Swiss money missing from Romney disclosure

JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Jan. 27 (UPI) -- A Swiss bank account and other assets in Mitt Romney's 2010 U.S. tax return were not properly disclosed in his White House bid disclosure, a review found.

At least 23 funds and partnerships listed in Mitt and Ann Romney's return did not show up, or were listed in a different fashion, on Romney's most recent financial disclosure, the Los Angeles Times and co-owned Chicago Tribune reported Thursday.

The questionable reporting included 11 assets based in low-tax foreign countries such as Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg, with many funds affiliated with Bain Capital LLC, the Boston private-equity firm Romney ran for 15 years, the newspapers said.

An omitted asset includes a Swiss bank account in Ann Romney's blind trust that campaign officials said held $3 million of the couple's money until it was closed in 2010.

The Romney campaign said it would file an amendment to Romney's most recent financial-disclosure report to reflect $1,700 worth of interest earned in the Swiss bank account in 2010, as well as another amendment to move the account to the appropriate category in a 2007 report.

The campaign called the errors "inadvertent" and "trivial," pointing out the former Massachusetts governor has released more than 600 pages of information about his finances.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia failed to report $252,500 in salary in 2010 on his financial disclosure and would amend the disclosure to show it, his campaign said Thursday.

During Thursday's GOP presidential hopefuls debate in Jacksonville, Fla., ahead of the state's Tuesday primary, Romney and Gingrich jostled over Romney's Swiss bank account, which Gingrich said he considered "unusual."

Romney said Gingrich sought to imply there was something wrong with his success.

"There's nothing wrong with that. ... Don't castigate individuals that have been successful," he said, explaining he had "a trustee that manages my blind trust" who "wanted to diversify" his portfolio and put some money in a Swiss account.

Gingrich and some critics have questioned whether Romney can relate to voters' economic distress with such vast and complex wealth.

Romney told a Univision forum of GOP presidential hopefuls in Miami Wednesday his net worth was "between $150 [million] and about $200-and-some-odd million."

Earlier in the month, he characterized $374,000 he made in speaker's fees in 2010 and 2011 as "not very much." There have been subsequent reports that the figure was revised upward, to more than $400,000.