Romney's roll in abusive Son of Boss tax shelter ignored

[Riot]

Note: Marriott is a member of Mormon Church

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/08/opinio...xes/index.html

Did Romney enable a company's abusive tax shelter?

By Peter C. Canellos and Edward D. Kleinbard, Special to CNN
updated 6:24 PM EDT, Thu August 9, 2012

...

A key troubling public manifestation of Romney's apparent insensitivity to tax obligations is his role in Marriott International's abusive tax shelter activity, as previously reported by Jesse Drucker in Bloomberg.

Romney has had a close, long-standing, personal and business connection with Marriott International and its founders. He served as a member of the Marriott board of directors for many years. From 1993 to 1998, Romney was the head of the audit committee of the Marriott board.

During that period, Marriott engaged in a series of complex and high-profile maneuvers, including "Son of Boss," a notoriously abusive prepackaged tax shelter that investment banks and accounting firms marketed to corporations such as Marriott. In this respect, Marriott was in the vanguard of a then-emerging corporate tax shelter bubble that substantially undermined the entire corporate tax system.

Son of Boss and its related shelters represented perhaps the largest tax avoidance scheme in history, costing the U.S. many billions in lost corporate tax revenues. In response, the government initiated legal challenges that resulted in complete disallowance of the losses claimed by Marriott and other corporations.

In addition, the Son of Boss transaction was listed by the Internal Revenue Service as an abusive transaction, requiring specific disclosure and subject to heavy penalties. Statutory penalties were also made more stringent to deter future tax shelter activity. Finally, the government brought successful criminal prosecutions against a number of individuals involved in Son of Boss and related transactions not associated with Marriott, including principals at major law and accounting firms.

In his key role as chairman of the Marriott board's audit committee, Romney approved the firm's reporting of fictional tax losses exceeding $70 million generated by its Son of Boss transaction. His endorsement of this stratagem provides insight into Romney's professional ethics and attitude toward tax compliance obligations.

Like other prepackaged corporate tax shelters of that era, Marriott's Son of Boss transaction was an entirely artificial transaction, bearing no relationship to its business. Its sole purpose was to create a gigantic tax loss out of thin air without any economic risk, cost or loss -- other than the fee Marriott paid the promoter.

[Clip-Clop]

Well certainly he will go to prison as a result of his running for President. With all of the obvious crimes he has committed as a private citizen you would have thought he would know better. Everything was bound to be exposed, too bad now we won't even get any work out of him for our tax dollars as he rots away in jail.
Damn shame.

[jms62]

Originally Posted by Clip-Clop

Well certainly he will go to prison as a result of his running for President. With all of the obvious crimes he has committed as a private citizen you would have thought he would know better. Everything was bound to be exposed, too bad now we won't even get any work out of him for our tax dollars as he rots away in jail.
Damn shame.

Now This!!! http://www.theonion.com/articles/rom...ampaign,29114/

This guy gotta go down .

[Clip-Clop]

Originally Posted by jms62

Now This!!! http://www.theonion.com/articles/rom...ampaign,29114/

This guy gotta go down .

Saw that last night, couldn't stop laughing at pseudo-Axelrod.

[jms62]

Originally Posted by Clip-Clop

Saw that last night, couldn't stop laughing at pseudo-Axelrod.

I figure if Romney goes to Jail, Obama gets deported my candidate Ron Paul will win in a rout.

[Clip-Clop]

New ad quote.
"Mitt Romney, the business man. Take a look at his record. Romney bought companies. Drowned them in debt. Many went bankrupt. Thousands of workers lost jobs, benefits and pensions. But for every company he drove into the ground, Romney averaged a 92 million dollar profit. Now he says his business experience would make him a good president? If Romney wins, the middle class loses."

$92 million per company, he is a lot wealthier than they are giving him credit for. Must be top ten in the world with those kinds of returns.

[Clip-Clop]

Originally Posted by jms62

I figure if Romney goes to Jail, Obama gets deported my candidate Ron Paul will win in a rout.

I will take up praying to help this outcome become reality.

[pointman]

The first useless Riot attack Romney thread of the day. At this point Riot seems to be stalking the poor man. Please let us know when he has diarrhea.

By the way, did Romney get coffee with that roll?

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by jms62

Now This!!! http://www.theonion.com/articles/rom...ampaign,29114/

This guy gotta go down .

lol oh geez.

betcha five bucks riot does NOT post the story i saw today about the couple who bought a home from romney years ago. it's not the right kind of story you see.

[Clip-Clop]

Originally Posted by Danzig

lol oh geez.

betcha five bucks riot does NOT post the story i saw today about the couple who bought a home from romney years ago. it's not the right kind of story you see.

He didn't go back and close the fireplace flue and let them all die of CO poisoning in their sleep?

[bigrun]

Originally Posted by jms62

Now This!!! http://www.theonion.com/articles/rom...ampaign,29114/

This guy gotta go down .

ROR...theonion is the best..

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Clip-Clop

He didn't go back and close the fireplace flue and let them all die of CO poisoning in their sleep?

!!!!!

no.
i'll go find it and post it.

[Danzig]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/10/us...ples-gain.html


Yet for the Stampses, who have been writing $600 monthly checks to “Willard M. Romney” for 15 years, the money they borrowed from him to buy their home in 1997 was life-changing.

