Yup. It’s a tradition dating to George Romney’s presidential campaign.
Romney’s version is that he went on leave in 1999, and some people who were involved with Bain support that version. There were also some contemporaneous claims (i.e. from 2000 to 2002) that he was still involved with the business. Rather than return from leave, he retired in 2002. I’ve seen claims that he used his ties to Bain to help establish residency in Massachusetts, although I’m not sure how that works.
Yes and no. On the one hand, who cares how much the candidate is worth, but on the other, tax policy and income inequality are major issues and personal integrity have to count for something.
That’s one reason, as his primary opponents pointed out, NOT to nominate a rich businessman as your Presidential candidate. Remember Gingrich making a to-do aboiut his Swiss bank accounts, and his Cayman Island tax shelters? Voters don’t want someone who pays very little in taxes in charge of tax policy. So unless Romney can show that he understands our pain in paying taxes, voters are dubious about putting him charge. You want to convince the average American you understand his problems? Then be something like the average American–if not, your opponent’s going to make something out of how your values got formed.
i asked a tax accountant. he said it is possible that he had zero tax liability or got a return in some of the years. either would not go over well with electorate.
he used his business meetings with bain and family holiday things i.e. christmas, vacations, long weekends, etc, to prove that even though he was spending a huge block of time in slc, he was just “commuting”, and really lived in mass.
Yes, he was trying to have it both ways–he was working like a dog in SLC, a more than full-time job, AND he was living full-time in MA, to prove which he cited all the business meetings he was attending to help run a company he was completely disengaged from. The kind of thing you;'d get away with probably, providing you don’t want to be POTUS, when that sort of fuzzy math tends to get scrutinized.
And he was coordinating the Olympics as well, right? I don’t know…maybe he IS the right man for the job. He’s superman, able to work multiple challenging jobs at once AND outsource, offshore, downsize and make a profit too! Wow…
Well, since Romney hasn’t even released ALL of his 2010 tax return (and a 2011 estimate doesn’t count for squat)… I say we all get to speculate. So here’s mine:
(a).1 - Worse yet, he's now heavily invested in Chinese wind turbines!
(b) He did pay lower taxes, even no taxes in some years. It took everything he had to get his 2010 tax rate up to 14%!
(c) He did take advantage of the Swiss bank account amnesty program (meaning he was a tax cheat)
(d) His 401 account has been funded through dirty (but legal) self-dealing where he loaned money to his own off shore corporations at super insane interest rates.
(e) Wall Street has threatened him. If he releases much more in the way of tax returns, the general public will come to truly understand that the “tax rate” is not what rich people are actually paying AND his returns will point out several loopholes that the public might clamor to have closed off.
(f - optA) He was once a multi-billionaire and lost a lot of it in the 2008 crash, and all the other hedge fund managers will snicker at him
(f - optB) He shorted the US mortgage market and GM to the max (making his “let foreclosures hit bottom” statement and his “let GM go bankrupt” op-ed a bit self-serving)
(g) He a heavy trader in oil futures through his off shore companies and non-end-user trading has been shown to contribute to the high price of fuels and that would make his willingness to threaten to pick fights with Iran self serving.
I agree. It’s also has to be bad enough that he isn’t going to make up a cover story and get the bad news out of the way. And if he releases anything late in the game, it would have to be pretty freakin’ bad before the people who already planned to vote for him at that point change their minds. Worst case of a late release for him is a low turn-out.
What politician hasn’t committed voter fraud? Almost none of them live where they vote and Dick Lugar claimed an address that wasn’t his “for voting purposes”. the fraud is so casual in the political class and the authorities are uninterested in pursuing it.
From my understanding of how voting laws work, you can register anywhere that you can plausibly claim a connection, even if you haven’t lived there in years. that looseness is probably intended for expatriates and soldiers, but anyone can use it, so long as they don’t vote twice.
