And with an assist from John McCain, Romney’s tax debacle is back in the headlines:
~snip~
“Nothing in his tax returns showed that he did not pay taxes,” McCain said during an interview taped for “Face to Face” that will air Tuesday evening. The two senators and New Hampshire’s Kelly Ayotte all criticized Reid for his claim that someone told him Romney had not paid taxes for 10 years.
First, the relevant question is whether or not he paid any earned income taxes or capital gains taxes.
Second, the pressing question is what is going on with Romney’s 2009 tax return since 2009 is the year the IRS smoked out all the rich folks who were hiding their money in secret overseas bank accounts by giving them the option to voluntarily come forward, report their overseas holdings, and avoid criminal prosecution.
[read full post at ABLC]
f space that
He got amnesty. Which means he’s a crook, simple as that.
liberal
I thought capital gains taxes were a form of income taxes.
Violet
Hilarious that McCain is the one putting the spotlight back on taxes. Does McCain hate Romney that much?
Redshift
Once again, we have a “denial” that is technically true even if Reid’s allegation is also true. Funny, that.
I find it morbidly amusing that the lie about Romney’s taxes is the mirror image of the standard conservative lie about the percentage of people who “don’t pay taxes.”
Martin
Cap gains are income taxes. They’re unearned income, vs earned income – but still income taxes.
Emma
@Violet: I think so. McCain is not senile, not by a long shot.
ABL
@Martin: I’m just a caveman. I don’t know anything about your “income taxes.”
Martin
@Redshift:
They do this all the fucking time.
LanceThruster
[wagging finger] I did not have sex with that tax return!
Cassidy
Damn Johnny! Just as it was going away to. SOmeone’s holding a grudge.
randalms
Pretty informative article on Romney’s tax stuff by an expert.
http://www.taxanalysts.com/www/features.nsf/Articles/1DB2A18D079EDCD685257A59001CB873?OpenDocument
Violet
@ABL: The most important part of this is that McCain is putting Romney’s taxes back in the spotlight. Everyone was talking about Ryan and Medicare. McCain had the opportunity to change the discussion for Romney to something friendlier, like war with Iran. But no, he chose to talk about Romney’s taxes. Those bus tires hurt, dude!
Dennis SGMM
The Republican’s sophisms on this issue have become strained and more than a little tedious. Of course Romney paid taxes, even the poorest among us pay taxes – sales taxes. Romney’s penchant for shoveling his money into foreign banks suggests that he did take advantage of the 2009 amnesty. If he did so while harboring presidential ambitions then he’s too arrogant and too stupid to be elected to any office.
lamh35
so if Reid does have a source, when would be the best time to pull that out of his hat before or after convenrtion?
and I really hate to be a pessimist, but I suspect that Romney will never have to release those tax return. the MSM which should hold him accountable and which would have totally iviserated candidate Obama for nit releasing is taxes in ’08, obviously would rather nibble on Ryan’s neck and gaze in his blue eyes.
the Obama camp. and the DNC and all the Dems should and will keep on the tax release issue, but unless something explosive happens, Romney is gonna get away with not releasing them. which really just pisses me off as of course it does everyone else
CW in LA
I’m starting to think that whatever’s in those tax returns is worse than not paying any income tax for ten years. Otherwise Citizen Bain could have just used the Saturday morning of the end of the Olympics to say, “Fine, ya got me” and been done with it.
terraformer
Everyone’s starting to fall into line, aren’t they?
Isn’t that nice. And as predictable as water running downhill.
Ash Can
So McCain ties a bunch of empty tin cans to the horse’s tail, gives him a whack on the ass, and sends him running down Main Street one more time. Hats off to you, Gramps.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
then Mittens has nothing to hide and should release them. Until he does otherwise he has something to hide.
catclub
@Violet: Probably. The one constant for all the 2008 GOP candidates was hatred of Romney.
Ash Can
@lamh35: It could make for a decent October Surprise, unless they have something even better lined up.
Redshift
@Cassidy:
I dunno, I think we’ll have to see more of the interview to know. It doesn’t sound like McCain brought it up; more like a reporter actually doing his job and McCain saying what he thought would make it go away.
