Hashtag: #WashingtonDC
Romney ‘Likely Used Tax Shelters’
A former US Treasury deputy international tax counsel said today [Jan.18] Republican Presidential front-runner Mitt Romney’s reluctance to disclose his US tax returns probably owes to the fact he sheltered income in Bermuda and other offshore financial centres. Daniel Berman, who is now director of tax at Boston University’s graduate tax programme,... Read more of this article
US Ruling On $20M Secret Payment
A US Appeals Court yesterday [Jan. 11] threw out a lower court ruling favouring a former Tyco director in the latest chapter of a decade-long legal dispute involving a secret $20 million payment authorised by the one-time Bermuda firm’s disgraced CEO. Former director Frank Walsh was sued by Tyco in connection with the firm’s June, 2001 $9.2... Read more of this article
Cato Institute: Bermuda A Non-Issue
A commentator for a conservative Washington think tank says it’s inevitable GOP presidential front-runner Mitt Romney will come under attack by the American media for using off-shore financial centres including Bermuda – though he predicted the press may hold fire until after he gets the Republican nomination. Mr. Romney [pictured] —... Read more of this article
Bermuda Potential US Campaign Issue
While his GOP rivals largely held fire on Mitt Romney’s use of Bermuda shell companies during campaigning for today’s [Jan.3] first-in-the-nation Republican Presidential caucuses in Iowa, they might not be so forbearing as the American primary season gathers momentum. Mr. Romney [pictured], a former Massachusetts Governor, legally used funds... Read more of this article
US Tax Expert Dismisses ABIR Claims
An expert on American tax law says arguments made by the Association of Bermuda Insurers & Reinsurers [ABIR] and other industry lobbyists objecting to proposals in Washington DC aimed at closing the “Bermuda loophole” in the US tax code ”appear to be spurious.” And tax law professor Linda Beale dismissed ABIR claims that... Read more of this article
Executive Questions Bermuda’s Future
While a recent report A.M. Best report gave a “cautiously optimistic” appraisal on the state of the Bermuda re/insurance market, there may be deeper concerns on the horizon for the island a leading industry executive has said. In an interview with the “Insurance Journal”, Chief Executive of Bermuda’s Torus International... Read more of this article
Abramoff Details Ties To Bermuda Firm
Disgraced Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff once bragged he was in contact with former White House political strategist Karl Rove on behalf of a large, Bermuda-based corporation which wanted to avoid incurring some US taxes and to continue receiving federal contracts According to a 2005 written statement by President George W. Bush’s one-time... Read more of this article
‘Strong Objections’ Raised To Bermuda Bill
The Coalition for Competitive Insurance Rates [CCIR]– the Washington lobby group backed by the island’s re/insurance industry — has strongly objected to legislation aimed at closing what’s been called “The Bermuda Loophole” in the US tax code. Massachusetts Congressman Richard Neal has described the loophole that... Read more of this article
Report: ‘Neal Bill Will Hurt US Consumers’
Calling the so-called “Bermuda Tax Loophole” in the US tax code “a sophisticated means of tax avoidance”, Massachusetts Congressman Richard Neal says his recently introduced legislation will add billions of dollars to Washington’s revenues. However, if the Neal Bill passes both the House of Representatives and the Senate,... Read more of this article
Bermuda Firm Proposed Solyndra Rescue Plan
President Barack Obama’s administration considered a plan proposed by Bermuda’s Lazard Ltd. to save Solyndra LLC that would have left the US with as much as 40 percent equity and two seats on the solar energy company’s board, according to e-mails obtained by the Bloomberg financial news service. The administration documents were sent yesterday... Read more of this article
Gay US Ambassador On Clinton’s Bermuda Offer
James Hormel, the openly gay San Francisco philanthropist, says he could have likely avoided a nasty Capitol Hill battle over his nomination as former President Bill Clinton’s ambassador to Luxembourg if he had instead accepted an offer in 1997 to become the consul general in Bermuda. Three years earlier former President Bill Clinton’s decision... Read more of this article
Bermuda Firm’s Ties To DC Ethics Scandal
The outgoing Nabors Industries CEO became a lavish donor to causes supported by New York Congressman Charles Rangel after the Democratic legislator “protected” a corporate tax loophole allowing the oil driller to remain a Bermuda company, a leading US pollster and political commentator is reporting. Scott Rasmussen’s “Rasmussen... Read more of this article
Bermuda Welcomed Into The IWF
Premier Paula Cox has announced that Bermuda has been officially inducted into the International Women’s Forum [IWF] and has been invited to form a Chapter on island. Premier Cox was is in Washington DC this week, attending the high level forum and is leading a delegation of local Bermudian women including Grace Shelton, Dame Jennifer Smith, Patricia... Read more of this article
ABIR Lobbies Deficit “Super Committee”
Significant changes in the US National Flood Insurance Programme [NFIP] -— including an end to all subsidies within five years — are being proposed by a diverse coalition including the Association of Bermuda Insurers & Reinsurers. Organised by lobbying group SmarterSafer.org — which describes itself as favouring “environmentally-responsible,... Read more of this article
Local Group To Attend Women’s Forum
The Premier and Minister of Finance Paula Cox will lead a delegation of local women from both the public and private sectors to the International Women’s Forum (IWF) from October 26-28th in Washington D.C. The International Woman’s Forum goal is to advance women’s leadership across careers, cultures and continents by connecting the world’s most... Read more of this article
“Tax Holiday” Will Boost Deficit, Not Jobs
In an editorial yesterday morning [Oct. 24] “The New York Times” says US corporations arguing that a “tax holiday” for profits held off-shore in jurisdictions including Bermuda would help to create jobs, mainly by giving them money to hire and expand. But the newspaper goes on to point out the National Bureau of Economic Research,... Read more of this article
