Leaked documents … show how the billionaire Mercer family built a $60m war chest for conservative causes inside their family foundation by using an offshore investment vehicle to avoid US tax,” The Guardian reports:“The offshore vehicle was part of a network of companies in the Atlantic tax haven of Bermuda led by Robert Mercer, the wealthy hedge-fund executive and Bannon patron whose spending helped put Trump in the White House and aided a resurgence of the Republican right.”
“Mercer, 71, appears as a director of eight Bermuda companies in the Paradise Papers
a trove of millions of leaked documents on offshore finance reviewed by the Guardian, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and other partners.”
Paradise Papers
“The files include a copy of Mercer’s US passport and other private data.”
POLITICIANS PASS ANOTHER TAX LOOPHOLE FOR THE .01%
Mercer has personally donated $41m to federal election campaigns over the past decade, according to public filings.
Mercer was a major investor in Breitbart rightwing propaganda website that Bannon led before joining Trump’s campaign.
You take retirement plans or foundations, you invest them in a hedge fund, and even if the value rises 100%, you can sell off the investments with no tax consequences. ~ Bill Parish
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has been pursuing Renaissance for $6.8bn in federal taxes that it was accused of improperly avoiding through practices described as “abuses” in a 2014 investigation by a Senate committee.
► Mercer Family Foundation nonprofit led daughter Rebekah gave out $62m to conservative republican “research” propaganda thinktanks including the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, and the Media Research Center.
$4.7m to Bannon’s Government Accountability Institute
Bannon founded GAI in Florida in 2012 with Peter Schweizer, the conservative author of Clinton Cash. Since then, the GAI has paid Bannon $379,000 and Schweizer $781,000. Rebekah Mercer was a director of the group until 2014.
$3.8m to the nonprofit arm of Citizens United, best known for the deregulation of political spending it won in a 2010 supreme court ruling.
$1.2m to the Young America’s Foundation, another conservative nonprofit, which paid Bannon more than $577,000 between 2010 and 2012 for filmmaking service
Resources
Offshore leaks database
Find out who’s behind almost 500,000 offshore companies, foundations and trusts from the Panama Papers, the Offshore Leaks and the Bahamas Leaks investigations.
An ICIJ Investigation The Panama Papers:
Exposing the Rogue Offshore Finance Industry
July 4 2015 London is now the global money-laundering centre for the drug trade, says crime expert Gomorrah author Roberto Saviano says ‘the British treat it as not their problem’ ~ James Hanning, David Connett