BREAKING Offshore cash helped fund Steve Bannon's attacks on Hillary Clinton

Can you please post article highlights or don’t bother.

Leaked documents and newly obtained public filings 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 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. The files include a copy of Mercer’s US passport and other private data.

Some of the Bermuda companies appear to have been used to legally avoid a little-known US tax of up to 39% on tens of millions of dollars in investment profits amassed by the Mercer family’s foundation, which funded Bannon’s book and a who’s who of conservative groups, along with a $475m retirement fund for the staff of Mercer’s hedge fund, Renaissance Technologies.

Sorry R1. I'll try. Here we go.

Robert Mercer, whose spending assisted Donald Trump’s election win, used tax haven of Bermuda to avoid US taxes

Leaked documents and newly obtained public filings 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 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.

I didn't do that for the lazy R1, by the way, but because I wanted to point out how this is more bullshit from the Mercers.

No wonder that scuzzball is selling off his business. He's probably planning on leaving the country so he won't have to die in jail.

Shouldn’t be much longer now, given what has come out just in the last couple of days.

Seems like it’s all coming out.

This is all very shady, but is it illegal?

Lazy! How dare of you 😡 R2!

Butchiam. 😪

NO ONE CARES!!!!!!

Well, coming out at a time we've got a new tax bill in the works that great.y benefits the wealthy and eliminates the deduction for school teachers buying their own supplies because schools can't afford to, it's embarrassing to say the least.

Mercer knew this was coming and has left his daughter holding the bag.

His daughter inherited his Metalunan forehead AND his inevitable felony convictions!

A Metalunan, for comparison and science.

R8 Obviously I do. Now let me go move some more stuff off to Rebekah.

But is it illegal? I don’t think think tax dodging with offshore accounts is illegal, is it?

The pay to store people’s pee. What’s up with that?

Don’t think the urine stockpile is illegal, but WTF?

The Intercept directs our attention to a Bloomberg report from earlier this year that reveals Robert Mercer — a hedge fund manager who is also a major funder of a pro-Trump Super PAC — has been funding the creation of a massive stockpile of human urine in Oregon.

I’m scared to ask.

DNA?

Clones?

Is it illegal? Too soon to tell.

But wait, isn't this what Don jr. was trying to get Hillary for.

What are they going to do with all the pee?

The fools who sent him samples will rue the day.

R19. Yes the irony of it.

Let's see if this connects to Russia. That interests me more than parking funds offshore and avoiding taxes. Those can be corrected with the requisite political will.

I don’t think it’s illegal at all. All the super rich do it.

What, store mass amounts of pee? I didn’t know this was a thing.

Wait- why are they storing urine?

I have read that Mercer is very detached,"ice-cold" , analytical, not friendly....obsessed with data.

I am sure he wants us to return to a feudal society.

[quote] I don’t think it’s illegal at all. All the super rich do it.

Sure. They made the laws. Take back legislation, enact more just laws, and it will be illegal.

“But here’s what the mainstream media won’t tell you: Robert Mercer and his daughter have also funded a gigantic stockpile of human urine in Oregon.”

Dr. Maddow reported the urine stockpile at least a year ago

THESE PEOPLE ARE WEIRD. What's with these rightwing people and bodily fluids.

First there is Thiel with virgin blood or some such. Then pee for Mercer and Trump. What's wrong with the good old sperm bank.

We need to take back legislative process. We need to let pols know we are watching them and their donors.

agreed

They are already breaking existing laws except no one is prosecuting them. Like Mercer’s foundation is barred from intervening in election campaigns, yet it figures in the Paradise Papers.

So they broke the law by doing that?

Yes, R33 by funding Bannon.

Can someone arrest Steve Bannon and neutralize him? Someone just said, Bannon can not deliver a pizza and certainly not a winning vote...how true.

The Mercer forehead reminds me of The Coneheads...is it possible that they are aliens?

No, seriously, what's the deal with the pee???

....speaking of bannon, he's sharpening his knives again

What's with the Repug obsession with piss? Hooker pissing? Piss in storage? Piss-colored candidate?

it is illegal to stash cash offshore. The IRS had a voluntary offshore disclosure amnesty that expired in 2013 or 2014, iirc.

You could report these holdings and voluntarily pay tax on it with no penalty or interest. But once it expired, you were fucked.

And doesn't this scumbag Mercer owe the IRS like several BILLION in back taxes anyway?

Oh, I do hope they get him for these off shore accounts as well. Seize his assets and leave him sniveling in the street without a pot to piss in. Would serve the vile asshole right!

Three Canadian Prime Ministers are in the Paradise Papers and Trudeau's fundraiser

For the love of God, we cannot go further without a proper explanation on the TINKLE. Why? How? For what? What in God's name is he up to with the poddy?

NEVER stop asking searching questions about where these guys are getting their money from and what their funders real agendas are .

Why bother? Everyone knows republicans are corrupt criminals.

This is old news. Nothing happened. It was immoral & unethical, but not illegal.

Surely it should be illegal [R45] ? I certainly think it would be in the UK. But that aside highlighting their unethical behaviour in detail and throwing it out there reminding people will help to undermine them .

We really need to do with white collar crime what we did with drug crime. Mandatory minimum sentences and a three strikes law.

Offshore cash helped launder millions of dollars from the Russian mafia into Trump's real estate, too.

How can it be legal for foreign money to be specifially used to manipulate an US election? If the Mercers claim ownership of the money it's taxable. If they don't it comes from a foreign agent. And that's a whole other legal offense.

He is backing Trump and Bannon's politcal operation, so you can say that Mercer is also collecting old piles of shit, along with that urine stockpile.

The Mercer dude is fucking nuts.

And people trust someone with their money who collects piss? I know he handed some power over his daughter, but still. The whole family sounds as common and trashy as, well, common rednecks.