Hey, guess what! Mitt Romney has not released his full tax records for 2010! So that means he released partial returns for one year. ONE YEAR.
::snicker::
He is withholding a crucial document called Report on Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts, or “FBAR” as accounting nerds call it.
In January 2012, when Romney released his 2010 tax return, voters found out for the first time that Romney had a Swiss bank account and that he was stashing money in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. This FBAR form (which Romney most likely filed because not filing it carries a hefty fine) would provide American voters with additional details about his overseas bank holdings.
Why hasn’t he released that form? Because his campaign is FBAR***, that’s why.
[full post here]
r€nato
there’s fucking dynamite in there, no question of it.
I went long on Orville Redenbacher today.
Mitt Romney: Exhibit A of how Occupy has been proved fucking right.
eric
the only reason this race is close is that the GOP has sabotaged all legislative attempts at getting the economy going. It really is that simple. Otherwise, its globetrotters over the generals in a laugher.
AkaDad
If Romney doesn’t release his tax returns, it will be the first time he doesn’t change his stance on an issue.
burnspbesq
Technically, an FBAR isn’t a tax form. Although it’s filed with the IRS, the authority to require it is found in the Bank Secrecy Act, not the Internal Revenue Code.
Beginning with 2011 returns, US individual taxpayers that have an ownership interest in or signature authority over a foreign bank or securities account are required to attach Form 8938 to their Form 1040. Romney’s Form 8938 should make for interesting reading.
flukebucket
@eric: Their goal was a one term Presidency and they have pulled out all of the stops. If those guys worked as hard for the country as they did against it we would all be farting through silk instead of that old shit stained rotten cotten.
wrb
@AkaDad:
Which will PROVE that he’s inconsistent.
flukebucket
@eric: Their goal was a one term Presidency and they have pulled out all of the stops. If those guys worked as hard for the country as they did against it we would all be farting through silk instead of that old shit stained rotten cotton.
Zifnab
@eric: That would be true no matter who the GOP ran. Rmoney is running as the “Not Obama” candidate the same way John Kerry ran as “Not Bush”. The only way that play works is if the public hates the incumbent. If Mitt somehow squeaks out a win, it will be because of dissatisfaction with Obama. This is a fun dog-and-pony show, but I doubt it will swing the key “I don’t pay attention to politics” voting block every election seems to hinge on.
flukebucket
@eric: Their goal was a one term Presidency and they have pulled out all of the stops. If those guys worked as hard for the country as they did against it we would all be farting through silk instead of that old shit stained rotten cotton.
Culture of Truth
The Senate has blocked a Democratic tax proposal designed to make it more difficult for companies to move jobs out of the country and easier to bring jobs to the U.S. The vote was 56 in favor, 42 against.
Bulworth
Ordinarily I wouldn’t care much about this, but since “47% of you people don’t pay income tax” is a recurring entry in the teabag litany of grievances it would seem only reasonable for their standard bearer to show us he’s taxed enough already.
wrb
@AkaDad:
Which will PROVE that he’s inconsistent.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
TPM is on the FBAR issue. Which means others (Sullivan, etc) will climb on the wagon soon enough.
Not having any foreign investments (to my knowledge), I didn’t even know what an FBAR was until someone here (burns, probably?) brought it up a few days ago.
Still wondering why there’s no apparent effect on poll data. Back in 2004, the Swift Boat ads went mainstream Aug 5th. If you look at charts of polls from that year, you see that Kerry was ostensibly ahead at that time. Afterwards, you can see the inflection point where his numbers at first flattened (by Aug 8th), then turned and stumbled until election day.
I’m no Nate Silver, but shouldn’t Romney’s numbers have started their flatten-and-turn right about now, if Bain, taxes, and Prancey_Dancey horses were going to have any effect?
Not concern-trolling, I’m pissed. Obama finally starts the richly-deserved (and well-executed) pummeling I’ve waited 3+ years to see… and it turns out that the little turnips out there just can’t be convinced.
