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ABC’s Nightline Airs Shameful “Tax Haven” Smear on Mitt Romney
ABC Television’s long-time, late evening “news” program, “Night Line,” should be renamed “Night Lie” – for the sake of accuracy.
That new program name would more correctly describe the slanted, five-minute segment on January 18, “Romney Parks Millions in Cayman Islands,” which was broadcast under the sub-heading, “Brian Ross Investigates.”
While we’re at it, this should also have been renamed, “Hack Brian Ross Smears.”
Ross, Nightline’s “investigative reporter,” was joined by co-conspirator Megan Chuchmach to produce an unequivocally biased distortion of American tax laws in what was obviously a blatant effort to smear Mitt Romney.
The Sovereign Society takes no side when it comes to political candidates. However, wrong is wrong, and we would like to see the facts set straight.
ABC’s false implication was that the wealthy Republican presidential candidate is a secret tax dodger and is hiding millions from the IRS.
However, the report offered not one shred of evidence that Romney had violated any U.S. tax laws or failed to pay any taxes due.
At the same time, the report played the Cayman Islands as a “notorious tax haven” where – according to Ross and Chuchmach’s implication – Romney hides some of his many millions.
Individual Retirement Accounts
As a matter of fact, Romney does have individual retirement accounts there – but he’s not “hiding” anything. U.S. law permits earnings to accrue tax-free in such IRAs until the money is withdrawn during retirement.
Unlike the U.S., where the PATRIOT Act has destroyed financial and personal privacy, the Cayman Islands and those who do business there enjoy strict privacy guaranteed by law.
Ross did not mention this detail, except to portray it as a suspicious “shroud of secrecy.”
Dan Mitchell, of the Cato Institute, says: “Ross and Chuchmach are biased hacks. Because not only did they write a story about nothing, they also quoted two left-wingers, Jack Blum and Rebecca Wilson, and failed to give the other side…”
An ex-John Kerry staffer, Blum’s most famous inaccurate claim, which he later admitted he fabricated, was that tax havens resulted in $100 billion of annual lost revenue to the U.S.
Since our founding in 1997, the Sovereign Society has witnessed four U.S. Presidential elections. In each of those elections, hypocrites and leftists have erroneously attempted to use offshore financial activity to target their opponents – and sooner or later it always back-fires.
A Cheap Political Tactic
The attack on Romney is just the latest example.
It’s a cheap political tactic that fits nicely with an international campaign by the tax collectors of major welfare nations, led by the IRS, to discredit tax havens and level the false charge that their principal purpose is to aid tax evasion.
A lazy and ignorant “news” media swallows this unquestioningly, boosted by periodic press releases from the IRS that create the absurd impression that Americans who go offshore are somehow unpatriotic.
But what did ABC say about the following known events? These are just a few hypocrisies:
- 2004 presidential candidate Senator John Kerry denounced “Benedict Arnold” U.S. firms that re-incorporate in tax havens and targeted Bermuda by name. It turned out that Kerry’s multi-millionaire ketchup heiress wife, Teresa Heinz, made a tidy profit of at least $200,000 when one of these firms, Ingersoll-Rand, moved to Bermuda.
- Kerry also denounced Americans whom he alleged hid cash in the Cayman Islands. However, Kerry was a beneficiary of a family trust based there.
- In 2010, Kerry saved $500,000 in taxes by mooring his $7 million yacht in Rhode Island, a tax haven for such luxuries, rather than his neighboring home state of Massachusetts.
- Ex-senator John Edwards, Kerry’s 2004 vice-presidential running mate, also denounced offshore tax shelters. However, Edwards had been a consultant to a Cayman Islands hedge fund that paid him $480,000 as a senior adviser to just such a tax shelter.
- In 2004, Hillary Clinton, then a New York senator, said she wanted to close the “loopholes”‘ for “people who create a mailbox, or a drop, or send one person to sit on the beach in some island paradise and claim that it is their offshore headquarters.” However, Bill Clinton stood to make tens of millions of dollars in the Cayman-based Yucaipa fund, as part of a partnership with friend and fund-raiser, the California billionaire Ron Burkle.
Just like ABC’s attack on Romney, none of these arrangements were shown to be illegal. They merely serve to highlight the hypocrisy.
Asked for clarification, Romney’s press secretary Andrea Saul, said simply that the Presidential candidate pays the same U.S. taxes on those funds as he would if they were in a U.S. bank.
“These are not tax havens and it is false to say so,” she said. And she is correct.
Don’t be put off by the distortions about offshore financial activity by the IRS or the leftist media. It’s just a game of political football.
It’s Legal to do Business Offshore
The simple fact is this: Under U.S. law, it is legal for Americans to do business offshore.
It is legal for Americans to invest in foreign stock and bond markets and mutual funds, to own foreign real estate and businesses, to establish and fund offshore trusts, private foundations, to deposit assets in foreign banks and brokerage accounts, to purchase offshore annuities and life insurance and even to convert U.S.-based retirement funds to offshore jurisdictions.
The major U.S. legal obligation is to report your offshore activity to the U.S. government and pay any U.S. taxes due – but that should not prevent the activity.
These offshore safety nets are important not just for Mitt Romney and other wealthy Americans, people of modest means need trusted offshore financial mechanisms now more than ever.
That is the exactly what the Sovereign Society offers. Let us help you achieve better profits and stronger asset protection – offshore.
Faithfully yours,
Bob Bauman
JD, Chairman, Freedom Alliance
January 2012
P.S. As Mitt Romney prepares to release his tax return tomorrow, bowing to pressure from rival Newt Gingrich in the race for Republican presidential nomination, it is clear staying on top of the U.S. government’s ever-expanding international tax regulations and reporting requirements has never been more important. That’s why we’ve assembled a team of experts consisting of world-renowned asset protection attorneys, tax specialists and bankers. They will keep you up to date on the latest information so you can see how it affects your future plans, and, accordingly, take actions on the opportunities that are right for you. For access to our expert, proprietary research, click here.
Other Posts from the Author
- Leftist Lies Attacks Your Right to Privacy - February 22nd, 2012
- Don't Leave Your Estate Planning Until It's Too Late - February 22nd, 2012
- Panama: An Offshore Banking Playground Just a Short Flight Away - February 16th, 2012
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Shameful is there are no reports of the billions of unreported dollars being spent to re-elect Obama thru Media Propaganda.