Archive for January 21st, 2012
Should we Put My Money in Caribbean Tax Havens Like Mitt Romney?
What’s so special about a Cayman Islands? What’s a taxation haven? Can we have one, please? The answers to these questions and more.
Reuters
Mitt Romney has millions of dollars widespread around during slightest a dozen investment supports run by Bain Capital out of a Cayman Islands, a scandalous taxation haven, as ABC News reported on Wednesday. This raises some wily questions, including yet not singular to: Isn’t this extremely suspicious? How does a taxation breakwater work? And, should we get one? The brief answers are, respectively: No, it’s difficult yet we’ll explain, and substantially not.
Is Mitt Romney stealing his income illegally?
No. Moving your income to an problematic tax-haven sounds suspicious, yet as distant as anybody knows, Romney’s investments are above board. If he was perplexing to censor his money, he’d be doing a flattering terrible job, deliberation all this information was detected by open documents.
Before get into since some of Romney’s income is on vacay in a Caribbean, we should speak about who indeed controls his investments. Technically, Romney isn’t ostensible to have a contend in where his happening goes. To equivocate intensity conflicts of seductiveness when he became administrator of Massachusetts, Romney put his resources in a “blind trust,” that he presumably has no palm in managing.
Romney doesn’t control his possess money? So, who does?
The trust is run by Romney’s longtime lawyer, Bradford Malt. Back in 2007, when a emanate of Romney’s offshore investments initial came to light, Malt told the Los Angeles Times that he had invested in a series of unfamiliar funds, including one located in a Caymans. As he put it:
“I don’t caring either it’s a Cayman’s or Mars, if it’s orderly in a Netherlands Antilles or a Jersey Islands,” he said. “That means zero to me. All we caring about is either it’s a good account or a bad fund. It doesn’t impact his taxes.”
Wait, if he’s Romney’s lawyer, how “blind” is this trust, really?
Good question! After all, Malt even invested $1 million of Romney’s income in a account run by a candidate’s possess son, Tagg. As ABC has reported, Romney’s blind trust substantially wouldn’t be adult to tinge for a sovereign inaugurated official. His debate has concurred so much. But given it was orderly in Massachusetts, he got to accommodate a reduce bar. To a best of anyone’s knowledge, though, Romney isn’t job a shots on his investment portfolio.
Oh lord, no it isn’t. If we unequivocally wish to know how a taxation breakwater works for an American, stay with me for a few paragraphs.
Some of a biggest investors in a United States are tax-exempt organizations, like college endowments and open grant funds. But when it comes to putting their income with private equity, they have a problem. That’s since tax-exempt organizations aren’t authorised to use borrowed income to make financial investments, or run a for-profit business on a side. Otherwise, they’re theme to a special “unrelated business income tax,” that maxes out during 35%.
More From The Atlantic
New manners set for general income transfers
NEW YORK (AP) — Customers who send international income transfers will shortly be entitled to clearer cost disclosures.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Friday released new manners ruling remittances, that are mostly used by immigrants to send income to family behind home.
The manners also need companies to divulge any fees, a sell rate and a volume that will eventually be paid out to a target in internal currency. Companies will also be compulsory to examine disputes and to give business during slightest 30 mins to cancel a transaction.
The manners take outcome after one year.
The CFPB, that was combined as partial of a nation’s renovate of financial regulations, was compulsory by law to emanate a manners on remittances by Jan. 21. International income transfers formerly had not been theme to sovereign consumer regulations.
Frustrations with a attention embody complaints about dark costs, blank supports or supports that never arrive during all, according to Ruth Susswein, a mouthpiece for Consumer Action, an advocacy group. She pronounced business can also face problem removing companies to solve such problems.
The CFPB remarkable that consumers send tens of billions of dollars from a U.S. to unfamiliar countries any year. Richard Cordray, who was allocated as a agency’s initial executive this month, remarkable that a new manners will assistance consumers review prices and reason companies accountable for any errors.
“People promulgation income to their desired ones in another nation should not have to worry about hidden fees,” Cordray said.
A Western Union Co. spokesman, Tom Fitzgerald, pronounced a association skeleton to be agreeable with a manners by a effective date. He pronounced a association already provides business with disclosures on fees, sell rates and payouts.
“We determine that consumers will advantage if all remittance providers are hold to a same requirements,” he said.
MoneyGram International Inc. also pronounced in a matter that it gives business information about fees and rates and responds to complaints in a timely manner. The association pronounced it is reviewing a manners to see if any adjustments will be needed.
Making income from your aged mobile
20 Jan 2012
Last updated during 19:01 ET
Money Box contributor Mike Wendling approached several companies to sell his aged mobile phone
Millions of aged mobile phones languish in cupboards and drawers opposite a UK, and there are dozens of websites that will offer we income for aged handsets – though are we removing a good deal? Radio 4′s Money Box contributor Mike Wendling investigates.
In gift income for a used, mostly invalid phone, mobile phone ‘recycling’ companies – they customarily sell-on rather than recycle your handset – seem to yield a near-magical service.
