13 percent is similar to the tax rates he’s actually disclosed for 2010 and 2011.
I continue to be baffled by Team Romney’s treatment of this issue. Let’s say that Romney is absolutely telling the truth right now. What in the world does he gain by saying this rather than releasing the returns?
The speculations about the returns are threefold:
- That Romney paid low taxes relative to his income,
- That Romney paid no taxes, and
- That Romney was involved with something shady, illegal, or ugly (that may or may not be covered by 1 or 2).
If he could clear up all three by releasing the returns, he should. Instead, he is admitting to 1 (and already had in the previous release) and leaving 2 and 3 out there, but with added impetus behind them now because 1 is no longer on the table.
I just don’t get it.
I have a cousin who is fairly well-off, and whose income comes mainly from investments. He is forever bitching about how much tax he pays. But when you try to pin him down to the percentage, he gets a bit slippery. He’ll quote a percentage, but when you ask him if that includes just federal and provincial tax, he’ll evade the question.
It’s pretty apparent that he’s including property tax, school tax, sales tax, hotel tax, liquor tax, tobacco tax, any fee charged to him by any government such as driver license fees, recycling fees etc. etc. in his calculation and reports of “how much tax he pays”
I suspect that Romney is doing a similar thing with his “13%” answer.
I’m also confident that Romney took advantage of legal loopholes or a legal tax amnesty for non-reported overseas money. Either of these things (while perfectly legal) would certainly provide “'ammunition” (as Ann Romney put it herself) for his opponents to use against him. The general public would not warm up much to a guy who used tax avoidance techniques that are unavailable to the great unwashed masses.
Also, shining a massive spotlight on these tax avoidance techniques might just lead to a huge voter wave of sentiment that these techniques (or loopholes) should be the first ones abolished when looking at ways to balance the budget. Do you think Romney’s supporters want that to happen?
“Also, shining a massive spotlight on these tax avoidance techniques might just lead to a huge voter wave of sentiment that these techniques (or loopholes) should be the first ones abolished when looking at ways to balance the budget. Do you think Romney’s supporters want that to happen?”
Well, they shoulda thought about that before they…
wait, nevermind. It’s not like they had a lot of great alternatives…:rolleyes:
You convinced me.
I’m definitely not voting for Reid for President.
I’ve just thought of another reason. Romney doesn’t think the riff-raff - that is the 99% and those who don’t own Nascar teams - just don’t deserve to know the details of his finances. We should trust him that he is being honest, just like we should trust him to have a secret plan to end the war, I mean loopholes.
He is secretive because he’s rich. He is secretive from having grown up in a secretive religion.
Maybe we don’t have an Al Capone (tax avoider) on our hands, maybe we have another Tricky Dick.
Yeah, he may just believe that we don’t have the right and he might also believe that he is probably going to lose anyway barring some game changer, which his taxes are not them.
Romney said that the pursuit of his tax records reflects “small minds.” Maybe so, but I am sort of small-minded when it comes to judging the character of the man who would be my President, with his finger on the nuclear trigger. If you are going to hide your taxes from the public, what are you willing to hide in the future as president?
Uphill battle, sure. Sure he’s going to lose I don’t believe. It is close enough for him to have hope. If you have a strong ideological message you want to push then you fight on against impossible odds - but Romney doesn’t exactly have that.
The confusing part about their being something deadly in his returns is that he still tried to get the nomination knowing there was a good chance he’d be pressured to release them. That is the mark of someone definitely out of touch with reality, or the mark of the kind of criminal who does stupid things so he gets caught.
Thinking no one should care so no one would care about violating his privacy seems a tiny bit more plausible.
On the other hand he also picked Ryan. Maybe he didn’t enjoy being governor all that much, and he’d rather be a candidate than president. I just don’t have a rational non-idiotic reason for him refusing to release the returns.
He didn’t enjoy being governor enough to run for re-election. Or even show up regularly for the second half of the term he did serve.
If only there were a way …
Well he’s going hide anything he can get away with hiding. This is the governor that when he left office he took all the hard drives he could with him. He has a documented history of lying about his tax records.
Yet people wonder why we won’t take him at his word. Could it be he can’t open his mouth without lying?
Documented history of lying about his tax records? Where can I see the details of this?
Massachusetts has a residency requirement of 7 years living in the state to be eligible for governor. When he was running in Massachusetts he told reporters his primary residence was Massachusetts for 7 years. When this was investigated it turned out Romney did not file MA as his primary residence, filing Utah as his primary residence saved him a large sum of money. His tax filings were then retroactively amended to allow him to be eligible as governor.
He later claimed ignorance to this fact. So I guess you can argue he really didn’t know where he lived so he wasn’t lying.
When you have so many houses, it can be hard to remember where you live in them.
Yeah which also raises the question if you have so many houses why the hell are you living in your sons basement. Which, by the way, is where Mitt claimed he lived. Though he might of just been saying that to try and identify with the newly post graduate unemployed. Kinda like when he told the unemployed people ‘I’m unemployed too’
He may have figured that such pressure was irrelevant – refusing to release his tax returns wouldn’t make his skin turn black or anything like that…
When I saw that, and the specific request for five years, I wondered if they knew something. It may just be that they knew the Romney camp would likely decline, and the story would keep the issue fresh in the news. However, it seems like it could have been a risk - if the things that worry Romney happened more than 5 years ago, this would have been an easy way to take the issue off the table and look like less of a tool.