Surprise! President Obama’s new Treasury Secretary nominee, Jack Lew, had up to $100,000 in investment in an offshore tax haven in the Cayman Islands. The investment fund “home” was a PO Box.

As I said when President Obama first nominated Jack Lew for Treasury Secretary, Lew is part of the banking problem, not the solution. Jack Lew may not have dumped as much money into offshore locations as, say, Mitt Romney, but like many others from the banking world, he was using the tax-avoidance tools mostly available to only 1% types.

Lew didn’t create the offshore fund, but you have to love that once again, Citi – the bank that loves taxpayer money so much it’s practically addicted to it – offers easy ways for employees to once again avoid paying their fair share to the country that kept them alive to the tune of $336.1 billion.

This is another example of what the President says (said) he wants to shut down, but then reinforces:

A political ad targeting Republican candidate Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential campaign asked, “Why would Mitt Romney invest millions in the Cayman Islands?”

Because he wanted to be Obama’s Treasury Secretary?

Take a guess how this is all going to work out.

NBC News:

Jack Lew, President Barack Obama’s Treasury Secretary nominee, previously held up to $100,000 in investments in an offshore hedge fund located in the Cayman Islands, according to financial disclosure forms. Lew’s financial disclosure forms, filed in 2009 and 2011, showed that Lew had invested between $50,000 and $100,000 in a fund called Citigroup Venture Capital International Growth Partnership (Employee) II, L.P. — the very type of fund President Obama has repeatedly criticized. The fund is an international venture capital fund for employees of Citigroup. According to his official White House biography, Lew served as managing director and chief operating officer of Citi Global Wealth Management and then Citi Alternative Investments (CAI) from 2006 to 2008.

It’s bad enough that Lew “doesn’t believe that deregulation was the proximate cause” of the banking collapse of 2008, but now we know he was using offshore accounts to avoid paying US taxes. Some things just don’t change in Washington. And they really should.