reporters keep asking questions about the registered-in-Bermuda Sankaty High Yield Asset Investors, Ltd. Though it’s a mouthful to say, I think this opaque Romney-owned investment vehicle could have a lot of resonance with voters.