Yes, If Romney wants to be president he will release his tax returns. If not, he can go back to closing down companies, shipping jobs overseas and making tons of money for his offshore accounts. It's real simple
I just saw Romney say, with a straight face, that in the last ten years he's never paid less than 13% in taxes. I love it when millionaires pay a lower percentage in taxes than someone who earns 10k a year. That's swell.
He also didn't say what kind of taxes he paid. It's easy for him to get up to 13% and still pay 0 according to the GOP meme that half the country doesn't pay taxes.
We aren't talking about members of Congress from either party. We aren't talking about the President and his income tax returns, which he has released. We're talking about Mitt Romney, Republican candidate for President, refusing to release the last several years of his Federal income tax returns. The American people deserve to have that information before them when they make their decision about who to vote for as President of the United States. With all due respect, all you're doing is attempting to deflect criticism of Romney for not doing what the last several Presidents have done... release those income tax returns. The criticism is deserved. Romney is treating the American people with contempt by not giving them the ability to examine the last several years of his income tax returns. Either he has something to hide, or he simply doesn't believe the American people are smart enough to form their own opinions about his business dealings and his income tax returns, and instead whines and complains about those documents "being used against me" by the Democratic campaign, even using his wife to say the same thing, hiding behind her in the process. Romney wants to keep the American public in the dark about his finances. Tough. Doesn't want to give us that information? Then don't run for President of the United States.
Wow, his lowest rate was 13%? I never suspected that he paid so little. It's a crazy low rate for millionaire. The 15% tax rate starts at $8,501 for last year. If he filed jointly with his wife, it would still kick in at only $17,001. http://www.bankrate.com/finance/taxes/2011-tax-bracket-rates.aspx
Romney is an idiot. He just admitted that he pays 13% a year - less than most people in the middle class. He just fell for Harry Reids trap. Now Romney comes across as elitist and he still is untrustworthy for not being transparent. It's such a dubious admission, everyone knows he took a loss in 2009 because of the carry over so his tax burden might have been close to zero even if it was at 13% (13% of 100 bucks!). How do you vote for someone that is one of the richest people in America but pays a lower rate than you?
I find it interesting that Romney asked his potential running mates, including millionaire VP pick Paul Ryan, for several years of income tax returns, yet refuses to release his own. Romney has no defense for not showing the world his returns. None. And the more "reasons" he dreams up, the more guilty he looks for hiding those returns. That, or he is stubbornly stupid. We've seen some of that around here. Stubbornly stupid. So Romney is either hiding something, or he's too dumb to be President. Take your pick.
How do you vote for somebody dumb enough to get pwn3d by Harry Reid? Thus far that list only includes confirmed idiot Sharron Angle.
A very reasonable request and compromise: Obama Camp To Romney: Let’s Make A Deal On Tax Returns President Obama’s team is offering Mitt Romney a deal on taxes: Publicly release five years of returns, and the Obama campaign will drop its insistence for additional tax information. the full email: August 17, 2012 Matt Rhoades 585 Commercial Street Boston, Massachusetts 02109 Dear Matt: I am writing to ask again that the Governor release multiple years of tax returns, but also to make an offer that should address his concerns about the additional disclosures. Governor Romney apparently fears that the more he offers, the more our campaign will demand that he provide. So I am prepared to provide assurances on just that point: if the Governor will release five years of returns, I commit in turn that we will not criticize him for not releasing more—neither in ads nor in other public communications or commentary for the rest of the campaign. This request for the release of five years, covering the complete returns for 2007-2012, is surely not unreasonable. Other Presidential candidates have released more, including the Governor’s father who provided 12 years of returns. In the Governor’s case, a five year release would appropriately span all the years that he has been a candidate for President. It would also help answer outstanding questions raised by the one return he has released to date, such as the range in the effective rates paid, the foreign accounts maintained, the foreign investments made, and the types of tax shelters used. To provide these five years, the Governor would have to release only three more sets of returns in addition to the 2010 return he has released and the 2011 return he has pledged to provide. And, I repeat, the Governor and his campaign can expect in return that we will refrain from questioning whether he has released enough or pressing for more. I look forward to your reply. Jim Messina Obama for America Campaign Manager