I think it’s more a demonstration that this isn’t going away until it’s answered. Romney’s secrecy is what keeps it a live topic, not McCain’s shiv.
lamh35
@Dennis SGMM: isn’t there any other way to find that out though or are his tax reforms the only way. there has to be documents of any of the amnesty stuff right? with all the leaked document story’s lately why hasn’t some enterprising “leaker” blown the roof off this mutha?
Martin
@lamh35:
3 days before the first presidential debate.
We’re all really cynical about everything in politics, but the debates are where the election becomes real to most voters not interested in politics. If you want the tax issue to carry the most weight, bring it out then, that’ll force it to be included in the debate, with followups in at least the next debate, if not through all 4 of them.
wrb
Another non-denial denial?
I’d call that a confirmation.
Weasels
Redshift
@lamh35: Definitely after; but I suspect this is the sort of source that actually wants to remain anonymous.
I remain confident in the competence of the Obama campaign. They wouldn’t have brought this up in July unless they had enough material to keep it alive in the fall.
If not releasing his tax returns is perceived as one of the reasons Romney loses, then he won’t be getting away with it, and the next guy will be less likely to try it, or even try McCain’s two years. While it would be better for our national conversation if we could actually discuss the contents of a .01%-er’s tax returns, I’ll take that as a consolation prize.
Violet
McCain has actually seen those returns, so he’s probably trying to play off that: “I’ve seen his returns and he’s paid taxes!” But what kind of taxes, when, which years, how much, etc., etc. are the questions people keep asking.
jwb
@lamh35: No, of course, Rmoney will never release his taxes. He would have released them by now if he was going to release them.
Cassidy
Someone will release them for him.
Southern Beale
You know, there’s a way this can be settled once and for all …!
Redshift
@Martin: I looked at the Las Vegas Sun post about the interview to see if there was more context (if there is, it’s in the video, which I can’t watch at work.) I made the mistake of looking at the comments. Mostly good, actually, but there’s a teabagger there referring to people who disagree with him as “33%ers.”
If irony-deficiency was life-threatening, none of these bozos would last a week…
Southern Beale
And oh for fuck’s sake. Bet Mike Cunningham wouldn’t be whining about this if Pres. Bush visited his beer tent at the Iowa State Fair:
Oh SUCK IT UP, asshole.
jwb
@Violet: No, this was most certainly a shiv by McCain. If McCain was acting in Rmoney’s interest, he would not have brought it up now and he almost certainly would not have gone with that lame phrasing that anyone could see as less than definitive. The more interesting question is why McCain decided to speak at this moment.
Lurking Canadian
They are as careful in phrasing how they talk about Romney’s taxes as Anthony Weiner was in talking about the pictures that might not have been, but then again might have been, and I can’t really confirm one way or the other, his dick.
jwb
@Cassidy: I’ve been surprised that fake returns seeminly linked to Democratic sources have not already been floated. That’s how Rove would have traditionally handled this.
Elizabelle
@Redshift:
What’s a 33%er?
cathyx
I want to know what Romney did to piss off all his fellow republicans?
Violet
@jwb: I haven’t seen the interview. It’s possible the reporter asked McCain about Romney’s tax returns, knowing that McCain would have seen them. McCain should have been prepared or that question. Interesting tactic he chose to answer in the way he did.
Cassidy
@Elizabelle: A dumbass trying to make up his own cool sounding thing.
Dennis SGMM
@lamh35:
You’d need a tax attorney for the answer whether or not there’s any way to find out whether Romney took the amnesty. As for whistle blowers, the only people who could blow the whistle on Romney would be his tax attorney, who would be violating attorney-client privilege, or possibly someone at Bain Capital. At a guess, I’d say that Romney will continue to stonewall on the issue because there’s something in his returns that is so toxic that revealing it would be worse then enduring the speculation.
Elizabelle
@Cassidy:
Yeah, I read a little further, and it’s the Teatard’s estimate of those who always support LPOTUS, whatever that is in his tiny mind.
I’ll just think about Rolling Rock beer instead.
dogwood
@Violet:
I seriously doubt that McCain has actually seen Romney’s tax records, but undoubtedly he was briefed on them. Given McCain’s lack of fundamental economic knowledge, I don’t think he would be able to make heads or tales of the returns if he did see them. Most Americans wouldn’t be able to interpret them either.
