Romney Plan: Billions in Tax Cuts for GOP’s Largest Donor
There’s a bevy of right-wing billionaires underwriting the Republican election effort, but the spending of one far outpaces the others. Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson has contributed more than $36 MILLION to various Republican Super PACs and has pledged to spend $100 MILLION in order to defeat President Obama and elect Mitt Romney.
While $100 MILLION is a lot of money, it’s nothing compared to what Adelson stands to gain as a result of Mitt Romney’s tax policies. A new analysis out today finds that in just the four years of a Romney administration, Adelson could get a whopping $2.3 BILLION tax cut. That represents an astounding 2,200 percent return on his investment in Mitt Romney.
ThinkProgress’ Travis Waldron explains how Romney’s policies would potentially slash Adelson’s taxes:
• Cut top tax rates, saving Adelson approximately $1.5 million on his annual compensation as chief executive of his casino company.
• Maintain the special low rates on dividends, potentially saving Adelson nearly $120 million on a single year’s worth of dividends, more than enough to recoup his political donations.
• Maintain the special low rates on capital gains, allowing Adelson to make back his political donations in capital gains tax cuts just by selling a fraction of his stock.
• Provide a tax windfall of an estimated $1.2 billion to Adelson’s company, Las Vegas Sands Corp., on untaxed profits from its Asian casinos, as well as a tax exemption for future overseas profits. Adelson’s casinos already enjoy a special foreign tax exemption from the Chinese administrative region of Macau, and Gov. Romney would make those foreign profits exempt from U.S. taxes as well.
• Eliminate the estate tax, potentially providing a staggering $8.9 billion windfall to Adelson’s heirs.
Romney’s corporate tax reforms would also provide Adelson’s casino company approximately$1.2 billion in tax breaks on overseas profits and $565 million from Romney’s proposed shift to a territorial tax system. Adelson’s share of that, the report says, would be upward of $900 million, nine times what he pledged to spend to get Romney to the White House.
BOTTOM LINE: Under Mitt Romney’s plan, middle class families would pay more so millionaires like Mitt Romney and billionaires like Sheldon Adelson could pay even less.
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