David Simon Explains Why So Many Jaws Dropped When Mitt Romney Said He Had Never Paid Less Than A 13% Tax Rate Yesterday, in response to months of requests for him to release more tax returns, Mitt Romney dismissed this topic as "small-minded" and said he had never paid less than a 13% tax rate. If this information was designed to make those who want to see Romney's tax returns feel stupid for asking, it didn't. Rather, it caused lots of jaws to drop. Why? Well, first because Romney confirmed what most people have long assumed, which is that he pays an extraordinarily low tax rate for someone who makes so much money. Second, because the tax rate that Romney seemed proud to have paid was a lower tax rate than lots of vastly less wealthy Americans pay. David Simon, a journalist and screenwriter who wrote "The Wire" and other series, summed up this reaction on his web site. As Simon himself notes, he has been a member of several different income brackets in his career--first, as a reporter, in a low income bracket, and later, as a successful screenwriter, in a high one. Unlike those who argue that Romney's money is Romney's money and that every dime that he is forced to pay in taxes is a dime that is effectively stolen or "confiscated" from him, Simon recognizes that his own financial success is in part due to the economic environment in which he lives and works: Mitt Romney paid taxes at a rate of at least 13 percent. And he’s proud to say so. Can we stand back and pause a short minute to take in the spectacle of a man who wants to be President of The United States, who wants us to seriously regard him as a paragon of the American civic ideal, declaiming proudly and in public that he has paid his taxes at a third of the rate normally associated with gentlemen of his economic benefit?... Thirteen percent. The last time I paid taxes at that rate, I believe I might still have been in college. If not, it was my first couple years as a newspaper reporter. Since then, the paychecks have been just fine, thanks, and I don’t see any reason not to pay at the rate appropriate to my earnings, given that I’m writing the check to the same government that provided the economic environment that allowed for such incomes. The tax debate is extraordinarily divisive in this country, in part because Americans have different attitudes toward taxes and different philosophies about how big a role the government should play in our lives. There's no "right" answer to that question, just as there's no "right" answer to who should bear the additional tax burden as the country begins to confront its yawning budget deficit. But one other important philosophical difference between Americans is that they fall into two basic camps: Those who believe that their success or failure is due entirely to their own personal efforts (or lack thereof), and Those who believe that their success or failure is due not just to their own efforts but also to the economic, legal, and civic environment in which all Americans are fortunate enough to live I would respectfully suggest that there is a right answer to this one. Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/david-simon-mitt-romney-tax-rate-2012-8#ixzz23pPTYVcw
this just gets better and better... Mitt Romney's 2010 Tax Disclosure May Be Lacking 'Unrelated Business' Form Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's tax returns may be more incomplete in their public release than was previously thought. Filings related to Romney's individual retirement account, already subject to press scrutiny, indicate that the presumptive GOP nominee should have filed a form accounting for unrelated business income taxes. The unrelated business income tax is set up for tax-exempts like nonprofits and IRAs that engage in commercial activity. Not filing the form, known as a 990-T, may indicate that Romney's IRA funds are held by an offshore account in order to shield them from taxation. Romney campaign spokesperson Andrea Saul did not return multiple requests for the 990-T form, nor did she answer repeated questions related to the matter. From what Romney has disclosed, there is mounting circumstantial evidence that the IRA may hold offshore investments through what are known as "blocker corporations," which help him avoid paying taxes. Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.) told The New York Times, "From what I have read about Governor Romney's tax returns, I think it raises very serious questions." "We know Romney's IRA has Bain funds in it," explained Rebecca J. Wilkins, senior counsel for federal tax policy with the nonpartisan Citizens for Tax Justice. "Bain private equity funds are listed in those assets and those funds are located in the Cayman Islands." Wilkins says that if Romney's IRA held those funds directly, instead of through a blocker corporation, a 990-T should have been filed. "Typically it doesn't even have to file a tax return," Wilkins says. "But if it has unrelated business income, then it has to pay the unrelated business income tax." And a 990-T would need to have been filed.
I'm more and more getting the impression that Reid, McCain, Obama, the RNC, the DNC all know what's in Romney's returns.
McCain, one of the few straight shooters in D.C., has already said there are no skeletons in Romney's tax returns. That's good enough for me.
That's true of McCain, and I feel the same way. I mean he even titled his campaign the Straight Talk Exlax or something like that, right?
drip drip drip... Mitt Romney Tax Returns May Have Employed Legally Dubious Maneuvers, Tax Experts Say WASHINGTON -- Tax experts who have begun to examine the Bain Capital documents released Thursday by Gawker are raising questions as to whether presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney has paid all the taxes he owed. At issue are two tax-avoidance techniques employed by Bain Capital, the firm founded by Romney, which have been commonly used in the private equity world but have come under increasing legal scrutiny.
