The investigation is still open, so he may very well be cleared. The tax practice that his firm allegedly uses is nothing new, and it's been widely used by many in that industry. Of course, many other firms are also under investigation in New York for the same practice.
Romney's friend, like Romney himself, may very well be within the law, but that's not really the point. After watching the elites become ridiculously rich in recent years, we've also watched the middle class struggle and the number of poor increase. For the Romney class, the tax code is there for the picking. They have the cash to throw smart bodies (lawyers, accountants) at the issue and find a way to pay less and less as they earn more and more.
There's a big difference between being within the law and doing the right thing.
Is paying 15% (or 14% in Romney's case - that's assuming he's paid anything at all these past ten years, we don't know since he won't release his taxes) really fair when working families are paying more?
The problem with people like Romney, Leder and the rest of the financial elite on the right is that they view themselves as victims. Yes, the people who have profited the most from the radical tax cuts are still not satisfied, and have convinced themselves that nothing is ever enough.
Being an egotistical, selfish jerk is one thing, but putting people like this in power to turn back the clock to the days of the Industrial Revolution is another. Who wants a president that stands to personally gain millions in tax breaks even after he's already gamed the system to pay less than most working people?
Enough is never enough for this crowd.
Guilty or innocent, we need to stop having a system that primarily works for the richest of the rich. In a Romney administration, it's going to be just that, on steroids.
According to court documents filed as part of his 2009 divorce, Leder created a system for turning hundreds of millions of dollars in ordinary income into investments that would be taxed at a much lower rate.
The strategy, known as “a management fee waiver,” may have lowered his tax bill by millions of dollars over time, according to the documents.
Leder’s private equity firm, Sun Capital Partners, is one of more than a dozen private-equity firms being investigated by New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to see whether they used management fee waivers to avoid taxes, according to people familiar with the matter.
