I can’t believe I am reading this. Not only am I disgusted by the contents of the article, I am deeply annoyed by Bloomberg’s ever-so-coy and clever headline.
Since when is a $3 million retirement account “Romney sized” as the two putzes, Richard Rubin and Margaret Collins, would like us to believe?
Romney is worth over $250 million and has $100 mill in his IRA, 33.3x times $3mill to be accurate. A man who worked his ass off for 30+ years, contributed to his 401k, then rolled it over into an IRA is not in the same league as the bane of Bane Capital, jackasses.
Never mind the soda jerkers from Bloomberg. How about this theft that is about to be proposed by our King, April 10th? They hope to raise $9 billion by fleecing retirement accounts of people who’ve been fortunate enough to save?
“Under current rules, some wealthy individuals are able to accumulate many millions of dollars in these accounts, substantially more than is needed to fund reasonable levels of retirement saving,” the statement said.
The most prominent taxpayer with a multimillion-dollar IRA is Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee and co- founder of Bain Capital LLC. Romney disclosed in public filings during the campaign that his retirement account held between $18.1 million and $87.4 million. At one point, the maximum exceeded $100 million.
IRAs have evolved from a retirement-planning technique into an estate-planning tool for some wealthy families because tax laws allow the accounts to be passed on to heirs, said Ed Slott, an IRA specialist and certified public accountant based in Rockville Centre, New York.
‘Critical Mass’
“Over the last election it hit a critical mass when a lot of people found out that Romney had $100 million in his IRA,” Slott said. “People thought, how on earth did that happen? I think that was the tipping point.”
The Romney campaign didn’t explain how he amassed that much money in an IRA when contribution limits are much lower. Most taxpayers can contribute a maximum of $5,500 for 2013. Older workers, self-employed workers and those who save through 401(k)-style plans have higher caps and can roll those accounts into IRAs.
One possibility is that Romney included Bain investments valued at close to nothing that later grew exponentially. The value would increase tax-free in the retirement account and would be subject to taxation at ordinary income tax rates when taken out.
Democratic lawmakers, including Representatives Sander Levin of Michigan and George Miller of California, asked the Treasury Department last August to answer questions about large IRAs and to make policy recommendations.