Posted on 01/26/2012 2:32:38 PM PST by Raebie
Mitt Romney's campaign is amending the financial disclosure form he filed in 2011 to acknowledge that a Romney trust earned interest income from a Swiss bank account, a detail that had been missing from the report.
"An amendment is being filed to address this minor discrepancy," a campaign official told ABC News in an email Thursday in response to questions about the apparent omission.
"The inescapable fact is that by releasing over 600 pages of information regarding his finances, Mitt Romney is clearly coming down on the side of disclosure," said Andrea Saul, a campaign spokeswoman, in a subsequent statement. "Any document with this level of complexity and detail is bound to have a few trivial inadvertent issues. We are in the process of putting together some minor technical amendments, which will not alter the overall picture of Gov. and Mrs. Romney's finances as disclosed in August."
The discovery that the Romneys had $3 million in an account with the Swiss bank UBS came only after the Republican presidential candidate released his tax returns for 2010 on Tuesday. The campaign had maintained that it was not necessary to disclose the Swiss account because Romney's money manager, Brad Malt, had shuttered it in early 2010.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
“Interest on 3 million isn’t a “trivial insignificant” oversight.”
It is if you knew how much interest Swiss banks pay. It is very pathetic. Probably only 1/10%, which might come to a whopping $3,000.
You overestimate Swiss interest rates.
Lots of people are thinking this way, especially after seeing this coordinate assault on Newt by establhisment, Mitt and certain media. They have gone way too far. If Newt isn't our nominee for sure we can say GOP blew it and bye bye Stupid Party.
If I make a $1700 error on my tax return, I go to jail or I get a huge fine.
If Romney makes the same mistake, well, it is insignificant, so they'll let it pass.
Is that how it works?
ABSOLUTELY NO VOTE FOR ROMNEY HERE EITHER, NOT NO BUT
HELL NO!!!!! The hell with the senate and house also the pubbies will
get what they deserve WE THE PEOPLE,will have to show the elites that
we will NOT have our candidates cramed down our throats again!!!! I can
Not believe how angry I am!!!!!
.0005 is a pretty poor return by anyone's account.
So why on earth would Romney put $3,000,000 in cash in a Swiss Account? If you can't get at least 3% interest on that kind of deposit, then it raises the question of whether or not your purpose in putting the money in there isn't sinister.
What was Romney's purpose in depositing the money there, instead of Wells Fargo or Capital One or Chase, where they would gladly give him short term interest in the 3% range? Is it because there is no reporting requirement for deposits and withdrawals over $10,000 in Switzerland?
And besides, he “forgot” to report the entire 3 million dollar overseas’ account, not just the interest.
Did he not pay taxes on the interest? I can understand that not disclosing it might be illegal, but if he paid interest on the income, I don't understand why it would be a big deal. Tell me more.
Really? Can you point to one of those?
Chase currently has a TEN YEAR CD that pays 2.25%, and everything shorter than that is less than .75%
I would LOVE to find a short-term CD that pays 3%. That's pretty sad, these days.
No, it was just the interest income that was missing on the disclosure. And... it’s probably not actually an overseas account. It’s just UBS.
That's not what the media is reporting.
"The discovery that the Romneys had $3 million in an account with the Swiss bank UBS came only after the Republican presidential candidate released his tax returns for 2010 on Tuesday. The campaign had maintained that it was not necessary to disclose the Swiss account"
Something isn’t right here. $1,700 in interest on 3 million is less that .1% (less than a tenth of a percent). They wouldn’t stay in business of this is all they made for their private banking customers.
Maybe he closed this account early in the year. Swiss banks are closing out their US client accounts because of the new US regulations, but I believe the closing of US accounts happened later in the year, not the beginning of last year.
Generally, having $3 million in a Swiss bank account and failing to disclose it is considered a sign that something nefarious would perhaps be going on. At the least, it would cause someone in the financial industry to be investigated by his or her employer and possibly the SEC. Most likely the person would get fired.
It is considered a serious ethical breach. At my last employer, a rumor was going around that ownership was looking for someone to fire for being late disclosing stock accounts, just to make an example of someone, because they knew the SEC likes to use things like that as an excuse to effectively shut a firm down. There is no way someone who allegedly worked all his life in the financial industry doesn’t know this and failed to disclose it inadvertently.
Actually, it is quite possible. Central banks have set interest rates at much less than 1% for a while now. Swiss Franc rates are very small, just like USD rates.
It's wrong if your financial services company doesn't disclose it, but is it legal if you don't disclose it yourself?
But I get your point that someone who's been in the financial services industry should know that.
The bigger question is why he had a Swiss bank account just to ostensibly get foreign currency exposure. You don’t have to open an account in Switzerland just to own Swiss Francs (I used to trade foreign exchange for a hedge fund). And there would be no reason to just leave it there earning essentially nothing. If you open a foreign account, more likely it would be for investing in foreign stocks or bonds.
He didn't forget about about $1,700 - he *forgot* about $3 million. Three. Million. Dollars. He probably needs to check his accounts in the Cayman Islands, the Isle of Man, Anjouan, Vanuatu, and Andorra. Out of sight, out of mind.
Generally, I have to report anything that is considered “reportable”under the relevant law. Basically, individual stocks and bonds. And yes, I am required by federal law to report it to my employer. If I had a $3 million reportable account and didn’t report it, I would be violating federal law.
But the definition of reportable is different in Mitt’s case. From what I understand, he had to report everything. He didn’t.
I think I stand corrected. The account was reported. I assume that means the $3 million was reported. But it’s Romney, so . . .
Yeah and if Newt hadn't forced the issue, I'm sure he would have voluntarily done this./s
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