According to what he swore to the IRS. In order to get this $500,000 deduction, he had to have an “active role” in the company. What’s an active role?
The IRS advises that “[f]actors that indicate active participation include making decisions involving the operation or management of the activity, performing services for the activity, and hiring and discharging employees. Factors that indicate a lack of active participation include lack of control in managing and operating the activity, having authority only to discharge the manager of the activity, and having a manager of the activity who is an independent contractor rather than an employee.”
This means that Romney was in on every aspect of investing in, and then running, Stericycle, a biological waste disposal company that is the biggest in the country at disposing of fetuses from medical clinics that do abortions. As the article says succinctly:
Even if Romney could persuade the IRS his involvement was legitimately active, that still leaves him in a rhetorical jam: For tax purposes, he claims an active status; for political purposes, he claims to have zero to do with the investments.
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