Romney’s Funny Money – Politics – The Atlantic Wire
by Victor
Here’s a good roundup of the various Romney tax stories. The newest thread is the reporting on his massive IRA:
Romney’s retirement account holds between $20.7 million and $101.6 million, and it’s “highly unusual to accumulate such a considerable sum in an IRA,” The Wall Street Journal’s Mark Maremont reports. IRAs with more than $100 million are “rare,” the Journal says, and while the size has enabled Romney to avoid paying a lot of taxes on his wealth now, he might have to pay big fees later, when he’s required by law to start withdrawing from the account six months after his 70th birthday. Romney got between $1.5 million and $8.5 million in income from his IRA between January 2010 and August 12, 2011.
His IRA probably got so fat through its investments in Bain Capital, the Journal reports, pointing out that it’s possible Romney avoided paying a large tax when his IRA invested in the private-equity fund by using offshore accounts. “Tax experts say that might explain why Mr. Romney’s IRA includes holdings in Bain entities based in offshore locations, including one Cayman Islands entity that Mr. Romney listed as having a value between $5 million and $25 million,” Maremont writes.