New York (HedgeCo.Net) – Dutch newspaper Volksrant reports that Bain Capital, in which Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is a major shareholder and founder, has routed some 80 million euros ($102 million) in dividends through a tax loophole in the Netherlands via an investment in Irish pharmaceutical company Warner Chilcott.
Bain is a link in Romney’s extensive international web of trusts and holding companies. The paper reports that although Romney officially left Bain in 1999, part of his severance package included the right to remain a shareholder and continue making investments. In 2004, he and his wife Ann Romney invested over a million (according to his tax returns) in Bain Capital Fund VIII, a Cayman Islands-based fund worth around $25.7 million. The hedge fund is a major shareholder at Warner Chilcott.
On March 10, 2011 Romney donated 19,799 shares of Warner Chilcott (with a market value of approximately $450,000) to a non-profit association run by his son, Tyler Romney. The Dutch paper also says that according to Romney’s tax returns, he and his wife in 2010-2011 received more than two million dollars in dividends and held $5.5 million worth of shares in the hedge fund.
Using a tax shelter called CRUT (charitable remainder unitrust) that was held by the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), along with foreign tax credits and deferred capital gains losses, Liberal news site The Daily Kos reports that Mitt Romney was theoretically able to pay zero taxes (legally) every single year from 1996 to 2009.
Bloomberg reports: “Romney used the tax-exempt status of a charity — the Mormon Church, according to a 2007 filing — to defer taxes for more than 15 years. At the same time he is benefiting, the trust will probably leave the church with less than what current law requires, according to tax returns.” Bloomberg got the information through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Sources are also reporting that the United Automobile Workers (UAW) and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) have just charged Romney with hiding between $15.3 to $111.5 million dollars from the auto industry bailout in his wife Anne’s “blind” trust to conceal the gain and reduce taxes on it.
Alex Akesson
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