ABC: Romney keeps millions in Cayman Islands

Posted By Joshua Keating Wednesday, January 18, 2012 - 5:26 PM Share

If proven true, this seems pretty damaging:

As one of the wealthiest candidates to run for president in recent times, Romney has used a variety of techniques to help minimize the taxes on his estimated $250 million fortune. In addition to paying the lower tax rate on his investment income, Romney has as much as $8 million invested in at least 12 funds listed on a Cayman Islands registry. Another investment, which Romney reports as being worth between $5 million and $25 million, shows up on securities records as having been domiciled in the Caymans.

Official documents reviewed by ABC News show that Bain Capital, the private equity partnership Romney once ran, has set up some 138 secretive offshore funds in the Caymans.

Campaign officials tell ABC that Romney's accounts are still subject to U.S. taxes and the purpose of locating the funds in the islands is to attract foreign investors, but experts say theCayman address provides advantages "such as higher management fees and greater foreign interest, all at the expense of the U.S. Treasury."

In any case, these probably aren't legal distinctions the Romney campaign wants to spend the next few days explaining to voters.

Update: It appears this was previously reported by the L.A. Times back in 2007.

EXPLORE:2012 ELECTION POSTER 2, ELECTION 2012, MITT ROMNEY

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SHACKELFORD

4:18 PM ET

January 19, 2012

Idiotic spin

This story is rather idiotic. How can holding funds in an offshore bank be "at the expense of the U.S. Treasury" when the source of this story are forms filed with... the U.S. Treasury?!

Come on, if he were trying to hide funds from the IRS, he wouldn't be telling the IRS about their existence. This story is not just spin, but it is blindingly idiotic. Seriously, do you even think about stories when they're damaging to Republicans, or do you do this maliciously?

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