The Nation: Mitt Romney Mishandles The Tax Issue

[ProSense]

The Nation: Mitt Romney Mishandles The Tax Issue

by Ben Adler

The left and the right don't agree on much, but increasingly they agree on one thing: Mitt Romney is completely failing to address public concerns that he may have a shady personal and professional history of tax avoidance. (Romney refuses to release more than his returns from 2010 and 2011.) Liberals and conservatives have different reasons for taking this view.

Liberals believe that Romney's established history of using foreign bank accounts to shelter money and bet against the dollar, as well as his bizarre history of being paid by Bain Capital long after he supposedly stopped working there, raises valid questions about Romney's values and potential conflicts of interest. Therefore, the public has a right to know what else is in Romney's financial history. How much lower has his tax rate been than of the average working stiff? How much does he give to charity? How did he amass a preposterously large IRA?

Conservatives, on the other hand, are mostly just concerned that Romney is making a political error. He already is perceived by much of the public as an out-of-touch fatcat. Every day Romney is forced to play defense on his secretiveness is a day he spends reminding people that he is far richer than they are and still pays a lower tax rate, since his income is mostly capital gains. He, and his supporters, would rather he was talking about the high rate of unemployment. If Romney is going to ultimately cave on his taxes anyway, he would do better to get them out now, while swing voters are not yet paying close attention to the campaign, than in September or October.

Presidential candidates always release several years of tax returns. Romney's father George set the modern precedent, with twelve years, in 1968. On Thursday morning ABC's Robin Roberts asked Ann Romney — noting that Obama released seven years of returns and both Bushes at least ten — why her husband won't follow the bipartisan tradition. Romney offered at first the completely irrelevant talking point that they tithe to their church and that Mitt chose to forgo a salary as governor of Massachusetts. When pressed by Curry, she admitted that they fear there will be fodder for attacks in their tax history.

- more -

http://www.npr.org/2012/07/23/157220903/the-nation-mitt-romney-mishandles-the-tax-issue

OOPS! Mitt's 2010 Tax Returns NOT Fully Disclosed
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002969609

[rfranklin]

1. Had an argument about this with a guy who is ashamed to admit he's a Republican...

His answer: "Why hasn't Nancy Pelosi released her tax returns?"

He argued that it was the same thing until he was red faced. I kept saying that when she was running for President I would demand that she release her tax returns. Nope, she has to release them now. Of course, we all know that she could release her tax returns and Romney would continue to stonewall but this has given the right wing a mental excuse for Romney's tax return evasion.

[ProSense]

2. Not only

"He argued that it was the same thing until he was red faced. I kept saying that when she was running for President I would demand that she release her tax returns."

...are they trying to distract with a false equivalency, but it's also like the public disclosure required of members of Congress is more information than Romney has released to date.

When Boehner, Cantor, Issa and the other Republican members of Congress agree to and release their tax returns, then I'll call on Pelosi to release hers.

[rfranklin]

3. Actually it should be up to the voters in each district to determine if they want to see returns...

Those are the people that Congresspeople are responsible to. In the case of a Presidential candidate, it is the entire electorate.