He is apparently “Son of Boss.”  In a CNN article, Peter C. Canellos, a well-respected tax lawyer and former chief of staff of Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation, details how Mitt Romney, as chairman of the Audit Committee for the Marriott Corporation Board of Directors, approved the company’s involvement in a major abusive tax shelter called “Son of Boss.”

Mr. Canellos says in his article,

“Son of Boss and its related shelters represented perhaps the largest tax avoidance scheme in history, costing the U.S. many billions in lost corporate tax revenues. In response, the government initiated legal challenges that resulted in complete disallowance of the losses claimed by Marriott and other corporations.”….

“Marriott’s Son of Boss transaction was an entirely artificial transaction, bearing no relationship to its business. Its sole purpose was to create a gigantic tax loss out of thin air without any economic risk, cost or loss — other than the fee Marriott paid the promoter.”

The Government finally shut down the “Son of Boss” type of abusive tax shelters, and many people involved in such transactions eventually went to jail.  Abusive tax shelters were risk free scams that created fictitious losses for a corporation so that they could claim them as deductions on their returns.

The only losers were the U.S. Government in loss of tax revenues and, by that shortfall in tax income, all other taxpayers like you and me.  How?  Simply, any tax revenue shortfall has to be made up somewhere and that somewhere is usually in increased national debt or in cutbacks in essential services.

This would be the same as you or I going out into our backyards and deciding that we had suffered a huge fire loss or something similar, getting some crooked lawyers and insurance adjusters to testify to our uncovered loss and then claiming that loss in our tax returns. but then again, we would be caught in fairly quick order.  When you are a “Son of Boss”, the sophistication is such that you are able to hold off getting caught for some time.  Think about that.

Don’t let anyone tell you that Mitt Romney is going to look out for the little guy.