Obama’s Treasury nominee, Jack Lew, has Cayman Islands investment fund
(The Hill)
At issue is an employee investment fund based in the Cayman Islands that Lew bought into during his time working at Citigroup before entering the Obama administration. In a release Friday, Grassley argued it was hypocritical of Obama to have nominated a candidate with such an offshore investment despite having railed against tax avoidance schemes based in the Caymans.
“President Obama has been almost obsessively critical of offshore investments,” Grassley said. “He called Ugland House ‘either the biggest building or the biggest tax scam on record.’ ”
The Ugland House is a building in the Cayman Islands that serves as the legal address for thousands of corporations seeking favorable tax breaks. In a 2009 speech, Obama called the use of the adders “the kind of tax scam that we need to end.”
“For years, we’ve talked about shutting down overseas tax havens that let companies set up operations to avoid paying taxes in America,” Obama said.
The Obama campaign also railed against Mitt Romney’s offshore holdings during the presidential campaign, cutting advertisements that mocked the Republican nominee for a Swiss bank account and holdings in the Caymans and Bermuda.
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