It is about the New York Times.
According to Michael Graetz of the Times,
Until Mr. Romney recognizes the right of voters to understand the finances of their leaders, all we are left with is speculation.
But voters shouldn't be left to speculate on their own, so the New York Times has made sure to do if for them, and do so in a way that only describes the potential negative possibilities.
Putting business assets into an individual retirement account invested in a Cayman Islands corporation allows Mr. Romney to avoid the “unrelated business income tax” — a 35 percent levy — on at least some of his I.R.A.’s earnings, a tax that he would have had to pay if his I.R.A. were held directly by a financial institution in the United States.
With an I.R.A. account of $20 million to $101 million, the tax savings would be more than a few pennies.
The I.R.A. also allows Mr. Romney to diversify his large holdings tax-free, avoiding the 15 percent tax on capital gains that would otherwise apply. His financial disclosure further reveals that his I.R.A. freed him from paying currently the 35 percent income tax on hundreds of thousands of dollars of interest income each year.
As with any American, Romney has invested money using an IRA. An IRA has certain tax benefits, namely, deferment of taxes. Romney has not avoided taxes by having an IRA. He has deferred them. This actually seems to be a tactic that will see him paying more taxes. Most people put ordinary income in to their IRA. They do not pay taxes on that income until they take the money out, at which point it is taxed as ordinary income. Romney has put investment income (taxed at 15%) into an IRA, and when he takes it out, he will pay the ordinary income rate (generally considerably higher). So Romney is not "avoiding" taxes any more than every other American who uses an IRA. In fact it is possible (while we are speculating) that he is paying more.
Given the extraordinary size of his I.R.A., [b]we have to presume that Mr. Romney valued the assets he put in his retirement account at far less than he would have sold them for[/b]. Otherwise it is quite a trick to turn contributions that are limited to $30,000 to $50,000 a year into the $20 million to $101 million he now has there. But we cannot be certain; his meager disclosure of tax records and financial information does not indicate what kind of assets were put into the I.R.A.
One does not have to presume that. Perhaps the Times does to fit their narrative. Another, more plausible, explanation is that he put Bain Stock and other company stock in it when they first started (while they were valued at, effectively zero, as most startups are), and has kept them their through the explosive growth of said companies.
Either way, releasing a couple more years of tax returns will not answer that.
Moreover, we have no clue whether Mr. Romney paid any gift tax on transfers, now valued at $100 million, to a trust he set up in 1995 for the benefit of his five sons. Until this year, the federal gift tax had a lifetime exemption of $1 million, and it taxed gifts in excess of that amount at rates between 29 and 44 percent. A gift of $100 million to one’s children could, therefore, require paying a tax of as much as $29 million to $44 million.
Well, since he is legally required to, we can know with a decent amount of certainty that he has paid the gift taxes. If he hadn't, he would have broken the law and been convicted.
No one should begrudge Mr. Romney or his family the wealth they have earned
Which makes this statement earlier in the article nonsensical:
Rich people don’t send their money to Bermuda or the Cayman Islands for the weather.
-- http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/31/opinion/the-mysteries-of-mitt-romneys-financial-records.html?_r=1
What a pathetic display by the New York Times.
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