The Land Of The Fee

Today is the 4^th July, Independence Day for the USA, possibly one of the last few it will have left that has any meaning for most of its population.

There is an election campaign going on that will hand a four year term to whoever wins it in November, take over day in January.

There are now two leading candidates who are likely to contest it.  One is President Obama for the Democrats and the other Mitt Romney for the Republicans.

Some argue that as President Obama was not born in the USA this should disqualify him.  But does the actual location of birth matter that much if he lived his life there and enough voters want to have him continue as President?

In the case of Mitt Romney, however, former Governor of Massachusetts there is a more interesting question.  It asks where is the money?  Is he paying anything like the tax he might be?  Has he extracted rather more than he has put in?

In Vanity Fair there is a major article going into all this and taking a long hard look at what can be found.  It is a substantial article that takes careful reading and a little time.  It might give the Washington DC Internal Revenue Service, pictured above, something to think about

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/08/investigating-mitt-romney-offshore-accounts

This is the way the world goes and where the power might go.  So does the USA want more of this or less?  Much the same kind of thing happens across the world and in most states many leading figures will be engaged in similar financial operations.

If only Nicholas Shaxson and others could tell us more about just what our own UK politicians have been doing with their money and how.  We would learn a lot about the UK and much more about the way we seem to be going.

With the UK tax agencies being run as a back office of the major accountancy firms this does not seem likely.