06-01-2023  1:09 pm   •   PDX and SEA Weather
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NORTHWEST NEWS

Truck Driver Indicted on Manslaughter Charges After Deadly Oregon Crash That Killed 7 Farmworkers

A grand jury in Marion County Court on Tuesday indicted Lincoln Smith, a 52-year-old truck driver from California, on 12 counts, including seven charges of manslaughter, reckless driving and driving under the influence of intoxicants.

Amazon Workers Stage Walkout Over Company's Climate Impact, Return-to-Office Mandate

The lunchtime protest comes a week after Amazon's annual shareholder meeting and a month after a policy took effect requiring workers to return to the office three days per week.

Happy Black Birders Week: Local Group Promotes Inclusivity in Birdwatching, Outdoor Enjoyment

Birdhers is in its fifth year of weekly walks and annual retreats.

Oregon Man Died Waiting for an Ambulance, Highlighting Lack of Emergency Responders

Officials in Multnomah County have said ambulances should arrive to 90% of emergency calls within eight minutes. However KGW-TV reported that during a five-month period ending in February, that mark was missed about a third of the time.

NEWS BRIEFS

Portland Parks & Recreation’s Summer Free For All Returns for 2023

Full slate of free movies, concerts, Free Lunch + Play, and more ...

Kiasia Baggenstos Awarded Avel Louise Gordly Scholarship

Parkrose grad, UO sophomore is inaugural winner. Award ceremony to be held at The Soul Restoration Center, Sunday, June 4. ...

Oregon and Washington Memorial Day Events

Check out a listing of ceremonies and other community Memorial Day events in Oregon and Washington. A full list of all US events,...

Communities Invited to Interstate Bridge Replacement Neighborhood Forums in Vancouver and Portland

May 31 and June 6 forums allow community members to learn about the program’s environmental review process ...

Bonamici, Salinas Introduce Bill to Prevent Senior Hunger

Senior Hunger Prevention Act will address challenges older adults, grandparent and kinship caregivers, and adults with disabilities...

Stony Brook University gets 0 million from hedge fund founder who taught math there

NEW YORK (AP) — Stony Brook University, a part of the public State University of New York system, will receive 0 million from a philanthropic foundation started by a hedge fund billionaire who once taught math there, the foundation announced Thursday. The gift from the Simons...

Portland mulls ban on daytime camping amid sharp rise in homelessness

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — City Council members in Portland were considering on Wednesday whether to ban homeless camping during daytime hours in most public places, a move that aims to bring the city into compliance with a new state law and appease the growing number of residents frustrated by a...

Foster, Ware homer, Auburn eliminates Mizzou 10-4 in SEC

HOOVER, Ala. (AP) — Cole Foster hit a three-run homer, Bryson Ware added a two-run shot and fifth-seeded Auburn wrapped up the first day of the SEC Tournament with a 10-4 win over ninth-seeded Missouri on Tuesday night. Auburn (34-9), which has won nine-straight, moved into the...

Small Missouri college adds football programs to boost enrollment

FULTON, Mo. (AP) — A small college in central Missouri has announced it will add football and women's flag football programs as part of its plan to grow enrollment. William Woods University will add about 140 students between the two new sports, athletic director Steve Wilson said...

OPINION

Significant Workforce Investments Needed to Stem Public Defense Crisis

We have a responsibility to ensure our state government is protecting the constitutional rights of all Oregonians, including people accused of a crime ...

Over 80 Groups Tell Federal Regulators Key Bank Broke $16.5 Billion Promise

Cross-country redlining aided wealthy white communities while excluding Black areas ...

Public Health 101: Guns

America: where all attempts to curb access to guns are shot down. Should we raise a glass to that? ...

Op-Ed: Ballot Measure Creates New Barriers to Success for Black-owned Businesses

Measure 26-238, a proposed local capital gains tax, is unfair and a burden on Black business owners in an already-challenging economic environment. ...

