As I listen to the rhetoric of the presidential and vice-presidential candidates about equal opportunity for women -- seeking equal opportunities for their daughters and granddaughters as for their sons and grandsons -- it occurs to me that they haven't asked that their sons and daughters have opportunities equal to the sons and grandchildren of Mitt Romney, who apparently share a trust fund currently worth over $100 million.* Even divided among 5 sons and 18 grandchildren, that's about $4 million per descendant, enough to throw off $90,000 per person per year without diminishing (and without them working -- or even having finished grade school). And that's before we start to talk about the $100 million IRA they are likely to inherit, which continues to appreciate free of taxes.
The Earth-for-All Calendar contains a number of items which speak to equality of opportunity for all in our current generation, and for all in future generations. When some of us start life with all the advantages, and others, because of the design of our society's systems, have few or no advantages, how do we continue to maintain the fiction that we believe we are all created equal, that our nation is founded on this proposition and its laws and customs said to conform to and support this proposition?
The advantages of our wealthiest didn't come out of thin air. They aren't "no-cost" to the rest of us, and they don't benefit the rest of us by any form of "trickle down." The trickle flows the other direction. To the extent that our society pretends that this comes out of thin air, we are permitting ourselves to be fooled -- treated as fools, taught by rich people's useful idiots.
And when some of us have the money to devote to promoting points of view that benefit ourselves, at the expense of the common good, to influence elections, where does democracy get us?
http://blogs.reuters.com/david-cay-johnston/tag/mitt-romney/
His plan would retain the gift tax, but it is already so porous that, as Reuters reported in January, the five Romney sons enjoy tax-free income from a $100 million trust fund on which no gift taxes were paid. Only about $2 million could have originally gone into the trust without triggering gift taxes
The couple created trusts as early as 1995, when Romney was building wealth as chief executive officer of Bain Capital LLC. They packed one for their children with investments that stood to appreciate and set up another for charity that provides a tax deduction and income. The candidate’s retirement account, valued at as much as $87.4 million, may benefit his heirs for decades.
“It’s beneficial for your kids and grandkids to push the money downstream,” said David Scott Sloan, chairman of the national private wealth services estate-planning practice at the law firm Holland & Knight LLP in Boston. “The Romneys appear to be doing things that are similar to what other high-net-worth families do.”
Wealthy couples use strategies allowed under the federal tax system such as moving assets to trusts so that the money may be subject to little or no gift and estate taxes, Sloan said. The Romney family trust is worth $100 million, according to the campaign. That money isn’t included in the couple’s personal fortune, which the campaign estimates at as much as $250 million.
....
The Romneys have transferred assets into the family trust and invested them, amassing a substantial and diversified portfolio of stocks, bonds and alternative investments such as private-equity and hedge funds that generate income. In 2010 alone, the trust realized more than $7 million in long-term capital gains, about $1.5 million in ordinary dividends and $741,407 in U.S. government interest, according to the trust’s tax return.
Comments