Why is it that the working people who most need this President don’t seem to deserve him?
Bulworth
Ordinarily I wouldn’t care much about this, but since “47% of you people don’t pay income tax” is a recurring entry in the teabag litany of grievances it would seem only reasonable for their standard bearer to show us he’s taxed enough already.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
test.
jl
Well, if it’s NOT an official IRS form, then it doesn’t count, right?
And it is just about some piddly overseas bank accounts? What’s the fuss all about?
Not sure whether mentioning that the form is named FBAR is tearing it out of context, but it fits.
Willard will trot out his kids to give interviews about the FBAR, and unfairness of it all?
Edit: See, this is just the sort unpleasantness that Mrs. Romney was talking about. Common people are so rude!
Commenting at Balloon Juice Since 1937
Mittens isn’t currently a politician serving any elected office so why is his shit in a blind trust?
Culture of Truth
The Senate GOP has blocked a Democratic tax proposal designed to make it more difficult for companies to move jobs out of the country and easier to bring jobs to the U.S. The vote was 56 in favor and 42 against.
Tonal Crow
The link-fishing is once again becoming routine. Maybe we need to try the ABL 3.0 model.
Mattminus
@Tonal Crow:
Grifter gonna grift.
jl
TPM has a good story on the FBAR
TPM Editor’s Blog
Is the FBAR FUBAR?
Josh Marshall July 19, 2012
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/07/is_the_fbar_fubar.php
The story has an update saying that the FBAR is not technically part of the IRS return. Will there be a fight about whether the FBAR should be released? I sure hope so.
I like that it seems to be about UBS, so stories can include details about what a bad actor UBS was in the mortgage mess, and their interesting interactions with the US court system.
danielx
Let’s just go ahead and say Mittens’ campaign is FUBAR.
The WWII generation GIs did have a way with acronyms, didn’t they?
third of two
WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney has been determined to resist releasing his tax returns at least since his bid for Massachusetts governor in 2002 and has been confident that he will never be forced to do so, several current and former Bain executives tell The Huffington Post. Had he thought otherwise, say the sources based on their longtime understanding of Romney, he never would have gone forward with his run for president.
JC
You know, we can snark about the rethugs, again and again, but it really is simply amazing, that Romney is still, getting away with such basic lack of transparency.
Not to mention, the lie after lie after lie after lie, this guys tells.
He is a Gordon Gekko. Just a ‘nice’ Mormon one.
Which in a sense, makes him more successful, because no one wants to go after a ‘nice guy’, who remembers your birthday, and treats you well on a one on one basis.
But even while doing so, he’s spent 20 years outsourcing your company, burying it in leveraged debt, and generally extracting all productivity, for himself and his investors.
So nice Gordon Gekko, is in the end, just a more effective Gordon Gekko.
trollhattan
@Commenting at Balloon Juice Since 1937:
All together now, with feeling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50U-CauYBs8
General Stuck
I just want to take a second to admire how the Obama campaign has come out of the gate with a round house straight to Romney’s glass jaw. I didn’t expect such a thing, from a democrat, and not even Obama.
It is Bain on top, but also other things as well, like the dressage horse stuff, that is the sort of low ball the wingnuts are famous for. With dems then backing up a foot of two, into more normal terrain for democrats on these matters.
What that has done, has instantly put Romney on the defensive, and taken away any tactical advantage he might have had for grand gesture style of negative campaigning, and given Mitt’s response a reactionary perception that will last a while, maybe the whole campaign.
Besides the fact that it was directed at the heart of Romney’s self proclaimed qualification for president, It set the table for the issues for discussion after Labor Day by the candidates in the stretch run before the election. And Obama and co, pulling back some now and letting surrogates do the bobble head thing, should not leave a lasting mark on his own favorable poll numbers, and at once causing the wingers to convulse into saying shit like Sununu with the dog whistle blaring with racial tinge that is always just below the surface with the GOP.