Here’s a linkto the NY Times Op-ed by Michael J. Graetz, a professor of tax law at Columbia, was the deputy assistant Treasury secretary for tax policy from 1990 to 1991, and an assistant to the Treasury secretary in 1992, under the first President Bush. Professor Graetz lays out the major things that might be embedded in the tax returns. It’s a great and short read. The items are (some are my paraphrase and some are quotes):
Maybe took part in the IRS amnesty for Swiss Bank accounts (but Graetz does not think this one is plausible)
IN 2009 Romney paid less than the 13.9% paid in 2010. Possibly legal but probably politically unpalatable
“Putting business assets into an individual retirement account invested in a Cayman Islands corporation allows Mr. Romney to avoid the “unrelated business income tax” — a 35 percent levy — on at least some of his I.R.A.’s earnings”
“The I.R.A. also allows Mr. Romney to diversify his large holdings tax-free, avoiding the 15 percent tax on capital gains that would otherwise apply. His financial disclosure further reveals that his I.R.A. freed him from paying currently the 35 percent income tax on hundreds of thousands of dollars of interest income each year”
Given his IRA is worth $20-100 million (and can only put in $30-50k per year), the presumption is “that Mr. Romney valued the assets he put in his retirement account at far less than he would have sold them for.”
“Mr. Romney’s Cayman Islands and Bermuda corporations also probably allowed him to avoid limitations on deductions for investment expenditures that would otherwise apply.”
Grossly undervalued “gifts” to a trust set up for his kids. This one could result in massive IRS penalties since this is now valued at $100 million, while the IRS limit is $1 million
His father ran for President and made of point of sharing 12 years worth of returns. From wiki: His subsequent release of his federal tax returns – twelve years’ worth going back to his time as AMC head – was unprecedented and established a practice that future presidential candidates would follow.
The Senate typically requires more than 2 years for confirmation to a cabinet or even a subcabinet post.
IMHO the President should be held to the highest standards of the land. Romney has been thinking about running for President at least since he was Governor. He sure as hell shouldn’t be a candidate if he hadn’t cleaned up his tax returns way back then. Looks like he arrogantly didn’t and now he’s between a rock and a hard place. I hope he gets hoisted by his own petard on this. Candidates to become the most powerful person in the world should be able to stand the scrutiny of at least a decades worth of tax returns.
I guess the question is which of the possibilities are more damaging then the flack he’s getting from not releasing his returns.
This one would certainly be a big enough deal that he would try and cover it up. But it would require him to have been pretty stupid.
I think it would need to be a rate not just lower then 13.9%, but much lower to make hiding it worth the flack he’s getting for not releasing his returns. People already know he pays a lower then average tax rate. I don’t think they care if its 10% or 13.9%. But something really low like 0-5% would be worth hiding.
These four seem too technical to be worth hiding. People already know about the IRA accounts and that he’s using those and other mechanisms to pay a low effective tax rate. The exact mechanism by which he’s able to avoid taxes might be of interest to people who are following the story, but I don’t think it would really get the attention of swing voters. “He won’t release his tax returns” is something relatively unengaged voters can understand and get angry about, “The I.R.A. also allows Mr. Romney to diversify his large holdings tax-free, avoiding the 15 percent tax on capital gains that would otherwise apply.” is just blahblahblah.
This would be a good one, as its simple enough for unengaged voters to understand, and would be pretty obviously illegal. But the trust was set up in 1995. Even if this is true, he could release twelve years of tax returns and not reveal it.
Really? Even if there isn’t anything interesting in them, releasing them will ensure that Romney’s taxes become the story lead campaign story for at least a day or two. Do it now and no one will remember by November. Doing it in October, when people that only pay attention to the campaign during the few weeks before they have to vote are finally making up their minds, just seems like it’ll maximize the prominence of the “Romney pays a lower taxrate then you” in voters minds as they go to the polls.
The smart thing to do would be to tell his accountant to hurry up, and release them during the Democratic Convention.
The smarter thing to do (if you really are concerned about what’s in them) is to say you’ll release them in October and then come up with a reason not to (or to release only partial information) and run out the clock.
That would make it an even bigger issue, three weeks before people go to the polls. If he’s going to renege on his promise, he’d be better off announcing it now.
Now there’s a quality relevant to being the president. “We’re expanding our tax base to Monacans and Monegasque!”
Also, you’re all overlooking the most obvious explanation. Romney gave 100% of his income to Oxfam for those years and ate millet. He wants to surprise everyone with this revelation come election time.