The routine seems simple. Customers enter a make and indication of their phone, a condition, and some personal sum into a website.
A quote appears and a association sends out a freepost envelope.
Pop a phone in a envelope, send it behind to a association and within a few days a income arrives around coupon or in your bank account.
At least, that is how it is ostensible to work.
But if business are not crafty they can finish adult with a bad understanding – or zero during all.
Continue reading a categorical story
“Start Quote
We would always advise people not to use a recycling company’s freepost address, though to send a phone special delivery”
End Quote
Keir McConomy
SellMyMobile.com
To exam a marketplace we searched online and found what seemed to be a good offer: £65 for my aged phone – a handset we had bought 3 years ago.
I posted it and waited for a bank transfer.
But after Cash4Phones examined my used phone, we perceived an email informing me that “excessive wear and tear” meant a association could usually give me £39.33.
I had 5 days to accept.
After we complained – a phone is probably giveaway of scratches and a shade is total – a association upped a offer to a strange price.
Best deal
On one renouned phone recycling forum, we found tighten to a hundred identical complaints about Cash4Phones gift reduction than a strange quote since of “wear and tear” – distant some-more than scarcely any other company.
Most of a complaints seemed to be resolved on a forum after Cash4Phones increasing a offer, and a association says online forums are lopsided towards people who are dissatisfied.
It says it has many some-more business who are ideally happy with their use and who do not complain.
But anticipating that a recycling association offers reduction than a strange quote once it receives a phone is common.
Brian Taylor of Techwatch.co.uk says a poignant suit of phones gift to recycling companies get reduce offers when a association cites some kind of damage.
One investigate finished by a recycling association dual years ago found that about 20% of phones were noted down in this way, Mr Taylor says.
To find out if we could get a improved understanding for my phone, we had it posted behind from Cash4Phones – profitable a £4.95 shipping cost – and we touted it around several guaranty shops and second palm phone dealers in west London.
The many common offer was £50 – several businesses gift me income with usually a cursory investigation of a phone.
But a best understanding came from CeX, a organisation with both High Street shops and a website – webuy.com.
Their price? £61, and another £25 if we could find a charger.
Millions of neglected mobiles
Online auctions competence be a approach to get even some-more money.
Judging by new sales on eBay, we competence net some-more by offered my phone this approach – nonetheless eBay’s inventory fees would eat into a profits.
Continue reading a categorical story
Find out more
Hear a full news on Money Box on Radio 4 on Saturday, 21 Jan during 12:00 GMT or listen again by downloading a Money Box podcast
- Listen to Money Box around a Radio 4 website
- Download a Money Box podcast
- Contact a Money Box team
With increasingly crafty smartphones propelling some-more and some-more mobile users to ascent their still-functioning phones for a some-more present model, a phone recycling attention has been booming.
Keir McConomy, handling executive of mobile phone recycling site SellMyMobile.com, estimates there are about 70 million new mobiles stealing in cupboards and drawers in a UK.
The normal value of a phone traded in by SellMyMobile final month was £89.
“It is critical for business to make certain they understanding with a devoted company, since they’re promulgation a profitable square of equipment,” he told Radio 4′s Money Box.
“It can be a problem since people might only see a website gift them a price.
“If they are not regulating a comparison site or doing their possess research, it’s not always transparent that are a good peculiarity companies.”
The vagaries of a postal complement can supplement a serve risk.
“We would always advise people not to use a recycling company’s freepost address, though to send their phone special smoothness – that approach they have explanation that it’s delivered, and it’s insured and tracked.”
Scam companies
As a unscientific exam found, prices and offers can vary, though phone sellers have also been stung by undisguised scams.
Money Box spoke to business of dual associated sites, Fonecraze and Skyphones, that apparently stopped trade final year.
Several business did not get their phones behind – nor did they get any income in return.
The companies were before formed in Eltham in south easterly London.
Greenwich Council Trading Standards officers pronounced they had been questioning a websites though before any movement could be taken, a companies left from offices on a trade estate.
Attempts by Money Box to hit a association directors were also unsuccessful.
For a altruistic, there is a choice of donating aged phones to charity.
Some charities can indeed put a phones to use, while many will generally go by identical channels as consumers to sell a handsets for cash.
Whichever choice we choose, attention experts advise sellers of mobile phones to take a same precautions as online buyers – review online reviews, demeanour for personal recommendations and take a time to emporium around for a best price.
Money Box is on BBC Radio 4 on Saturday, 21 Jan during 12:00 GMT and steady on Sunday, 22 Jan during 21:00 GMT. Listen around a Radio 4 website or download a Money Box podcast.
Recent Posts
- A Beginners Guide To Managing Your Money
- Money-fund reforms won’t stop a subsequent financial crisis
- 4 Money-Etiquette Questions Answered
- Critical Stock Alerts: MGM Resorts International, Kraft Foods, Threshold Pharmaceuticals, Netflix, and Cabot Oil & Gas
- Energy XXI Announces Exchange of 5.625% Preferred Stock