Romney as Audit Chair Oversaw Marriott 'Fictitious Schemes' (IRS) and 'Expensive Hoax' and 'Scam's (John McCain)

Romney as Audit Chair Saw Marriott Son of BOSS Shelter Defy IRS - Bloomberg 

"...During Romney’s tenure as a Marriott director, the company repeatedly utilized complex tax-avoidance maneuvers, prompting at least two tangles with the Internal Revenue Service, records show. In 1994, while he headed the audit committee, Marriott used a tax shelter known to attorneys by its nickname: “Son of BOSS.”

A federal appeals court invalidated the maneuver in a 2009 ruling, siding with the U.S. Department of Justice, which called Marriott’s transaction and attempted tax benefits “fictitious,” “artificial,” “spectral,” an “illusion” and a “scheme.”

During Romney’s years on the board, Marriott’s effective tax rate dipped as low as 6.8 percent, compared with the federal corporate statutory rate of 35 percent...

In 2004, Marriott’s tax planning drew the ire of Senator John McCain. Marriott received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal tax credits meant to promote so-called synthetic fuel through a business purchased by Marriott in 2001 while Romney sat on the board’s audit committee.

“One of the greatest beneficiaries of this tax shelter -- and that is all that it is, a tax shelter -- is a very profitable hotel chain: Marriott,” McCain said at the time. He called the program an “expensive hoax” and a “scam.”