Now we can let the past week or two percolate with the media and voters to roll around in the backs of their minds to be internalized and normalized as an issue, this info on who Romney is, and that he does not care for the little people, one whit, and never has. With this meme to be dragged out onto the convention floor in Charlotte, and beaten like a dead unicorn. And the wingers, with their convention already over, will chew their tongues off whilst the heads explode.
And that is just one morsel of oppo research, with almost certain surprises to come. This is basically what the goopers did in 2004, now the tables are turn about is fair play. Obama has been pretty well vetted, despite what the wingers say, and all they have is stale nonsense the voters weighed a long time ago before voting for Obama.
My name is Stuck, and my dog Charlie approved this message.
cat48
Nate says the polls are flat. They’re basically tied w/Obama 2 pts ahead in the majority of the polls over the last month. That USAToday/Gallup Poll showed that those people had noticed he wouldn’t release the ITR & that’s good b/c Obama can make him look shady & dodgy about his own Record.
I laugh every time I think that 15% thinks something is in the ITR that would make old Mitt not fit to be president. I didn’t even take the poll. heh
Obama will lose if he doesn’t get more money. After Mitt’s annointed then he can & will try to really damage Obama w/Ads. He has to be able to return Fire & Reserve airtime b/c they could do that soon.
IowaOldLady
In one of the odder turns of my personal history, my blue collar parents had a Swiss bank account. Not for much, mind you, just about the amount Mitt Romney might name for a casual bet. So sadly, what came to my sibs and me will not keep me in comfort in The Sunshine Home when the time comes.
My sibs and I only found out about it after my parents both died. Apparently, a Canadian uncle left some money to my parents and after the Canadian taxes were paid, an attorney cousin advised my parents to put it in Switzerland. How weird is that?
There. I disclosed and it was easy.
Lee
@r€nato: You need to go long on all corn.
The midwest is fucked
Individuals are reporting that it is even worse than the government is saying as they do not want to influence the election.
trollhattan
@cat48:
ZOMG, this sounds dangerously close to “UNLIMITED CORPORATE CAAAAASH!”
Anton Sirius
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God:
…which was after the DNC convention.
Just plain folks don’t pay attention much until the conventions.
jl
@cat48: You are not reading what I think is the most important bottom line number on fivethirtyeight blog.
Obama has a 67.9 percent chance of winning the electoral college vote, and that probability has been rising, not falling over the last 6 weeks. And I will very bravely go out on a limb and predict that it will take another little jump soon.
Chyron HR
@Mattminus:
I bet you cheered when Mitt stuck to to those gangsta thugs at the NAACP, too.
cat48
@trollhattan:
Per Dan Balz, Mitt isn’t worried about Obama b/c he can kill him later. Unfortunately, he’s not listening when people keep screaming he’s being defined. He thinks he’s smarter. We’ll see.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@JC:
Half the rubes aren’t paying attention.
The other half are so eager to bow and scrape before His Total Awesomeness, that they will forgive him anything.
jl
@trollhattan: Is cat48 one of our old friends? I had hoped they had left the blog and were out campaigning for Mitt full time. Would explain Obama’s increasing chances of winning election.
wrb
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God:
Because if it wern’t for this the economic news would have tanked Obama and all this is able to do is keep him in it?
MikeJ
@Commenting at Balloon Juice Since 1937:
Because blind trusts are an age old ruse?
liberal
@eric wrote,
Beg to differ.
While certainly the economy would be better off if the Republicans weren’t blocking all attempts to create more stimulus, do you really think the Democrats (as currently constituted) would pass anything like the stimulus measures required to really put a sizeable dent in the unemployment rate?
Of course, on the margin, stimulus measures likely to be approved by the Dems might slightly increase employment, thus slightly helping Obama, and would perhaps flip the election results, but the notion that if it weren’t for the Republicans we’d be well on the way to a truly healthy economy is laughable.
Lab Partner
All this effort to keep what’s in Romney’s tax returns hidden leads me to wonder if there’s something in them that could be used against Romney to blackmail him into doing something he otherwise wouldn’t do.
