“Romney uses every trick in the book.  It’s going to be harder to do tax planning in the future. He’s bringing attention to things that weren’t getting attention.”
~Stephen Breitstone, expert on tax law and “wealth preservation”

The Romney campaign and Republican party want to eliminate the “estate tax” and the “gift tax” which are already exempt up to several million dollars thus only affecting the most wealthy American families; Romney effectively avoided these taxes through manipulation of the tax code.  Can you imagine how much Americans would see if we were able to see all of Romney’s tax returns?  This man has so many dead bodies hidden here; this really is a disqualifying issue from my perspective.  Romney is complaining about half of Americans not paying their taxes but this guy abuses the tax code like she was Tina Turner.

Let me spell this out for you.

• Bain under Romney offers $40 million to Doubleclick in return for 17.7% of the company
• Romney takes shares from Doubleclick and places it in a family trust
• Since Doubleclick had no value at the time – he would not have had to pay taxes as they were placed in the family trust
• Romney investment in Doubleclick was made with the intention to sell it as an IPO knowing it would be worth hundreds of millions or more on the stock market
• In less than 2 years from the announcement of the $40 million investment – Romney’s family trust sold its share making a 1,000 percent return on his investment in 2 years without having to pay gift or estate taxes.

The important thing for you to absorb and comprehend here is that these types of opportunities do not exist for you.  They don’t exist for nearly anyone unless you’re already in the super-rich club.  This manipulation of the tax code is to the benefit of the rich and only the rich.  Eliminating this one loophole would bring in nearly an additional $1 billion according to the Obama administration and nearly 3 million U.S. families are using trusts to to protect nearly $91 billion in family money thus minimizing or eliminating their tax responsibilities.

This is a must read article by Bloomberg HERE; seriously – read the whole thing:

In January 1999, a trust set up by Mitt Romney for his children and grandchildren reaped a 1,000 percent return on the sale of shares in Internet advertising firm DoubleClick Inc.

If Romney had given the cash directly, he could have owed a gift tax at a rate as high as 55 percent. He avoided gift and estate taxes by using a type of generation-skipping trust known to tax planners by the nickname: “I Dig It.”

[...]

Because those shares were already in the trust before the sale, no gift or estate tax would be owed on the trust’s receipt of that cash. And according to the tax law governing an “I Dig It” trust, Romney, not the trust, would be responsible for paying any capital gains tax triggered by the sale, potentially as high as $140,000. Gains in the trust for Romney’s heirs remain free of gift taxes and potential estate taxes.

Romney sold additional DoubleClick shares in at least two other transactions, securities filings show.

The NY Times has already called the schemes used by Romney for his family trust “potentially illegal” HERE.  Remember – Romney is calling for lower taxes on the rich but he doesn’t want to eliminate tax loopholes like what he and his family have abused here.  We want to see his tax returns.  Don’t take it from me that Romney isn’t paying all his taxes – you can see this HERE or HERE or HERE or HERE.

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