Churchlady320
@liberal: No – it’s why it’s taxed at much lower rates. It’s been whitewashed as something magical that creates national wealth when it’s really just reaping the up side of stock market deals. But it’s divorced from earned income and elevated to saintly status.
Churchlady320
@liberal: No – it’s why it’s taxed at much lower rates. It’s been whitewashed as something magical that creates national wealth when it’s really just reaping the up side of stock market deals. But it’s divorced from earned income and elevated to saintly status.
jwb
@Violet: I think you can say that McCain’s answer was exactly what he wanted to say. He’s had to have thought about this answer for weeks—whether he stated this unprompted or was asked about it. That’s definitely a political shiv, and he could hardly be more direct about it and remain a Republican these days.
Elizabelle
Now that they’ve got their blue eyed boy on the ticket, I wonder if a Republican would spill on the Romney tax returns, if there is anything toxic enough in them to push Romney out as nominee.
Roger Moore
@f space that:
Which is fine if you’re a rich white guy dodging taxes, but not if you’re a poor immigrant dodging ICE. One more example of IOKIYAR.
Cassidy
@Elizabelle: I haven’t had Rolling Rock in a while. I don’t remember if I liked it or not.
Violet
@dogwood: Well, okay, I take your point. Maybe McCain didn’t see the returns. But he had access to 23 years of Romney’s returns and certainly could have asked to look at them, had he wanted. And he hired people to read and interpret them.
The question of whether McCain actually put his hands on Romney’s tax returns is a moot point because he asked for and got 23 years of them. He had the opportunity to look at them. An opportunity he doesn’t seem to think the rest of us should have.
lamh35
OT, but. Wow, R-Money spokesman John Sununu is a piece of work. I glad Soledad didn’t back down from this asshole!!!
Romney surrogate to CNN host: ‘Put an Obama bumper sticker on your forehead’
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/14/romney-surrogate-to-cnn-host-put-an-obama-bumper-sticker-on-your-forehead/
lamh35
OT, but. Wow, R-Money spokesman John Sununu is a piece of work. I glad Soledad didn’t back down from this asshole!!!
Romney surrogate to CNN host: ‘Put an Obama bumper sticker on your forehead’
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/14/romney-surrogate-to-cnn-host-put-an-obama-bumper-sticker-on-your-forehead/
Redshift
@Elizabelle: Dang, that ruins my clever point. I thought it was one of the various numbers for the percentage of people who supposedly “don’t pay taxes.”
On the other hand, if we see 27% who always support the wingnut view, and they see 33% who always support Obama, I won’t complain.
karen marie
@Violet: It was an interview, so I am going to assume McCain didn’t just blurt this out but was asked. But still, it’s not unusual for an interviewee to notify the interviewer in advance of material that won’t be discussed. Barring that, McCain could have simply said, “Not gonna discuss it.”
I have a pretty poor opinion of McCain, so I am assuming there’s two possibilities:
One, McCain does not think before he opens his gob but thought he was doing Rmoney a favor by defending him (not having a high opinion of Rmoney, I bet after McCain’s much earlier comment that he had seen nothing untoward in the 23 years of returns that Rmoney never followed up with McCain to ask him to decline to talk about it further).
Two, McCain hates Rmoney as much as the next guy and is peevish at the thought that Rmoney could win against the blah guy where he could not.
McCain has to be laughing pretty hard that so many of the comparisons of Ryan to Palin are unfavorable to Ryan.
SBJules
@randalms: The tax analis@randalms: The tax analysts.com link was really good. I am finishing up “normal” folks tax
Extensions this week before a week in Las Vegas.
Redshift
@Churchlady320: It’s taxed at a lower rate, but it’s still income taxes. There aren’t separate tax returns for earned income and capital gains taxes, so the question that they’re all avoiding is “did he pay federal income taxes?”
Violet
@lamh35: How old is Sununu? He really seems to be starting to lose it. He was kind of crazy on Hardball last night too.
Violet
The Paul Ryan Gosling Twitter feed is cracking me up. This made me almost spit out my coffee:
It’s a Situation!
Roger Moore
@lamh35:
Maybe because the leaker is on Romney’s side of the aisle. The White House has insisted that the leaks aren’t coming from them, and ISTR there was somebody who had looked and found that a certain crazy eyed representative from Minnesota had been at all the briefings where the leaked material was discussed.
