“James Simons, Founder of Renaissance Technologies Hedge Fund, Has Given Millions to Hillary Clinton’s Bid for the White House
In January and March of this year, hedge fund billionaire James Simons wrote two checks to Hillary’s SuperPac, Priorities USA, for $3.5 million each, matching the $7 million Soros has also contributed. Simons is the founder of hedge fund Renaissance Technologies and also runs a so-called “family office” where he manages his own wealth, known as Euclidean Capital. We could not find Simons in the ICIJ database but we did find his hedge fund, Renaissance Technologies, in the Wall Street On Parade database – and not in a good way.
Renaissance Technologies became the target of an investigation by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, culminating in a charge of avoiding $6.8 billion (that’s billion with a “b”) in taxes. The Senate Subcommittee took testimony at the July 22, 2014 hearing from Steven M. Rosenthal, a Senior Fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center in Washington, D.C. Rosenthal explained the scheme as follows:
“I have been asked to evaluate the character of the gains of the Renaissance hedge funds based on my review of materials provided by the Subcommittee staff. The Renaissance hedge funds traded often, more than 100,000 trades a day, more than 30 million trades a year, and they traded quickly, turning over their portfolio almost completely every 3 months. Because the hedge funds adopted a short-term trading strategy, we would expect their gains to be short term. But the hedge funds, with the help of Barclays and Deutsche Bank, wrapped derivatives around their trading strategy in order to transform their short- term trading profits into long-term capital gains. This tax alchemy purported to reduce the tax rate on the gains from 35 percent to 15 percent and reduced taxes paid to the Treasury by approximately $6.8 billion. I believe the hedge funds stretched the derivatives beyond recognition for tax purposes and mischaracterized their profits as long-term gains.”
Forbes currently puts James Simons’ net worth at $15.5 billion, making his political donations a very cheap investment in the overall scheme of things.
Hillary Clinton was asked about the revelations in the Panama Papers. According to the Guardian newspaper, Clinton responded:
“Some of this behavior is clearly against the law and anyone who violates the law anywhere should be held accountable. But it is also scandalous how much is actually legal. That is why last year I proposed a plan to shut down the so-called private tax-system for the mega wealthy. We are going after all these scams and making sure everybody pays their fair share in America. I am going to hold them accountable.”
Anyone who thinks Hillary Clinton is going to hold her mega-donors accountable should probably put their campaign contributions under their pillow for the tooth fairy.”
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