The mortgage is the last vestige of a troubled, and previously unreported, investment by Mr. Romney in Texas real estate in 1982, before he struck it rich as the wunderkind of Bain Capital. And while the Stampses’ happy ending is a counterpoint to the image, seized upon by political opponents, of Mr. Romney as a cold, calculating financier, the episode also offers an early illustration of his appetite for deals promising low risk and high return.

Lured by the prospect of buying five rent-to-own houses in the Houston suburbs without putting up any of his own money, Mr. Romney jumped into a speculative deal geared toward “affluent free enterprise capitalists who desire a quality investment with tax shelter benefits,” according to a prospectus. Based on frothy assumptions of a never-ending real estate boom, it was unlike the data-driven, analytical investments that came to define his later successes at Bain Capital.

The result was a rare Romney flop: The housing market soon collapsed, and he was stuck renting out the houses for years before unloading them, mostly at a loss, in the late 1990s, according to property records. The renters were offered the first chance to buy, but the Stampses could not qualify for a mortgage, recalled Mr. Stamps, who at the time had recently lost his job at an oil company.


and i wonder who they could be?:

Mr. Stamps said that he and his wife had received calls in recent months from strangers who “seemed to be looking for negative stuff” about Mr. Romney, but that the couple had nothing to say to them.


and further down:

When Mr. Stamps took the call from Mr. Romney, he and his wife, a nurse, had all but given up hope of being able to buy the house they had been renting for five years. Mr. Romney told him it looked like the couple had been taking good care of the property and that “we would be good people to buy it,” said Mr. Stamps. Mr. Stamps said he never heard from Mr. Romney again, and only became aware of who he was when he started running for president four years ago.

“His name came up somewhere,” he said, “and my wife and I said to each other, ‘That’s the guy we bought our house from!’ ”

Mr. Jolly, 76, laughed when told that Mr. Romney was still collecting mortgage payments on one of the houses he talked him into buying 30 years ago.



but you know, i'm probably looking at it wrong, and the home owner is too. obviously romney doesn't need that mans money, and should just give him the house!!!

[jms62]

Originally Posted by Danzig

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/10/us...ples-gain.html


Yet for the Stampses, who have been writing $600 monthly checks to “Willard M. Romney” for 15 years, the money they borrowed from him to buy their home in 1997 was life-changing.

The mortgage is the last vestige of a troubled, and previously unreported, investment by Mr. Romney in Texas real estate in 1982, before he struck it rich as the wunderkind of Bain Capital. And while the Stampses’ happy ending is a counterpoint to the image, seized upon by political opponents, of Mr. Romney as a cold, calculating financier, the episode also offers an early illustration of his appetite for deals promising low risk and high return.

Lured by the prospect of buying five rent-to-own houses in the Houston suburbs without putting up any of his own money, Mr. Romney jumped into a speculative deal geared toward “affluent free enterprise capitalists who desire a quality investment with tax shelter benefits,” according to a prospectus. Based on frothy assumptions of a never-ending real estate boom, it was unlike the data-driven, analytical investments that came to define his later successes at Bain Capital.

The result was a rare Romney flop: The housing market soon collapsed, and he was stuck renting out the houses for years before unloading them, mostly at a loss, in the late 1990s, according to property records. The renters were offered the first chance to buy, but the Stampses could not qualify for a mortgage, recalled Mr. Stamps, who at the time had recently lost his job at an oil company.


and i wonder who they could be?:

Mr. Stamps said that he and his wife had received calls in recent months from strangers who “seemed to be looking for negative stuff” about Mr. Romney, but that the couple had nothing to say to them.


and further down:

When Mr. Stamps took the call from Mr. Romney, he and his wife, a nurse, had all but given up hope of being able to buy the house they had been renting for five years. Mr. Romney told him it looked like the couple had been taking good care of the property and that “we would be good people to buy it,” said Mr. Stamps. Mr. Stamps said he never heard from Mr. Romney again, and only became aware of who he was when he started running for president four years ago.

“His name came up somewhere,” he said, “and my wife and I said to each other, ‘That’s the guy we bought our house from!’ ”

Mr. Jolly, 76, laughed when told that Mr. Romney was still collecting mortgage payments on one of the houses he talked him into buying 30 years ago.



but you know, i'm probably looking at it wrong, and the home owner is too. obviously romney doesn't need that mans money, and should just give him the house!!!

This will be the focus

[pointman]

Originally Posted by jms62

This will be the focus

[Clip-Clop]

Originally Posted by jms62

This will be the focus

The usage of the word "unreported" will be taken as hiding from the IRS, not that a paper hadn't reported it.

The man should be in prison.

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Clip-Clop

The usage of the word "unreported" will be taken as hiding from the IRS, not that a paper hadn't reported it.

The man should be in prison.

obviously a danger to society. maybe a drone strike is in order. after all, the ag said those are a-ok.

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by bigrun

ROR...theonion is the best..

but...but...

does anyone remember where romney was that night???

[alysheba4]

Originally Posted by pointman

The first useless Riot attack Romney thread of the day. At this point Riot seems to be stalking the poor man. Please let us know when he has diarrhea.

By the way, did Romney get coffee with that roll?

.....its beyond tired, but.......good comedy.

[Thepaindispenser]

Riot is getting more desperate and pathetic by the day. Can't wait to see her Posts in October.

Riot when Romney wins and lowers your taxes, I assume you will pay extra to the government because you think they are so effective at helping the poor correct?