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE NEWS

Black men were likely underdiagnosed with lung problems because of bias in software, study suggests

NEW YORK (AP) — Racial bias built into a common medical test for lung function is likely leading to fewer Black patients getting care for breathing problems, a study published Thursday suggests. As many as 40% more Black male patients in the study might have been diagnosed with...

New federal proposal aims to stop racial bias in formulas used to value homes

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris said Thursday that federal agencies are taking new steps to stop racial discrimination in appraising home values by proposing a rule intended to ensure that the automated formulas used to price housing are fair. “Everyone should be...

In the Amazon region where pair was killed, neglect and allegations of harsh justice

LADARIO, Brazil (AP) — One year ago on a Friday afternoon, Bruno Pereira, an expert on Indigenous peoples, and Dom Phillips, a British journalist, motored along the Itaquai river in far western Brazil, to the settlement of Ladario. The line of wooden houses here marks a boundary — between the...

ENTERTAINMENT

Jordan Donica, Tony Award nominee for 'Camelot,' is Broadway's rising star

NEW YORK (AP) — When Jordan Donica was about 9 or 10, his aunt took him to New York City with a mission: Get the notion of making it on Broadway out of his system. Thankfully, that mission failed spectacularly. “It was raining and I was dancing through the streets of Times Square,...

Anthony Ramos, Dominique Fishback lead ‘Transformers’ from Brooklyn to Peru

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback had been dreaming about writing something together for a few years. The two actors, both native New Yorkers, would meet up from time to time and talk about what it could be. They knew that it would have to be “epic” and “so Brooklyn.”...

Music Review: Bob Dylan's 'Shadow Kingdom' reimagines well-known, obscure songs

“Shadow Kingdom,” Bob Dylan (Columbia Records/Legacy Recordings) Bob Dylan’s “Shadow Kingdom” feels like Dylan covering Dylan. Or Dylan radically unplugged, nearly 30 years after he did that on MTV. When Dylan first released “Shadow Kingdom”...

U.S. & WORLD NEWS

Russian bombardment of Ukrainian capital kills at least 3, including child

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia launched a pre-dawn missile barrage at the Ukrainian capital Thursday, killing three...

Coach confirms Lionel Messi's last match for PSG this weekend

Lionel Messi arrived two years ago wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with ”Ici C’est Paris” (This Is Paris) — a...

LGBTQ+ Pride month kicks off with protests, parades, parties

NEW YORK (AP) — The start of June marks the beginning of Pride month around the U.S. and some parts of the...

Senegal opposition leader Sonko convicted of corrupting youth, acquitted of rape

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Senegal opposition leader Ousmane Sonko was convicted Thursday of corrupting youth but...

NATO presses Turkey to approve Sweden's membership, eyes Ukraine security plan as summit looms

OSLO, Norway (AP) — NATO on Thursday ramped up pressure on member nation Turkey to drop its objections to...

India pauses plans to add new coal plants for five years, bets on renewables, batteries

BENGALURU, India (AP) — The Indian government will not consider any proposals for new coal plants for the next...

By Stephen Braun of the Associated Press

 WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney owns investments worth between $7 million and $32 million in offshore-based holdings, which are often used legitimately by private equity firms to attract foreign investors. Such offshore accounts also can enable wealthy investors to defer paying U.S. taxes on some assets, according to tax experts.

An Associated Press examination of Romney's financial records identified at least six funds set up in the Cayman Islands, a small Caribbean island chain that has long been used as a base for international investments because of low tax rates and financial secrecy. Romney has acknowledged that some of his investments are based in the Caymans, but he has not identified all of the specific accounts and the amounts based there. There is no indication Romney uses the accounts to dodge any U.S. tax obligations.

The Caymans have often been associated with individuals and corporations seeking to avoid paying U.S. taxes. However, it is legal for U.S. residents to own investment accounts that are set up there — if they file the proper forms with the Internal Revenue Service and pay the appropriate taxes.

"If you file the forms and report the income, you are 100 percent legal," said Kevin Packman, a Miami lawyer who chairs the offshore tax compliance team at the law firm of Holland & Knight.

