Refresher: Romney and Bain Capital – a Company ‘Harvester’

How about a refresher now that Romney has arisen like the “Ghost of Christmas past.”

How easy to forget what a swamp creature he was and is, and we should not be surprised that he couldn’t even wait to be sworn in to attack Trump. His baby – Bain Capital. The harvester which bought distressed companies, attempted to make improvements, but not to worry. If they failed they simply sold their assets, went bankrupt with employees losing their pensions in some cases then on to the next – wash, rinse and repeat. He no doubt was successful. There is no doubt had a couple of super hits – Staples being one.

People are still puzzled how he became so rich so fast. Especially his IRA.

Mitt Romney’s unprecedented refusal to release his tax returns* is the one about how he got so rich–and how, more specifically, he managed to accumulate $20-$102 million in his IRA.

On the IRA question, donations to individual retirement accounts, which are shielded from taxes until withdrawals begin, are limited to $4,000 per year (and used to be $2,000).

So, barring a miraculous rate of return from as-yet-unspecified “investments,” it’s hard to see how Romney’s IRA could have grown so large.

But since Romney’s IRA investments are disguised via a byzantine series of offshore entities designed at least in part to minimize US taxes, it is impossible to do this analysis without having access to his returns. More at Business Insider