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Monday, November 5, 2012

Bain Capital Avoided $102 Million in Taxes Via Dutch Subsidiary UPDATED

A Dutch newspaper, de Volkskrant, reports today (translation here) that Bain Capital used a Dutch subsidiary to avoid $102 million on its taxes. This has been picked up by Taegan Goddard  and the Atlantic Wire. The Dutch author wrote a comment on Goddard’s site clarifying that Bain (not Romney) saved $102 million. From his 2010 and 2011 tax returns, Romney received $2.1 million in dividends and $5.5 million in capital gains. Of course, who knows what he received in previous years, since Romney hasn’t released more tax returns?

Since all the original analysis is in Dutch, which I can't speak, it's hard to say much further at this point, though Bain and the Romney campaign predictably refused to comment. However, the report does show the statement for Bain Capital Fund VIII for the first nine months of 2010 (part of the documents leaked to Gawker, I believe). One illuminating nugget on how private equity makes its money is that the fund reported $174,493,175 in income for the nine months, and a staggering management fee of $46,746,696! This makes it easy to see how private equity folks make so much money whether the underlying investment does well or not.

Of course, this is just one more piece of how the 1% hide their money from taxation. With Romney, it's gotten to the point where we are no longer surprised by this anymore.

Where is the mainstream media on this?

UPDATE: Here is a fuller translation from a Dutch speaker at Daily Kos.