Barca’s Barbados Connections

Barca's Barbados Connections

A new report from Politico reveals extreme Democrat Peter Barca led a company that was registered in Barbados to avoid paying higher taxes, and he voted to raise taxes on middle-class Wisconsinites.

"Peter Barca will do anything to avoid paying taxes for himself and his elitist friends, but he is quick to raise taxes on hardworking Wisconsinites. He's nothing more than a tax-and-spend liberal who is too extreme for Southeast Wisconsin."- NRCC Spokesman Mike Marinella

Read more from the Politico here or see excerpts below.

BARCA'S BARBADOS CONNECTIONS
Politico
Daniel Lippman
October 15, 2024

The former company of Peter Barca, a Democratic congressional candidate who is running as a candidate trying to cut taxes for families in Wisconsin, was registered in the offshore tax haven of Barbados, Daniel reports.

- Aurora Associates International, a former development project management firm where Barca worked for 15 years starting in August 2003, is listed in the "Paradise Papers" as having registered in Barbados the month before, according to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists' Offshore Leaks Database. His name is not listed as an officer of the company among five names in the Paradise Papers, one of them being Robert Walker, who was CEO and board chair at the time.

- At Aurora, Barca was first vice president and later bought and became president of the company, which has worked in more than 25 countries. He led the company's projects in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, including Vietnam, India and Tajikistan. Aurora worked with the U.S. Agency for International Development for many years and touted its positive performance review from them as a contractor, according to archived versions of its old website.

- In 2017, the Paradise Papers revealed how politicians from around the world, multinational companies and wealthy people used small offshore islands to hide their money from higher-tax countries.

- Barca, who is only three points behind Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) in a new DCCC poll, has supported higher taxes multiple times in his political career, including supporting a Wisconsin gas tax hike in 2019 and voting against former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's $504 million tax cut proposal in 2014.

- Barca, who served as a congressperson for a term in the 1990s, also voted to approve the 1994 Clinton budget, which the American Conservative Union called the "largest tax increase in U.S. history." The budget raised taxes by $241 billion although the vast majority of that new money came from people who made more than $100,000 a year.

- Tax hikes in the package included raising the portion of Social Security benefits for wealthy beneficiaries that was subject to taxation, removing the ceiling on the Medicare payroll tax and raising income taxes for those in the top income tax bracket.

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Read more here.