Romney "Rented" Mormon Church’s Exemption to Defer Taxes for 15 Years

Mitt Romney may profess to be a devout Mormon, but once again information has come out that suggests that money is his real god.  It also suggests that he must view most tax paying Americans as dolts to be played as suckers.  They pay their taxes while he makes millions yet pays a lower tax rate than most in the middle class.  Worse yet, Romney apparently entered into some sweet deals with the Mormon Church to help screw over Uncle Sam.  It's unbelievable and further proof that Romney sees himself as above the rules that most of us live by.  I seriously do not like the man.  Raw Story has details on Romney's deal with the Mormon Church to avoid paying taxes.  Here are excepts:

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney used a loophole to “rent” the Mormon church’s tax exemption status and defer paying taxes for 15 years, according to a new report. 

Tax returns obtained by Bloomberg News through a Freedom of Information Act request indicated that Romney set up a charitable remainder unitrust (CRUT) in June 1996 just before Congress cracked down on the loophole in 1997.

“In this instance, Romney used the tax-exempt status of a charity — the Mormon Church, according to a 2007 filing — to defer taxes for more than 15 years,” Bloomberg’s Jesse Drucker explained. “At the same time he is benefitting, the trust will probably leave the church with less than what current law requires.”

Estates lawyer Jonathan Blattmachr told Bloomberg that Romney’s trust benefits from the Mormon church’s exempt status because charities don’t pay capital gains taxes when they make a profit from the sale of assets.

“The main benefit from a charitable remainder trust is the renting from your favorite charity of its exemption from taxation,” Blattmachr said, adding that the charitable contribution “is just a throwaway” and the church would receive little if any financial benefit from the trust.  “I used to structure them so the value dedicated to charity was as close to zero as possible without being zero,” he pointed out.

The CRUT allows individuals to “defer capital gains taxes on any profit from the sale of the assets, and receive a small upfront charitable deduction and a stream of yearly cash payments,” Drucker wrote. “Like an individual retirement account, the trust allows money to grow tax deferred, while like an annuity it also pays Romney a steady income. After the funder’s death, the trust’s remaining assets go to a designated charity.”

The trust represents a small fraction of Romney’s more than $250 million fortune and is only one of several methods the formal Bain Capital CEO has employed to avoid paying taxes.

Earlier this year, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who is also a Mormon, had suggested that the Republican presidential nominee refused to release his tax returns because he had not paid any income taxes over a 10-year period.

“We know that Mitt Romney pays a lower tax rate than middle-class families, thanks to a number of things he’s done: Swiss bank accounts, Cayman Islands tax shelters. And we can only imagine what new secrets would be revealed if he showed the American people a dozen years of tax returns like his dad did.”

Reid noted that most of “those people” who Romney talked about “are not avoiding their tax bills using Cayman Islands tax shelters or Swiss Bank accounts like Mitt Romney. Millions of the 47 percent are seniors on Social Security, who don’t have Bain Capital retirement funds or inherited stock to fall back on.”