The Moar You Know
If I wanted shitty copy n’ paste jobs that could (and should) belong on the Huffington Post, I’d go there instead of here.
Guess the ABL chronicles isn’t pulling the big hit numbers.
cat48
@jl:
That’s important; but he can be badly damaged if he doesn’t have any ammunition. Since the prez is extremely concerned about Wall St & the Kochs taking him out. They truly hate him. He’s got a few bundlers left on Wall St, but Mitt has 300 to 400 Wall St bundlers from there included in his total 1200; plus his own personal wealth.
Obama’s much smarter & cunning than Mitt & Obama’s supposed to have many volumes of oppo research, but if you can’t get the message out; you could die. Very nervous about the $$$.
bemused
@third of two:
What? If true, Mitt got bad advice? Or he got good advice but arrogantly thought he could bluff and get a free pass? There are going to be multiple books written on this mess in the future. I wouldn’t be surprised if several are in the works now.
General Stuck
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God:
The Swift Boat ads were a completely contrived issue by the right wingers, and not a real issue that the media was at all involved in uncovering. So this gave Rove et al tactical freedom to roll it out when they wanted to.
The Bain stuff is a legitimate issue for the msm to uncover and report on their schedule that Obama does not control. This sort of thing may be better to unveil after the convention, or not. But being a legitimate issue that goes straight to Romney’s claim to being a better president than Obama on economic matters.
And being legit as a campaign issue, I think means it does not have much of a short shelf life, and can be reopened later, at and after the convention. Especially with the spectre of related tax returns that even many republicans are calling on Romney to release.
This is all good stuff for our side, and bad stuff for their side, and despite it all, this will likely be an even closer election than 2008. Shouldn’t be, but this is a very tribal country with favor toward the white party. At least in the here and now.
SatanicPanic
@cat48: To think I came here to get away from the hand wringing at the GOS. It followed me here!
Martin
LOL. Microsoft hires Mark Penn to be VP of Special and Strategic Projects.
Good news: Mark Penn won’t be around fucking up politics for a while. Thankfully Obama’s win seems to have dried up demand for his crap.
Bad news: Just when I thought Microsoft was on a bit of a positive roll, they up and trip over their own dick.
Tonal Crow
@liberal:
You have forgotten the debt ceiling debacle, which very nearly crashed the entire world’s economy, got our AAA rating yanked, and has been echoing through Europe ever since. Further, Boehner has recently raised the possibility of doing it again. This is || this close to treason.
However feckless (or hamstrung by Blue Dogs) congressional Democrats are, the Republicans are making the economy vastly worse. I am surprised it’s held up as well as it has.
Martin
@cat48:
It’s fine. This kind of stuff takes time to work on the public and the election isn’t real yet to voters. The polls won’t start to even vaguely make sense until September.
cat48
@jl:
Old friend? Probably not. I read the comments a lot, but usually don’t comment unless I know a little about the subject. I’m addicted to politics & so I inhale it from early a.m. on a daily basis. I’m a big Obot Fan & volunteer when I can for OFA, Voter Registration, etc. I shouldn’t have commented I suppose b/c I’m normally ignored when I do so I figured I had nothing to lose.
Culture of Truth
It’s not that Obama will have no money, it’s that Mitt will even more. I hope there’s a threshold amount needed and the rest is wasted by Mitt.
Also, I read on twitter this morning that Morgan Freeman just gave an Obama PAC $1 million. You go, God!
liberal
General Stuck wrote,
I don’t understand Romney’s tactics. If we assume there’s something so damaging in his returns that he really can’t release them, then AFAICT the best tactic is to just ignore and evade the issue and counterattack instead on the economy. (NB: not that I think the economy will fare better under Romney.)
Not saying that would be easy to do, but if he attempts to reply on the Bain/tax stuff it’s just making matters worse for him.
jl
@cat48: My apologies, then. Thanks.
cat48
@SatanicPanic:
I read them but the commenters there can be lethal. I try not to look at them. heh I’m usually a lurker here when I have time or get tired of twitter hysteria as I am right now.
trollhattan
@Culture of Truth:
God plus America’s leading comic atheist are in Obama’s Chicago-style pocket–now that’s a winning strategy.
