Most of what you've read online about IRS problems is wrong, or at least misleading. I'm Darrin Mish. I practice tax law in Tampa and I've been doing this for 32 years. Here's what's actually true.
Republican Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney could find himself in a whole lot of trouble if he fully makes public his tax returns over the years. Mr. Romney has already admitted to having a Swiss bank account and while it is perfectly legal to maintain an offshore account, it is a requirement that those having such accounts submit a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) annually. The GOP’s potential presidential candidate has released some of his tax returns but some crucial documents remain unrevealed, among which is the FBAR.
If Mr. Romney should release all of his tax returns over the years it may confirm whether or not he participated in the Voluntary Disclosure Program the IRS ran in 2009 that offered amnesty to those who stepped forward to declare their hidden offshore financial accounts holding taxable assets. The amnesty program came about after an informant gave information to the IRS that led to the Swiss Bank UBS being fined $780 million for abetting wealthy American clients in hiding taxable income in UBS bank accounts.
Besides this, there are two other matters that might prove to be Romney’s thorn-in-the-flesh. Firstly, it is the issue of Romney also having allegedly evaded paying taxes in years before or after 2009. And secondly, it is the issue of his involvement in a venture capital firm called Bain Capital. Romney was the CEO of Bain Capital, a company that was known to adopt certain anti-worker and anti-American policies. Essentially, one of the operations of Bain entailed buying companies and exporting their jobs to China and other countries where labor is cheaper.
While what Bain did was not illegal, the point of concern is that Romney declared that in “February 1999 I left Bain Capital and all management responsibility,” adding that, “I had no ongoing activity or involvement,” which means that he was a passive investor in the firm. But records show that he still owned 100% from that 1999 until 2002 and Bain Capital’s own annual report, and the company’s SEC filings list him as CEO, President and managing director as well as sole owner in 2000 and 2001. This means Romney was an active, not passive investor of Bain Capital.
All these can be determined if Romney releases his tax returns and FBAR. The question is, does Mr. Romney have any other non-interest-bearing accounts of the type millionaires use to legally dodge paying taxes? The man-in-the-street would like to see Romney clear the air over these matters.