{"id":13782,"date":"2012-01-23T13:58:52","date_gmt":"2012-01-23T13:58:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=13782"},"modified":"2012-01-23T13:58:52","modified_gmt":"2012-01-23T13:58:52","slug":"romneys-in-deep-trouble-in-cayman-and-hes-not-alone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2012\/01\/23\/romneys-in-deep-trouble-in-cayman-and-hes-not-alone\/","title":{"rendered":"Romney’s in deep trouble in Cayman – and he’s not alone"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is from Left Foot Forward<\/a>, with permission:<\/em><\/p>\n

Mitt Romney\u2019s week from Hell is about to get worse. On Saturday he was\u00a0trounced<\/a>\u00a0by Newt Gingrich in the South Carolina Primary; tomorrow he will\u00a0reveal<\/a>\u00a0his tax returns for 2010, a move he has been forced into; and now Westminster MPs are calling for his Cayman Islands tax haven to be closed.<\/p>\n

As Left Foot Forward\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0last week:<\/p>\n

Frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination Mitt Romney has been under fire over in the United States for not being entirely open about his tax arrangements \u2014 and it is clear why.<\/p>\n

The former Massachusetts Governor stashes an awful lot of his wealth and income away from the yes of the American Treasury and in the Cayman Islands<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 international tax haven and overseas British territory, or in old-fashioned language, a colony of the British Empire.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The House of Commons Early Day Motion (pdf<\/a>) on \u201cTax Havens, transparency and the top 1%\u201d states:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis House notes the OECD and G20\u2019s identification of the role of tax havens by wealthy corporations in fuelling the global economic crisis from 2009 onwards;\u00a0is alarmed by reports that US former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is also using the Cayman Islands, a British territory, to avoid paying the same tax rate as other US citizens;<\/strong>\u00a0is concerned about the continued use of tax havens by the top 1% in the US and UK to avoid paying the correct tax in their own country, particularly at a time when living standards are being squeezed and services lost for ordinary working people in many Western economies; and calls on the UK government to introduce urgent legislation to help close tax havens and increase transparency so that the very richest pay their fair share of tax in their respective countries and enable governments worldwide to invest more in jobs and growth.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Early Day Motion has been proposed by former treasury select committee member John Cryer, Labour MP for Leyton and Wanstead.<\/p>\n

He told Left Foot Forward:<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a former member of the Treasury select committee,\u00a0I think it is a disgrace that the Cayman Islands, a tax haven, can enable wealthy corporations and individuals such as Mitt Romney and others in the wealthiest 1% to avoid tax and still be cloaked in secrecy.<\/strong>\u00a0Meanwhile all across the western world, hard-working people are seeing their living standards and take-home pay stagnate or reduced.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt reminds me of President Kennedy\u2019s comment in his inaugural speech, \u2018pay any price, bear any burden\u2019. Except it\u2019s hard-working, modestly paid majority who are bearing that burden.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With the Primary race set to drag on long\u00a0into the Spring, this renewed scrutiny of his tax affairs is the last thing Romney needs; with Romney\u2019s team even\u00a0denying the Cayman Islands are a tax haven<\/a>\u00a0and more\u00a0scrutiny of how the murky offshore world works<\/a>,\u00a0tax could become a recurring problem for Team Romney.<\/strong><\/p>\n

-------<\/p>\n

I sincerely hope so.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is the testimony to what tax campaigners have achieved.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is from Left Foot Forward, with permission: Mitt Romney\u2019s week from Hell is about to get worse. On Saturday he was\u00a0trounced\u00a0by Newt Gingrich in
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cayman","category-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13782\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}