Independent tax policy experts said Romney's use of the Cayman-based investments was legal, but some criticized the strategy as a province of wealthy investors allowed by a tax code studded with loopholes.

"The bottom line is, they're taking advantage of a system that's flawed," said Nicole Tichon, director of Tax Justice Network USA, part of a global network promoting tax transparency. "It may be legal, but these are loopholes that show problems in our tax code."

The six Romney offshore holdings are in investment funds run by Bain Capital, the private equity powerhouse he led in the 1980s and 1990s. The six funds are listed only by name and a range of amounts in Romney's financial records, but the Cayman addresses are in other corporate documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and in foreign investment portfolios.

Five of the Cayman-based funds are included within a blind trust for Romney's wife, Ann, and worth between $2.8 million and $7.6 million.

A sixth fund, called Bain Capital Investment Partners Trust Associates lll, is part of Romney's IRA retirement account and worth between $5 million and $25 million.

In a financial report last August, Romney declared a family fortune worth as much as $250 million. The six Cayman funds are among dozens of investments the Romneys have owned since he left Bain in 1999 to organize the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City and then pursue a career in politics.

A Romney spokeswoman, Andrea Saul, said the Cayman funds "are taxed in the very same way they would be if those funds were established in the United States." She noted that because many of the funds are in a trust directed by a Boston lawyer, the Romneys played no role in deciding how the money was invested.

Saul said the decision to set up the funds in the Caymans was made by the funds' sponsors — in this case, senior partners at Bain Capital, not Romney. A Bain spokesman declined to comment on the funds' origins.

Tax experts and lawyers said using offshore funds to attract foreign investors is a legitimate and standard business practice. Increased foreign investment in a U.S. fund based abroad could increase financial returns for American investors. Offshore funds offer advantages for U.S. investors looking to diversify their portfolios and for foreign investors seeking to avoid U.S. reporting and tax-withholding requirements.

"If you have a foreign investor who is making income largely abroad and doesn't want to be subject to U.S. regulations and reporting, it's a plus," said C. Eugene Steuerle, co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and former deputy assistant treasury secretary for tax analysis.

Under American law, U.S. investors must pay taxes on profits made from offshore investment funds. However, U.S. investors may be able to defer those taxes until later as they bring the profits into the U.S., depending on how the fund is structured, said Kevin Packman, chairman of his firm's offshore compliance team at Holland & Knight of Miami.

Some hedge fund and private equity managers route IRA retirement holdings through an offshore entity set up as a "blocker corporation," an affiliate of a private equity fund that acts as a way-station, storing the retirement funds while investing an identical amount in the actual fund. This complicated maneuver allows the investor to defer paying a 35 percent tax on earnings that the IRS considers "unrelated business income," said Michael J. Graetz, a Columbia University law professor and an authority on national and international tax law.

The 35 percent tax is aimed at pension funds, university endowments, hospitals and other nonprofit organizations when they invest in private equity funds that borrow large amounts of money to buy other companies. But nonprofits can use the offshore blocker funds to defer those tax payments, and similarly, IRA accounts can be routed through blocker accounts, depending on how tax plans are structured, Graetz said.

"One of the major functions of tax planning is to defer payments and deal with them down the road instead of today," Graetz said. "For an IRA account, it's not so much a tax rate game as it is a timing game."

Romney's other offshore-based investments would not benefit from that structure, Graetz said. But their earnings could be boosted by blocker corporations that promote investments by nonprofits, he said.

Romney's taxpaying strategy may become clearer when he makes his 2012 tax returns available in April as he has promised.

Congress has tried to make it harder for investors to defer tax payments by broadening requirements that U.S. investors in foreign-based funds pay taxes as they earn profits. But aggressive tax planners can still find ways to get around the rules, experts said.

"You have to look at each investment and its structure before you can pass judgment," Steuerle said.

Benefits to deferring tax payments include the ability to reinvest the deferred taxes, earning higher returns before bringing the money into the U.S. A wealthy investor who has no immediate need for the money would be able to keep the investment offshore indefinitely, never paying U.S. taxes on it.