Violet
@karen marie: Could be either of those. And I agree, I bet McCain is cracking up that Ryan makes his Palin choice look good.
Who are they going to find to play Ryan on SNL?
bemused
@Violet:
Hasn’t he always been an asshole? I remember something about him taking personal trips and calling them official trips when he was Chief of Staff to Poppy Bush.
FlipYrWhig
@Violet: Sununu is like Chris Christie without the debonair personal style.
Violet
@bemused: I don’t know. I only remember his name because it’s so distinctive, but nothing about him.
@FlipYrWhig:
Ha!
bemused
@FlipYrWhig:
Too funny.
ericblair
After another non-denial denial, I’m pretty convinced Rmoney’s got one or more years in there with zippo income tax paid. The interesting thing is that none of the surrogates or other goopers want to flat out lie and say that he did pay income tax all those years. God fucking knows these guys aren’t shy about lying, so they must think that they might come out somehow at some point. Or they are all subtly sticking the shiv in.
karen marie
Also, too, I called Senator Reid’s office to thank him for opening this can of worms and not backing down from it.
I’ll make it easy for you to do the same: 202-224-3542
ABL
@FlipYrWhig: Hahaha!
lamh35
OT, but too good not to share. I’m sure some of y’all may have already seen this pic, but if not maybe some enterprising Front-pager could start a photo caption contest. No, this is not photoshopped!!
President Obama is a Wizard
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/08/president-obama-is-a-wizard.html
Dennis SGMM
@karen marie:
Thanks for posting the phone number. I just made my call to thank Senator Reid.
Martin
The only way the Reid story makes sense is that it was a Bain investor talking to Romney a decade ago, where Romney was trying to sell the investor on the benefits he could offer through tax sheltering, using his own tax situation as an illustration.
So my guess is that this anecdote dates back to no later than 2000 and the 10 years in question was before that – probably from the late 80s to the late 90s. Getting more tax returns isn’t going to clear this up, but Reid knows this. Romney knows this as well. Reid is just baiting Romney to release the returns under pressure from the media, there’ll be this big ‘gotcha, Reid was lying’ moment, and then Reid will point out that the 10 years in question was from x to y. But the goal will have been met – the recent returns will be out there, and that’s all that really matters.
El Cid
You know, if corporations really were people, I still don’t think they’d like Mitt Romney.
They might appreciate the money and keep quiet about it, but even they would think he’s a prick.
Martin
@lamh35: “John Boehner recently said I needed to take personal responsibility for the drought affecting much of the US. Well, here it is, bitches! Relect me or I’ll burninate the whole fucking place!”
Roger Moore
@Martin:
It could also have been a Bain employee listening to Romney brag about his tax avoidance strategies. And it wasn’t necessarily 10 years or more ago. If you really think Romney has severed his ties to Bain, I have a friend in Nigeria with a business proposition for you.
Roger Moore
@El Cid:
Considering that he’s made a lot of money by sucking the lifeblood out of corporations, they’d have a very strong reason to dislike him.
Dennis SGMM
@El Cid:
Like it says on my bumper sticker, “If corporations are people then Romney is a serial killer.”
NonyNony
@Martin:
Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Reid is baiting him precisely because he knows that there’s something worse in there than “no taxes”.
Not to call Harry Reid a liar, but if his anonymous source said something like “Romney won’t release his taxes because they would show he’s got investments in known fronts for drug cartel operations”, Reid would know he was safe to make whatever allegations he wants about the taxes. Because releasing those kind of documents wouldn’t help.
Now I’m not saying that Romney has criminal activity hidden in his tax returns that an enterprising journalist (or even blogger) could dig out if he or she wanted to. But if Reid is playing a card that says Romney has 0% taxes in his returns, then I believe that Reid actually has information that what’s in Romney’s returns is at least that bad.
Violet
@lamh35: That’s hilarious.
Hill Dweller
It doesn’t matter who comes out in defense of Willard, his unwillingness to release his tax returns is a tacit admission they’re damaging.
John
Please, everybody, stop with the damned “Rmoney.” It is the opposite of clever. If you must, at least go with “R-Money” so we know it’s your attempt at cleverness, rather than a typo.
