You guys are absolutely ridiculous. It just shows most of you are so low class as to have never had a complicated tax return. Anyone who isn’t part of the McDonald’s and Wal-Mart work force will often end up with complicated tax returns and income streams from many different sources. By IRS regulation all of these entities are supposed to mail your forms out to you by Jan. 31st, in practice I regularly don’t get everything in until March, that leaves a small window when talking about a complicated tax return.
Just the fact that Romney is using a CPA should tell you his returns aren’t anything like yours, most lower and middle class Americans don’t even need a CPA to do their returns (and a lot of the seasonal employees at places like Jackson Hewitt and H&R Block are not CPAs at all), major CPA firms regularly take extensions for filing taxes for wealthy people or large corporations. These aren’t simple returns so I find the fact that you guys think this is fishy to frankly be a sign of ignorance.
There’s also absolutely nothing immoral about asking for a tax extension, the extension is there for you to use it. Romney most likely has already made payments in excess of what he will owe because most higher income individuals will overpay a little bit when they get an extension.
But even if his accountants have lead him wrong and he underpaid a little bit, he’ll pay the difference at the end of the extension plus interest and any penalties–so it’s ludicrous to act like somehow asking for an extension is an immoral act.
Also, the Romneys have already paid $3.4m in estimated taxes for 2011, a number they have made public. I can bet that the final dollar amount of his taxes due won’t vary too much from that, so I think a fair picture of his income and taxes for 2011 is already available in any case. Further, just asking for an extension doesn’t have anything to do with when he releases his returns to the public, he can do that anytime he wants. I imagine if he’s going to release them publicly (and he has said he will) he wants to release absolutely accurate returns. Because people like BobLibDem will probably say it is evidence Romney kills babies and steals money from the blind if he released a premature return without all of the information at hand and later had to revise it publicly.
Exactly what I was going to say. It might be perfectly reasonable, in ordinary circumstances, for Romney to file for an extension. But given that he’s running for President, it’s politically stupid. He’s just guaranteeing that his income tax filing is going to be an issue, one way or the other, two weeks before the election. That’s not a topic he really wants people thinking about in the voting booth.
Yes, exactly, you’ve hit the nail right on the head. Mitt Romney isn’t like us. That’s the whole point. That’s why he doesn’t want people thinking about his income tax returns.
Yeesh almighty. Ignorance on the SDMB truly knows no bounds. He is probably not filing simply because he doesn’t have all of the info necessary to file.
If you think Romney should file on time, then give me a numerical answer to the following: 2+x=? Is it 32? 4? 127? If you don’t have a numerical answer, then it must mean you are hiding something and are not answering only for political purposes :rolleyes:
There is nothing wrong with Romney filing for an extension. However, if he’s using that as a fig leaf for not publically releasing his tax return, that’s a political loser
It’s hard to understand why Romney is delaying the release of his tax returns. My guess is that his return relies on tax strategies and shelters that, while legal, are so exotic that they amplify his diconnection from average Americans. Still, better to get beat up on that now rather than October.
Obama released his tax returns this past week, and aside from the sheer amount of income reported they looked alot like a typical middle-class tax return. When Romney releases his, I’m sure we’re going to hear a lot about aristocratic tax dodges like the carried interest rule and obscure gift tax exemptions for the wealthy.
This is the point that makes me wonder. Romney’s tax returns have already been an issue. Filing for an extension may be perfectly legal (and as far as I’ve heard, everything he’s done with his taxes in the past has also been legal). But it throws fuel on an existing fire. It creates the impression that Romney has something to hide.
It can’t be concern over the primary fight. Romney has the nomination locked up at this point.
So maybe he’s trying for a gotcha. As I said, Romney’s tax returns have already become an issue. Maybe he’s deliberately trying to feed this in hopes that the Obama campaign will go overboard in speculating what’s in his 2011 returns. They may make accusations through the summer, setting up Romney to release his returns in October and reveal that he paid a whole bunch of taxes and did nothing questionable.
An extension does not mean tax payments are not due on 4/17/12. He still owes his taxes in by that date or he will pay penalties. In fact, the guy pays quarterly estimated taxes, so he will also make his first estimated 2012 tax payment on 4/17/12.
It doesn’t matter how great his tax accountant is or how much he pays him; nothing can help getting in information late. Notably, we know that Romney invests in partnerships. K-1s are due to be received by partners on 4/17/12. For large partnerships, they are due 3/15/12. I just received my final K-1 on 4/13/12. How do you people expect someone to file their final tax return if they don’t even get all of the information until up to the date of the deadline? IRS Calendar
As already stated above, the IRS provides an automatic extension of six months. There’s not even a spot on the form to request a 3-month extension versus a 6-month extension. Form 4868
This is a minor political problem for Romney because the majority of people are either uninformed about the facts or too stupid to understand them.
Also, it’s worth pointing out that Romney has released an estimate of his 2011 return. It can be found here: 2011 Estimated Return
And, his 2010 return was filed on 10/15/11. It can be found here: 2010 Return Scroll down to the 6th page to see it dated by his tax preparer (PWC) on 10/15/11. He probably files it by the extension deadline every year.
Almost all of Romney’s fortune is held in blind trusts so it’s not like he’s able to help prepare his taxes anyway. It’s not like his CPA keeps calling trying to get a few 1099s he’s missing.
That said, I don’t personally care about his taxes.
Politically I think he should either have filed on time or file long before Oct 15. It seems sort of silly to pretend it’s likely his CPA firm was just busy. He has tens of millions of dollars and is the presumptive nominee for the presidency, I bet he could have gotten them to rush if he wanted. He’s better off getting it out of the way; most everyone will forget by November.
LN, that’s some of the worse political analysis ive read here. Romney would not expect obama to say anything about the extension because for obama to do so would be stupid for the reasons we’ve discussed in this thread.
That doesn’t change the fact that people do very much vote for the most likable person, and that people tend to like people who are like themselves.
And if Romney were in touch with the people, he’d know this would likely be a problem and could have headed it off. Assuming as everyone says that he has a legitimate reason for the delay (besides collecting interest on the money not paid, of course), then it would have made political sense to get that information out there before the story broke.
As it is, I personally don’t get why there are institutions that can’t give their 2011 financial information by the end of the year. Why do they get to come after the tax deadline? That information should have to be available before filing. It’s not like your taxes include information up until midnight April 18.
If Romney were just a poor, ordinary Presidential candidate (net worth $5 million or so) no one would care. If Romney had released his previous returns, no one would care. But the 2010 return had to be dragged out of him, and he still hasn’t released the previous returns, so it looks suspicious.
All he has to do is promise to file and release the returns by June sometime (I bet his CPA would give him priority) and there would be no controversy.
As it stands, I bet he doesn’t want that 14% tax rate brought up again while he is campaigning on how reducing taxes on rich people like him would make the economy whole again.
Well technically the two posts I was thinking of were talking about the brokerages. But it’s not a big point. I’m just saying it’s not likely the Romney campaign had a conversation where they said “well PWC hasn’t quite figured out these 1099s, so let’s file for the extension.” If it was important to them politically they’d have gotten the work done.
Like has already been said, this is not Romney not paying his 2011 taxes on time; it is not filing the final return on time. The actual tax payments are still due and presumably will be paid by the 4/17/12 deadline. If not, he will pay a penalty.
Because it is not just financial information. Some of what he is waiting on are the tax returns of companies. If you own an interest in a partnership, the information you need to file your tax returns is based upon their tax returns. Until their returns are ready to be filed, yours cannot logically be ready to be filed. Theirs aren’t due until 4/17. It really is just a waiting game.