Spealing of fundraising, interesting story out of Utah.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/utah_republican_greg_peterson_accused_rape.php?ref=fpa
They’re the Big Tent Party, all right.
Raven
@General Stuck: Contrived how? I knew Kerry was a phony the first time I laid eyes on him at Dewey Canyon III. He was running around with a fucking bullhorn acting like, well, an officer. He served a valuable purpose to the VVAW by putting up an air of legitimacy with his Kennedyness but the right wing dirtbags never forgot it and waited until the right time to jump ugly. O’Neill was an ineffective douche but when the actual POW’s came out and spoke about how they FELT about the anti-war movement and Kerry in particular it was curtains. You can argue about medals, battles and all that shit but you can’t argue when the fuckers that were in the Hanoi Hilton say how they felt.
Xenos
@Lee:
This is good news for Mitt!
Obama must have done something to piss off Quetzalcoatl, and you know what fixing that is going to involve!
Mattminus
@Chyron HR:
You got it. I’m racist because I don’t like shitty blogging and blatant attempts to pimp a very low traffic blog.
General Stuck
@Raven:
The part about criticizing his anti war efforts was legitimate, the parts about questioning the nature of his service and how he got his medals was not.
cat48
@Martin:
Some days I think he can survive the onslaught of ads with no problem as he is now, but they just worry me lately. Probably b/c it’s getting closer. They won’t change my mind, but I don’t have a lot of faith in the dreaded swing voters.
Raven
@General Stuck: I don’t really think any of it was legitimate but that doesn’t mean his activities in the Nam and at home were not partly a calculation for running for office in the future.
xian
@wrb: exactly
karen marie
At this point the Romney campaign is the only thing bringing laughter to my life. I just hope Mittens and Lady Ann don’t quit before election day, because without them I might not have the will to live long enough to vote in November.
I really have not enjoyed myself so much in years.
General Stuck
@Raven:
I don’t know what this means. No one but Kerry knows for sure his motives, one way or another. And I said nothing about that. The Swift Boaters lied in my opinion about Kerry’s actions in Vietnam, and went way past the parts where they didn’t like his protests back home against the war. That part was contrived. What is your point? if you yourself think ” I don’t really think any of it was legitimate”, which is what I said in my first comment. of being ‘contrived’
Raven
@General Stuck: my point is I am tired
karen marie
What about Romney’s Massachusetts tax return for 2010? Any word on whether he’s released that yet?
General Stuck
@Raven:
LOL . I know the feeling. get some rest :)
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@Martin:
The ‘September’ rule was pre-Citizens United. I’m not sure if it applies anymore.
IMO, the Obama camp decided to hit Mitt early, and hard, because they simply won’t be able to make enough ad buys to compete in a few short weeks. The strategy seems to be (1) Putting Mitt on the defensive early and (2) trying to define him before he can define himself.
A bold & brilliant strategy, given the money disadvantage. But it does presume an electorate with an IQ above room temperature, and a competent media. We currently have neither.
It’s now about the convention bumps, and then the debates. If you look at the 2004 chart I linked to earlier, you can actually see Kerry’s “debate bump”, which did close the numbers as Nov loomed, but not enough to eke out a win.
IMO, Obama needs three things to happen: (1) keep the numbers at least even until the GOP convention; (2) equal or exceed Romney’s inevitable post-convention bump (this we’ll know by mid-September) and (3) pummel Romney in the debates.
That’s a lot of wickets to pass through, and if anyone could do it, BHO can. But still…
cat48
@karen marie:
I have to admit it’s pure joy to watch their indignation & frustrations come out on live TV. I adored watching Mitt & Staff demanding apologies from the prez. Too funny. Then the prez couldn’t resist breaking into a smile when a VA reporter asked him if he would be apologizing. Just delightful!