Violet
@NonyNony: Agreed. There’s something nuclear grade bad in those tax returns or Reid never would have gone down this road. Not sure if it’s zero taxes, failure to tithe properly, illegal offshore bank accounts/amnesty, ties to other illegal activity or what. But it would be irresponsible not to speculate.
Turgidson
@NonyNony:
When Reid first started saying this I wasn’t sure. But now I’m more or less convinced that Reid knows something very big about what’s in there, whether it’s zero taxes or not. If Romney really had nothing nearly as bad as the zero taxes thing in there, you’d think he would have quickly put out a bunch of years to shut Harry the fuck up and claim victory on the issue once and for all. He never did, and at this point I don’t think he ever will. And his media pushback was limited almost entirely to calling Reid a poopyhead rather than offering any evidence at all that Reid was wrong.
McCain finally saying something about this is interesting. I thought his silence was only further proof that something horrendous is in there. His pretty equivocal denial isn’t convincing me otherwise – as noted above, we know Romney “paid taxes,” it’s whether he paid federal income tax, and how much, that we’re curious about.
jl
I get to see and read a little Ralston out here on the far left coast. He is usually sharper than this, and too bad he did not focus on income and capital gains taxes.
Anyway, gramps more or less admits he does’t know what he is talking about, and Graham scolding Reid for injecting himself into presidential politics is funny, as in ha ha hypocrite funny.
Romney will disappear into the sewery bowels of the Ryan/Romney ticket soon anyway. Who cares about him? He is figurehead, and lousy one.
lamh35
OT again, but POTUS goes there. Damn. Quote of the Day?
“POTUS: Gov. Romney said you can’t drive a car with a wind mill on top…I do know he’s had other things on the top of his car!” #IA
SatanicPanic
@John: Better yet- (R)-Munnee$$$
burnspbesq
ABL:
Wrong on two levels.
First, we have some clues as to what Romney’s 2009 return looks like, because we can see the carryovers to 2010 on the 2010 return.
Second, if Romney participated in the 2009 OVDI, that participation would not leave a trail on the 2009 return. OVDI cases are resolved by means of a closing agreement. Which someone of your awesome Google-fu would know if you had spent 30 seconds looking at it.
burnspbesq
@Dennis SGMM:
You rang?
Actually, you don’t need a tax lawyer. You need somebody who knows the Freedom of Information Act. However, since those two categories are not mutually exclusive, here’s your answer:
No. Return information is protected from disclosure under FOIA Exemption Three, because there is a specific Federal statute that makes it confidential.
jl
@lamh35: Are you joking? Did Obama say that? I have been doubtful about speculation that the Obama team is baiting the wingers to make noxious fools of themselves, but if Obama said that, I guess that is part of the campaign head game.
Biden very deliberately put a reference to Ryan’s father in a speech the other, and made it both humorous and respectful.
I noticed half a dozen wingers posted clips on youtube damning Biden for ‘going after’ Ryan’s father.
I guess it is politics. If you are running against deranged loons, lying snot nosed punks, and pathetic whiners, who will take every opportunity to make themselves ridiculous and obnoxious, you need to take advantage of that.
Ryan/Romney, the ass backwards ticket for year 1012.
hhex65
@John: Not sure, many 33%’ers on the blog boards enjoy that nickname.
jl
@John: I am referring to that miserable stinking mess as Ryan/Romney. We have no real proof that a Willard Romney exists, so that is a safer way to refer to the current GOP presidential ticket phenomenon.
Greg
@burnspbesq:
Just to be sure that I understand: this means that Romney may or may not have been part of the 2009 tax amnesty, but either way that wouldn’t be something you could tell from his 2009 taxes?
Would it be something that you could tell from earlier tax years, when theoretically the income was sheltered in Switzerland in the first place? Or would you need a lot more information than just tax returns in order to see where the money in Switzerland came from (and thus whether it was taxed legally or not)?
The amnesty really seemed like a strong contender for the reason why Romney would be hiding his returns – I’m surprised you haven’t replied (that I’ve seen) in previous threads mentioning the possibility.
