Thread: Romney has millions in Cayman Islands

Jan 18, 2012

Report: Romney has millions in Cayman Islands

By Catalina Camia, USA TODAY Updated 21m ago

Mitt Romney reportedly has millions of dollars tied up in investments that are set up in the Cayman Islands, one of the world's biggest tax havens.

The GOP front-runner is under fire from his rivals, as well as some allies, to immediately release his tax returns. Romney drew attention to the issue yesterday when he said his tax rate is close to 15% because of his investments.

ABC News reports Romney "has as much as $8 million invested in at least 12 funds listed on a Cayman Islands registry." The story says another investment that Romney lists in his personal financial disclosure report as being worth between $5 million and $25 million "shows up on securities records as having been domiciled in the Caymans."

ABC News also says "official documents" show Bain Capital, the private equity company Romney founded in 1984, "has set up some 138 secretive offshore funds in the Caymans."

A Romney campaign official, who was not named, told ABC News that "the tax consequences to the Romneys are the very same whether the fund is domiciled here or another country."

This campaign official also said Romney and his wife, Ann, "have money invested in funds that the trustee has determined to be attractive investment opportunities, and those funds are domiciled wherever the fund sponsors happen to organize the funds."

Romney himself has said "we follow the tax laws. And if there's an opportunity to save taxes we, like anybody else in this country, will follow that opportunity."

About $250 billion in tax revenue is lost annually by governments around the world because of tax havens, according to the Tax Justice Network. The group ranks the Cayman Islands second on its list of the world's best tax havens in terms of its secrecy and the bank accounts that are managed in the country. Switzerland ranks first.

Report: Romney has millions in Cayman Islands

Romney said in the S.C. debate he would 'probably' release his tax returns, but not until April.

Transparency, wherefore art thou?

Can you really blame the man? Bank bailouts and bank closings around here, and this President taken every bodies money!

He was afraid the Occupiers were gonna get it!

Good for him. The hell with those I.R.S. vultures. Let them worry about the illegals getting millions of dollars in refunds every year. Everybody looks to pay less taxes, it is the American Way.

I have no problem with Romney or anyone else investing in funds that are domiciled in the Cayman Islands or Switzerland or Germany or anywhere else. God knows this country has a tax and banking climate that would scare anyone out of here to a haven somewhere. If we would pass the FairTax for example, then the US would become the haven to the world's money and the domicile of choice for investment funds and corporations of all types.

To me, Americans are ready for someone in the White House who knows from personal experience what it takes to save companies, what causes them to fail, what you do when they succeed, what you do when they fail, how you try to profit from the successes to underwrite your losses for those that fail, who knows how much easier it is to win and succeed when the government isn't strangling your success and running you out of the country, how imports affect domestic companies, how trade policies affect job creation, how tax policies can destroy both the companies and the jobs they would have otherwise created.

When it comes to turn-around, which is what our nation must have, there's probably no one more qualified in the country than Mitt Romney to turn-around the United States.