Culture of Truth
A bold & brilliant strategy, given the money disadvantage. But it does presume an electorate with an IQ above room temperature, and a competent media. We currently have neither.
True, but notice how they are using the media as, essentially free air time, in these slow summer months leading to the convention. Heck I wouldn’t be surprised if Fox is talking about his tax returns and Bain, even to whine about unfair it all is.
Roger Moore
@liberal:
You’re making the false assumption that Romney is a good candidate who is using the tactics he is because he has some sensible plan. Imagine instead that he’s a rich, entitled asshole who won the nomination because he was the tallest of the seven dwarfs, and that his responses to campaign events reflect his immediate, personal reaction rather than a carefully contrived strategy, and suddenly everything will make a lot more sense.
cmorenc
@cat48:
The problem is, why haven’t the revelations about Bain and Romney’s refusal to release his tax returns caused him more than very slight damage in the polls so far? I might not expect it to immediately sink Romney, but why hasn’t this at least opened a 4 to 5 average Obama Advantage, at least by moving more formerly “lean Romney” voters into the undecided column?
jl
@Roger Moore:
“Imagine instead that he’s a rich, entitled asshole who won the nomination because he was the tallest of the seven dwarfs”
Trying to wrap my head around that thought right now.
burnspbesq
@Tonal Crow:
AKA ABL Vista?
burnspbesq
Speaking of alphabet soup, somebody should ask Romney if he participated in OVDI.
tybee
@karen marie:
ditto
Caz
“found out for the first time that Romney had a Swiss bank account and that he was stashing money in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. This FBAR form (which Romney most likely filed because not filing it carries a hefty fine) would provide American voters with additional details about his overseas bank holdings.”
LOL, so what!? Romney had a Swiss bank account?? Well hold the presses!! On top of that, he had additional accounts in other places! And I bet those accounts had real money in them too, probably hundreds upon hundreds of dollars bills.
How dare he put his money in a variety of accounts. How dare he go outside the U.S. for something.
You must realize how f’ing pathetic you are, and how little Americans (outside this ignorant echo chamber) care about what kind of bank accounts rich people use to stash their dough.
You act like opening a Swiss bank account is illegal, like we just found out that Romney is running an ecstasy lab out of his guest house and working the D.C. club scene on weekends.
I don’t really know what to say about this; I’m surprised I came up with this much already. Is it really that shocking that he has a Swiss bank account? Don’t most people as rich as him have Swiss bank accounts?
Maybe you really don’t get it. Rich people like Swiss bank accounts because they provide total security and confidence for a fee. Other places, like the Cayman Islands, offer what we could consider virtually tax-free, regulation-free monetary climates, so a guy as rich as Romney can save a substantial sum of money by stashing money there.
There’s nothing illegal about it, and everything smart about it because it provides the maximum monetary benefit, far better than stashing money in U.S. banks which carry all sorts of regulations, non-confidentiality, litigiousness, etc.
Oh, and by the way, the Cayman Islands’ economy is flourishing right now. There has been no recession or housing crisis or anything down there. Unfettered capitalism actually works great, and Cayman Islands are a shining example of that.
Please don’t tell me that you think rich people have a moral obligation to opt to lose money/profits for the sake of stashing money in the U.S. Should rich people thank the govt for letting them stash their dough in U.S. banks.
You’re either very dumb or very dishonest, and neither would surprise me!
Caz
@eric: What about the first two years of Obama’s reign when the liberals controlled everything? They didn’t do shit, didn’t pass a budget, didn’t cut spending, didn’t do anything except pass Obamacare so we could see what was in it, lol.
Neither party is interested in cutting spending, limiting the scope of govt, or getting the debt under control. Both parties, when in charge, act the same way, so each is 50% culpable for our economic woes over the last 15 years. Although Obama has been in charge the last 3.5 years, so the national destruction over that period are creditable to him.
You can only blame Bush for so long before the American people catch on to what you’re doing, and that point is long since passed.