Steve
@burnspbesq: I remembering cross-examining this one guy who had a numbered UBS account in Switzerland. He had an amended return that listed “Switzerland” in Part III of Schedule B; the original return left that line blank. Is that not what amnesty tax returns look like? If you take the deal, don’t you have to file amended returns that disclose the truthful information?
lamh35
@jl: Obama Hits Romney for Putting Dog on His Car
Turgidson
@jl:
That’s rich. They stopped accusing the duly elected president of the United States of being born elsewhere, hating the very country he leads, wanting to impose a furrin brand of Kenyan sockulism on an unsuspecting nation, being too stupid to think without a teleprompter, scheming to confiscate all guns and wealth from real murkin folk, and being various other things that are in the ballpark of niCLANG…long enough to hit the fainting couches about this.
I’m not surprised by this kind of thing anymore, but I’m still…baffled…at the off-the-charts cognitive dissonance and delusion these people suffer from.
huckster
so tell me, is the first time since Reid made these allegations that a reporter thought it might be a good idea to ask someone who has seen 23 years of R-money’s returns if the allegations are true?
liberal media my ass!
4tehlulz
@jl: According to TPM, Biden just baited Mitt Co. into defending Wall Street against the big bad VP.
You have to wonder if Mittens decided play electoral limbo to see how low he can go without getting caught.
Ben Cisco
Sounds like Johnny Walnuts has a little Romulan in him.
Dennis SGMM
@burnspbesq:
Thank you! Sounds like Mittens is the only one who can release the information and that he never will.
M31
Did Romney really criticize wind energy by saying ‘you can’t put a windmill on top of a car’? That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. You can’t drive with an oil well on top of a car, or a refinery or an offshore drilling rig or a supertanker either, Mitt, you pandering piece of shit.
burnspbesq
@Greg:
There’s a box on Schedule B that asks whether you have an interest in or signature authority over a foreign bank or brokerage account. If that box was checked “no” for earlier years and suddenly flips over to “yes” after 2009, it’s not absolutely certain that the taxpayer participated in OVDI (he might have decided, after learning of the FBAR requirement for the first time, to start complying going forward and “go quiet” for the back years), but it certainly increases the likelihood.
The penalty for willfully failing to file FBARs is serious money: the greater of $100K or 50 percent of the highest balance in the account during the year.
burnspbesq
@Steve:
Correct, but I’ve always been skeptical about the Romney/OVDI speculations. It’s inconceivable to me that PwC and Ropes & Gray would have allowed him to erroneously check the “no” box if he had disclosed the existence of the Swiss account that’s disclosed on Schedule B of his 2010 return to them. I suppose it’s theoretically possible that Romney could have lied to his accountants and lawyers, but … I mean, there are six listed-transaction disclosure statements attached to the 2010 return. Does it make sense that those would be there but that he would commit perjury by signing the return with the “no” box checked?
Violet
@burnspbesq: So you’re a tax attorney? What’s your take on what Romney is hiding?
burnspbesq
@burnspbesq:
ETA: I think it’s more likely that Romney took the Son-of-BOSS settlement back in 2002. If he signed off on it for Marriott, why wouldn’t he do it for himself?
Roger Moore
@burnspbesq:
And if he tried one legally shaky way of avoiding taxes, what’s to say he didn’t try hiding them in an overseas bank account? I guess I lack your confidence that Romney was terribly worried about whether this stuff is legal or not. He strikes me as the kind of guy who would happily do something obviously illegal as long as he thought he could get away with it, as people had been doing with Swiss bank accounts for a long time.
burnspbesq
@Violet:
See comment 100 re the Son-of-BOSS settlement.
In addition:
(1) It’s possible that he paid almost no tax in 2009. There are huge capital loss and foreign tax credit carryovers to the 2010 return.
(2) If the statute of limitation hadn’t run, I think he would be vulnerable on the valuation of stock received as compensation and transferred to his IRA.
(3) There are those six listed-transaction disclosure statements attached to his 2010 return.
(4) There are big transfers to his kids for which no gift tax returns have apparently been filed.
I don’t really fault him for taking advantage of the carried-interest loophole. It’s unquestionably legal under current law. That’s for Congress to fix. But it’s indicative of a mind-set that makes him unfit to be President.
Violet
@burnspbesq: Thanks. That’s interesting. I know he must be hiding something. Otherwise he’d just release the returns.
Villago Delenda Est
@John:
Feel free to find a fire to go die in.
