poll to come
Taxers… the new birthers.
I think it is possible he took part in the 2009 federal tax amnesty program and doesn’t want to reveal it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/18/business/global/18irs.html?_r=1
I agree. I think this was the original reason he didn’t want to release his taxes. At this point, though, I suspect pride factors in, too: after making such a huge deal about how he doesn’t need to release any more returns, Romney probably thinks folding at this point would look weak.
Am I being whooshed here?
Has he tried pointing out that no-one else does including his main accusers and that being a tax cheat didn’t stop Geithner becoming Treasury Secretary?
Guess it must be something big then. I’ll go the 2010 voter fraud angle.
It could be any of the top 5, and I voted them all. It is not due to and moral or privacy concerns. If he paid more than 13% and tithed, he is waiting to reveal them as some sort of October Surprise, so he can go “see? What was all that fuss about? Why didn’t you trust me?”
It really doesn’t have to be all that scandalous. Romney just ended up in a bad year for this issue. Before Romney got the nomination the tax disparity issue was on the table, whether in pop culture (Buffet/secretary thing) or in actual (albeit largely missing) tax policy debates.
Even if all they showed were similar rates (or even slightly higher) to the one he did reveal he’s going to look bad. His “they just want to make political hay out of it” has some basis–although unlike flag pins, this is a central election issue of of actual heft.
Only by the Obama campaign that keeps trying its hardest to make this an issue.
I saw a reportshowing he tithed a bit less than 10% and also a foundation he funds and controls donated a similar amount to his church.
So I chose “other”. He paid his taxes, whatever they were, and tithed about 20% of income.
Mr. Romney has few topics about which he can now speak. One by one, the substantive topics for debate are disappearing, deemed too problematic for the Romney campaign to address. Business acumen, experience as governor, US Olympics, Romney budget, women’s issues, immigration reform, all toxic.
Mr. Romney is reduced to dragging out the birther baggage to pad his stump speeches and give his base a few crumbs. And to call attention away from his flip-flopping on all important issues.
But what is the single issue on which Mr. Romney has never flip-flopped? He stands doggedly firm on never, under any circumstances, releasing his tax returns.
Why?
It is not just liberals who want to see Romney’s tax returns.
It is 63% of American voters who do.
The longer Mr. Romney delays, the more suspicious it appears.
Obama released 8 years of tax returns
GW Bush 10 years
Clinton 12 years
GHW Bush 14 years
George Romney 12 years.
What is there to hide?
Release the tax returns, Mr. Romney.
Birthers alleged that that Obama was not born in the United States. Despite this being a ludicrous charge that no other presidential candidate has ever been subject to, Obama immediately responded to it decisively by releasing his birth certificate. “Taxers”, as you call us, “allege” that Romney has not released his tax forms. Despite this being absolutely true and something that all recent presidential candidates have done, Romney has refused to respond to it decisively be releasing his tax forms. The two situations are as unlike as it is possible for them to be.
He doesn’t want to release his taxes because the general public is fundamentally unaware of how the wealthy game the tax system, and his returns would very directly open up the discussion that he doesn’t want.
I really dislike the way he is using tithing as an excuse for not releasing the returns. The fact that he is required to give 10% makes it less of an issue for him to release the returns than someone who is not a Morman, and whose charitable donations might therefore vary widely and be more controversial. Unless, of course, he is not tithing 10%, in which case he is putting his concerns about his church above the interests of the American people. I was far less interested in his returns before he started focusing on the tithing.
I put “paid zero in taxes one year”, though I used that for more of a stand-in for “paid an effective tax rate of 1%ish in federal taxes in 2008 or 2009”. Most of his income is from investments, and he apparently carried losses from 2009 to 2010. Since you don’t get taxed for selling investments with a negative return, and a lot of peoples investments had negative returns in those two years due to the Recession, it seems pretty plausible.
Recall he was also self-financing much of his own primary campaign in 2008, so its easy to see where he might have needed to sell a lot of stuff at a loss to replenish his bank-accounts.
I like this explanation because it involves the last few years (one imagines if there was a problem with his returns further back then that, he’d at least release returns for the last few years) and it doesn’t require Romney to have done something stupid at a time he knew he’d be running for President.
And its something that seems like it could be damaging enough that he’d be willing to take the PR-hit of not releasing his returns in order to hide it. Just using a bunch of loop-holes doesn’t seem like it would be worth not releasing, as specific loop-holes are going to be complicated to explain to the public. “Romney paid 0% in taxes” however, is easy to make into a soundbite, would be damaging to the Romney’s image and feeds into Obama’s wider campaign narrative.
How does the math work out here? If the funds of the foundation count toward his tithing, they should count toward his income, as well. Unless of course the returns that the foundation had were substantially lower than his personal income.
I am not voting on this poll because I don’t know. We can all guess, but that is all we can do. I do notice that he and his wife always refer to “taxes” and not “income taxes”. I would like reporting to be less sloppy, so the candidate should be asked how much in “Federal Income taxes” he has paid. I do believe full disclosure for the office is a prerequisite and from what has been reported, his own father did release many years above and beyond what was needed. I don’t blame people for assuming the worst, but that can be human nature.
If its the strange case of his shifting residency, then that becomes a matter of VOTER FRAUD! And as the discerning reader is well aware, VOTER FRAUD! is the Number Two threat to the Republic, just behind Cognitive Dissonance! Our sacred and precious confidence of the electorate is at risk here, and if Romney is guilty of VOTER FRAUD!, he must commit sepukku and hand his nomination over to his VP candidate.
Given the Republican Party’s firm and resolute commitment to wiping out VOTER FRAUD! in our time, I am confident of their whole-hearted support.
Probably nothing illegal but full of tax dodges, off shore shenanigans and possibly the Swiss tax amnesty. His effective tax rate could easily be in the single digits some years.
Key point being that Romney has been preparing to run for at least a decade, but hasn’t bothered to “sanitize” his taxes so that they look good for a Presidential run. This speaks unflattering volumes about Romney and casts doubts on how effective of a President he would be given the sheer hubris this displays
Other (took the 2009 amnesty offer).