A golfer gets to send troops to Afghanistan, really?
> Pay taxes? Swiss bank account!
>
> --bks
>
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/314851/reid-s-glass-house-betsy-woodruff
Reid’s Glass House
Democratic senators have offshore accounts.
Some of the “preposterously wealthy” Americans who do use such “schemes”
include Senators Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.), Richard Blumenthal (D.,
Conn.), Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.), and John Kerry (D., Mass.). That
should be music to Reid’s ears, since his transparency crusade might be
a little easier to pull off within his own party.
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He could start with Feinstein. OpenSecrets.org lists her as the
seventh-wealthiest senator, with a net worth between $44 million and $94
million, according to her latest disclosure forms. And, just like
Romney, she keeps a portion of it in offshore accounts. Her most recent
reports say she has an unspecified amount (at least $1 million) “held
independently by the spouse or independent child” in Coral Growth
Investments, Ltd., in St. Peter Port, Guernsey. Guernsey, a tax haven,
is a small island in the English Channel that early this year drew the
ire of a British Labour-party leader for helping wealthy Brits dodge
taxes. The California senator also has between $500,000 and $1 million
in a fund called Cevian Capital II L.L.C. in Jersey, another of the
Channel Islands. According to her latest forms, that holding generated
between $15,000 and $50,000 in capital gains, interest, and dividends.
Feinstein has another $1,000 to $15,000 in Mauritius, an island nation
in the Indian Ocean off Madagascar that is an up-and-coming tax haven.
Like Feinstein, Richard Blumenthal is on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Also like Feinstein, he has sheltered funds from taxes in the past —
$15,000 to $50,000 in a hedge fund held by his wife in the Cayman
Islands, to be exact. That might not sound like a huge number, but his
most recent disclosure forms say he made $50,000 to $100,000 from the
fund in capital gains, dividends, and interest. A Blumenthal staffer
said the fund was sold at the end of April 2011, an action taken after
the time frame covered by his most recent available disclosure forms.
Lautenberg appears to be in a similar situation. The New Jerseyan is the
fifth-wealthiest senator, with a net worth that, in 2006, was six times
the Senate’s average. His most recent forms show that his wife’s family
has between $500,000 and $1 million in Port Louis, Mauritius. The money
is in a real-estate private-equity fund that does its actual investing
in India, and the earnings it generates are subject to taxes, as one of
his representatives told National Review Online.
“The Senator’s wife’s family trust invested in a real estate fund that
is fully transparent with a website and a reputable board of directors,
and income on the investment is taxable,” said the senator’s
communications director, Caley Gray. Which makes them just like Mitt
Romney’s offshore investments. All Americans, including Romney and
Lautenberg, pay applicable taxes on investments they report to the IRS,
but often they deliberately set up these investments in places like
Mauritius because these countries’ laws can help reduce their tax burdens.
Then there’s John Kerry, the richest person in the Senate. He is
considered wealthy because of the fortune of his wife, ketchup heiress
Teresa Heinz Kerry, whose wealth came largely from her previous husband,
Henry John Heinz III. The senator’s 2010 disclosure forms (the latest
available online) show that she had at least $2 million in a fund in
Guernsey at filing time. Kerry’s communications director said that
according to his 2011 returns, which aren’t online yet, the fund is no
longer one of her assets.