2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumRmoney's offshore accounts and the strategy
It seems as if President Obama's team is making Rmoney's offshore accounts
and his failure to disclose more information a major issue. From my limited knowledge,
an American citizen has offshore accounts when one wishes to evade taxes.
It may be perfectly legal but to me, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Question: Do most other voters view this issue the same way ? To me, it's
not about "bashing the wealthy" but simply paying your fair share of federal
taxes.
ancianita
(36,184 posts)Voter prejudices and single issues might take a back seat to this issue. To me, as a voter, this is a BIG deal. I hope it becomes a bigger deal to the public into the election's home stretch.
Paraphrasing the next two paragraphs from Nicholas Shaxson... Tax avoidance is legal. Tax evasion is not. The fine line is hidden in the endlessly shifting ecosystem of the offshore world, where many businesses are almost unknown.
You've heard of the Big Four accounting firms KPMG, Deloitte, Ernst & Young and Pricewaterhouse Coopers. But have you heard of the Offshore Magic Circle that includes multi-jurisdictional law firms such as Appleby, Carey Olsen, Conyers, Maples and Calder, Mourant du Feu & Jeune, and Ozannes and Walkers. These are respectable players among a much larger regiment who form a private global instrastructure which, in league with captured legislatures in the secrecy jurisdictions, makes the whole system work.
The slippery line between evasion and avoidance is a vast grey area that takes lengthy court cases to clear up. Former British Chancellor Denis Healey defined the dividing line as "...the thickness of a prison wall." Secrecy jurisdictions routinely convert what is technically legal but abusive into what is seen as legitimate, and OECD member states -- Britain, the US and several European havens -- are the guardians of the global offshore system that processes vast tides of illicit money.
I've learned that no one percenter's money enters the offshore world without their knowledge. So Romney is lying. He's part of a system of a million suited grifters, as I call them -- all 'legal,' for now, just like slavery and apartheid were. Lawyers and their confidentiality are the cement of this structure of legalized theft. Tens to hundreds of trillions of dollars sit there, siphoning countries into economic sickness.
The more people learn about the offshore world, the more tainted they will see those associated with that world, and who yet want a those sovereign people to trust their loyalty and leadership. My two cents.
steve2470
(37,457 posts)rufus dog
(8,419 posts)This one hits at the heart of any Republican racists.
What Mitt is saying it "I am better than you."
You can get your ass up every morning and go to work, you can send your kid off to war, but I, and my money, are different from you, we are privileged.
This will bite him in the ass in November because Joe Six-Pack is going to hate his lilly white ass. Some will still not pull the lever for Obama, but many will stay the hell away from Mitt.
JHB
(37,163 posts)If he wants to keep it private, let him stay a private citizen. If he wants to be president, he needs to stop screwing around and come clean, like his own father did.