Mitt Romney’s done a Cameron. He’s in trouble because of a horse.
Mitt Romney and his wife, Ann, who plan to attend the opening of the Olympic Games in London this summer, now have a personal rooting interest in the event. Jan Ebeling, Mrs. Romney’s longtime riding tutor, and his horse Rafalca, co-owned by Mrs. Romney, earned a berth on the United States Olympic dressage team on Saturday.
Mitt Romney owns a horse. Not just any horse – an Olympic standard dressage horse. You know dressage – it’s that horse-based sport which is second only to polo in its near-total lack of relateability to your average American voter.
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The Romneys actually declared a loss of $77,000 on their ownership of the horse in 2010, and according to Matt Yglesias, the horse-related tax code is more complex than us non-horse-owning mortals could comprehend:
The way this works is that [the horse’s owners] have together formed a corporate entity called “Rob Rom Enterprises LLC” which owns Rafalca and pays for his upkeep. The Romneys reported $77,731 in “passive losses” related to their investment in Rob Rom Enterprises but of that their account only deemed $50 to be actually eligible for deduction. The forms don’t explain the thinking behind that, but it’s probably because losses from your horse corporation can’t be used to offset unrelated income. If Rafalca had brought in more money, then Rafalca’s care and feeding expenses could be deducted from that income, but in 2010 Rob Rom Enterprises doesn’t seem to have had much income.
That said, now that Rafalca is heading to the Olympics, he’s likely to suddenly start bringing in a lot more money, which that $77,000 can be offset against. So at some point, Romney probably will end up paying less taxes because of a horse.
Horses: Not good for your reputation as a world-leader (unless you’re Putin)