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Camana Harbor, Grand Cayman Island, home of Dart Container, Dart Cayman, Dart Foundation.

$RICHIE RICH$: Kenneth Dart Tops Michigan at $5.8 Billion As Top Dogs Growl

January 20, 2015       Leave a Comment
By: Dave Rogers

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It's fashionable these days for the news media to stir the class warfare pot by gushing over hyper-wealthy people and tell how they own the world and everybody else doesn't.

Mr. Obama really shook up the landscape by -- horror of horrors -- proposing to raise taxes on the extremely wealthy. They won't even miss it, but the 99% may have a chance to live a little better, he indicated.

The man is barely off the air from his State of the Union squawk box and the rich and their lackeys in Washington, in both parties no less, are howling about the unfairness of it all.

So it makes sense for this humble scrivener to babble somewhat about the wealthy class and see how much a few tax dollars will cramp their lifestyles. In the case of Michigan's wealthiest, probably not at all since he lives abroad and we haven't figured out how to repatriate (that means snatch back) his hoard of sawbucks.

Plastic cup tycoon Kenneth Dart is Michigan's richest person with a net worth estimated at $5.8 billion, according to Wealth-X, an international wealth intelligence firm.

I think it's terribly divisive to make a point of wealth disparity, but then, you're reading this, aren't you?

Credit Suisse Data from 2000-2014, shows how the bottom 99% has been losing wealth over the past decade or so, and the top 1% has been gaining.

And then here's the depressing kicker: "If this trend continues, of an increasing wealth share to the richest, the top 1% will have more wealth than the remaining 99% of the people in just two years ... with the wealth share of the top 1% exceeding 50% by 2016, said Oxfam International, a poverty fighting organization.

William F. Dart experimented with and perfected an expandable polystyrene (EPS) molding process, and shipped their first insulated foam cups in April 1960. The firm bought rival Solo in 2012.

Based in Mason, Ingham County, Michigan, the Dart firm has four corporate offices, 30 domestic manufacturing locations and 13 international plants. It is the largest plastic cup manufacturer in the world. No doubt we all used one of the Dart cups this morning.

Mr. Dart renounced his U.S. citizenship (his brother Robert did the same) in 1995 and now lives on Grand Cayman Island (I can't imagine why?). But he is still listed as a Michiganian, or to be more to the point, a Michigander even though he is no longer an American, by his own choice.

The Cayman Financial Review Magazine profiled Dart recently: "Most people know the Dart family made its money, at least originally, as the company that first manufactured the foam cup. However, many people don't know how the Darts ended up with so much investment in the Cayman Islands.

"In the early 1990s, Kenneth Dart, along with his brother and parents, visited Grand Cayman and, impressed with what they found, returned regularly.

"Seeing the advantages of operating his corporate and investment offices in Cayman, Dart established companies here and set up the Dart Group." The Darts hired executives from back home: Jim Lammers (Michigan Law School) and Mark VanDevelde (MSU) to run it for them.

The Dart Group now owns half the island, it seems, and revels in the thought of it, although the locals say he doesn't want economic control of the island.

Cayman legislator Ezzard Miller has often criticized the Dart Group because of its involvement in buying sovereign debt, namely Russia and Argentina.

That shouldn't bother U.S. legislators much. What they should consider is the firm's tax manipulations and checkered record in compliance with U.S. laws.

According to news media sources cited by Wikipedia, in 2001 the US Internal Revenue Service said the Dart brothers improperly billed $11.6 million of personal security costs to Dart Container. In U.S. Tax Court, Dart Container argued the money was a valid business expense due to "specific threats and other facts and circumstances". Half the money went for corporate aircraft. The IRS asked for $4 million more for 1996 and 1997 taxes. In 2003 the Internal Revenue Service took the brothers to court, saying they owed an additional $19 million in 1998 and 1999 taxes. In 2002 the Dart brothers and their companies paid $26 million in back taxes.

Even Argentina got on their case. In May 2013, fifty agents of the Argentine tax authority raided the local Dart Container subsidiary Dart Sudamericana SRL on alleged tax evasion charges. The tax authority claimed that the firm imported polystrene beads at inflated prices, thus avoiding taxable gains through the unfair transfer pricing scheme.

Not to worry, Dart is an outstanding corporate citizen. Every year they give 5 million foam cups to the American Red Cross.



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Dave Rogers

Dave Rogers is a former editorial writer for the Bay City Times and a widely read,
respected journalist/writer in and around Bay City.
(Contact Dave Via Email at carraroe@aol.com)

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