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq:
Richard Nixon lied to his own lawyers about the “smoking gun” tape, which established beyond all doubt that he was in and directing the Watergate coverup within days of the burglary.
It’s possible. Quite possible.
Turgidson
@M31:
It could be 2012’s version of the “zomg Obama thinks our energy problems are solved if we just put more air in our car tires!” hilarity.
Maybe the braindead hordes that go to Tampa to cheer on their granny-starving ticket will put windmills on their heads to drive the point home. We can only hope.
Applejinx
What if he’s contrived to pay one dollar?
burnspbesq
@Violet:
I don’t rule out the possibility that he sincerely believes that it’s none of our damn business. But tax returns are not the hill I would choose to die on if I were him.
You dump them all on a Friday afternoon, you quote the famous old line about there being no patriotic duty to pay more tax than you owe, you say “I took return positions that I was advised by highly competent professionals were defensible, and the IRS has chosen not to audit my returns, so I must have been OK.” It’s over by the following Wednesday.
This has been a self-inflicted death by a thousand cuts.
scav
@Applejinx: Well, then he’s sewn up the cheap weasel demographic, but that one’s probably already in his pocket. The What the Hell were you thinking and why did it take so long? demographic probably still in play.
Steve
@burnspbesq: I don’t disagree, but there are lots of people who didn’t report their Swiss bank accounts (hence the need for an amnesty program) and I tend to assume the vast majority of them don’t tell their tax lawyers or accountants about those accounts. I mean, if you’ve already decided you’re going to keep the account secret, why put your tax professionals in a bad spot by forcing them to keep the secret too?
I don’t claim to know what’s really in those returns, though. Every speculative scenario is unlikely, but at the end of the day it has to be something or another.
Thoughtcrime
@lamh35:
Obama: Watch me roll 300 on November 6.
Violet
@burnspbesq: I agree. He may just feel he doesn’t need to release them, but at some point his advisers would have to point out that doing as you suggest would be far preferable than dealing with the tax issue until election day.
So either he’s incredibly stubborn and somehow thinks releasing the returns now would make him look weak, or he’s hiding something huge. I tend to think the latter, otherwise he would have released them early on when Reid first started talking.
He’s hiding something and I feel it would be incredibly irresponsible not to speculate what that something is.
Roger Moore
@burnspbesq:
Assuming they’re actually clean, and clean by political calculations rather than legal standards. If there’s something really bad in them, you’ve just handed the other campaign a specific point to charge you with. Romney has already suggested that’s his reason for refusing to release them, so it’s not exactly a stretch to think he’s hiding something.
MomSense
My guess is that Reid’s source is someone with both ties to the Mormon church and to Bain given the way the church handles tithing it is probably someone pretty high up. This makes the list of potential sources quite small with probably only a handful of people at the most.
walter homple
There are only two reasons that Romney would have paid no taxes:
(1) He committed fraud or,
(2) He took entirely legal deductions.
Case (1) is the business of the IRS to figure out and prosecute him and they had many years to do this. Steiner (sorry, I meant Axelrod) would be gushing leaks about this if it was happening. He isn’t.
Case (2) What he did was legal, so where’s the squawk?
shortstop
@burnspbesq:
All correct except the last line, which couldn’t be more wrong.
You’re looking at this from the vantage point of a tax lawyer, for whom “Is it legal or legally defensible?” is the only question. That’s not at all the perspective of the millions of people who are struggling to feed, house and educate their families on a few tens of thousands a year–of people whose houses are underwater, who live in fear of losing their jobs and, until now, of losing all healthcare if the job goes south…and who are more cognizant of and angry about enormous income inequalities than they have been since the Gilded Age.
Those people are way more numerous than tax lawyers or 1 percenters, and in this environment, they don’t take kindly to a system that allows someone of Romney’s wealth to pay extremely low taxes. Legality doesn’t even come in to it for most folks–in fact, it’s the legality of what’s he doing that’s pissing people off. Combine that with the centerpiece of Romney’s platform, cutting taxes for the wealthiest, and you have an enduring political nightmare. Next Wednesday? Not hardly. Next decade? Maybe.
burnspbesq
@shortstop:
You’re giving the American electorate credit for a longer attention span than it has ever demonstrated. Maybe you’re right in some parallel universe, but not in the one we currently inhabit.