Ooups. What do I care about what I said yesterday?

Romney Flips On His Own Tax Plan, Admits He’d Give Huge Tax Break To Top 1 Percent

Romney Was Audit Chairman At Company That Abused Tax Shelters

falo posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Feb 22, 2012 at 8:35 pm

2012 GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has already run into some trouble on the topic of tax havens. The company that he ran — Bain Capital — not only abused tax havens while he was at the helm, but Romney also saw his lucrative Bain retirement package boosted by the company’s use of offshore tax sheltering. Romney also had a Swiss bank account until 2010, which his money manager only closed because such an account would look bad politically.

Adding another twist to the tale today, Bloomberg News reported that, while Romney was the head of its audit committee in the 90s, the hotel chain Marriott abused tax shelters, prompting multiple run-ins with the IRS:

During Romney’s tenure as a Marriott director, the company repeatedly utilized complex tax-avoidance maneuvers, prompting at least two tangles with the Internal Revenue Service, records show. In 1994, while he headed the audit committee, Marriott used a tax shelter known to attorneys by its nickname: “Son of BOSS.”

A federal appeals court invalidated the maneuver in a 2009 ruling, siding with the U.S. Department of Justice, which called Marriott’s transaction and attempted tax benefits “fictitious,” “artificial,” “spectral,” an “illusion” and a “scheme.”

Romney Says He’ll Make The Top 1 Percent Pay More While Proposing Plan Giving Them A Massive New Tax Break