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As long as Mitt Romney refuses to release more tax returns, the void of information is going to keep creating more and more questions. Did Romney ever pay no taxes in a year? Did he take part in the 2009 tax amnesty? How did he get so much money in his IRA? Did Romney evey pay less than a 5 percent tax rate?
These questions won’t just be asked rhetorically but will continue to be asked directly of Romney by reporters. The latest example was Romney’s ABC interview with David Muri:
Muir: You are here on what some have termed your world audition and democrats, not surprisingly, continue to hammer you back home on taxes, you remain firm two years and two years only. So from what you have released and from what we have seen we know that there was one year when you paid about 13.9% tax rate. Can we clear this up by asking a simple yes or no question? Was there ever any year when you paid lower than 13.9%?
Romney: I haven’t calculated that. I’m happy to go back and look but my view is I’ve paid all the taxes required by law. From time to time I’ve been audited as happens I think to other citizens as well and the accounting firm which prepares my taxes has done a very thorough and complete job [paying] taxes as legally due. I don’t pay more than are legally due and frankly if I had paid more than are legally due I don’t think I’d be qualified to become president. I’d think people would want me to follow the law and pay only what the tax code requires.
Muir: You said you would go back and look, would you look for us?
Romney: I haven’t looked at the tax rate paid year by year. I know that I pay a very substantial amount of taxes and every year since the beginning of my career so far as I can recall.
Now that Romney has promised to go back and look there is an opening for someone to ask a follow up question, and if Romney doesn’t answer, that will in turn create even more questions about why Romney isn’t following through on his promises.
As along as Romney refuses to release more returns, the issue will dog him. There is only one simple way for Romney to put a stop to this, and that is by releasing more returns. That fact that Romney still hasn’t done so in the face of the growing PR problem is very weird and feeds the idea he is hiding something big.
22 Comments
Hey! We’re all Corporations now, my friend.
We can all use the same tax advantages he gets. Doncha just love the Supreme Court’s rulings? Somebody needs to bang Congress bells and tell them to get on the tax code changes. We are all Corporations, People!
Riiiigggghhht!!! Just try paying at corporate rates without a high priced accountant to do your taxes for you.
What’s the tax rate on the people who lost their jobs because Romney bankrupted their companies and stole their pensions? Seems like they paid a pretty high price for dealing with Mitt.
If only Democrats had a candidate to field who wasn’t just as venal and duplicitous as someone like Romney is, this might actually gain some traction.
Oh well. That’s what happens when you take the moral low ground.
Myself, I wonder what the tax rate of all those people Obama’s Jobs Czar, Jeff Immelt, got rid of? Anyway, why did Obama make the King of Outsourcing his “Jobs Czar” anyway?
Does no one but me think about stuff like this? Maybe having a moral compass and conscience just isn’t that useful in America anymore.
Nah. You’re not the only one. I had a virtual fit here about Timmeh Geithner’s Turbo-Tax Free program.
Concerntroll that you are- stop using adjectives like venal referring to President Obama. There is always a middle ground and I want the middle ground that bears left…and I wish there were no republican corporatist protector bullies obstructing honest discussion of the issues facing this country and the development of real action plans.
Wailing Willard has not released two years of tax returns. It’s what Willard wants everyone to repeat but is not true.
His 2011 tax return is only an estimate as he has filed for a 2011 extension. The extension is not due until October 15, 3 weeks before the election. Wanna bet he milks that 3 weeks before anything is revealed.
In truth, Willard may be the ‘Mormon Madoff’ since he doesn’t seem to want to reveal his real income.
I heard a commentator this morning theorizing that Mitt’s accountants are busy preparing amended returns to clean them up. Interesting possibility.
Certainly if you want honest discussion of the problems facing us and how to fix them, why mitts is your man. Just look at how he has courageously faced up to the tax returns questions. If you want real hope for a change in what is going on in our nation, the of course 0 is your man. He knows what to do with strong majorities in both houses of congress and how to keep his base happy.
show us your long form taxes, Mitt. The unamended ones.
Romney was the outsourcing king as Gov of Mass and as a vulture capitalist investor at Bain. He specialized in bankrupting businesses and stealing pensions whenever possible. If bankruptcy wasn’t in the cards, pay and benefits were cut to the bone along with mass layoffs. We have the legacy of that now with big box stores taking over and paying garbage wages. How many small businesses has that destroyed? He hates paying taxes too. Don’t even try it.
Dude….I thknk like that all the time.
But, I started drinking and I feel better now.
Stay thirsty my friend.
His tax returns are at the very least embarrassing but possibly full of “mistakes”.
I think Mitt’s been cheating the church for years with his 10% “tithe”.
10% of what Willard?????? Can you imagine what a can o’ worms THAT would release. BTW gang, one can get another extention in OCtober ifn you have a good reason.
How do you define “mistakes”??? I’d bet there are no “mistakes” just falsehoods.
I knew there was a better word out there. Just couldn’t think of it.
People act as if Romney created the tax code that allows him to pay a small % of his income in taxes, much as they vilify him for the outsourcing of jobs that was legalized by FTAs such as NAFTA (Clinton Admin.) and the TPP that O is currently pimping, while ignoring or condoning the outsourcing by Immelt’s GE or Apple, Micrsoft, etc.
Thought you were hanging w/ Willard at the wailing wall.
Though you won’t admit it, the Obama administration (Chicago School Economics) has excelled at being the “corporatist protestor bullies” that you find intolerant. Disregard his rhetoric and branding and do an honest evaluation of O’s policies. He’s the corporate lackey that will be the destroyer of the social safety net. By the way, stop spewing DailyKos crap here. The majority here recognize Obama as the tool of the 1% that he serves.
Just got the point of your name, comrade. They who wholly buy bull buy the holy bybull. Ha ha.
Palli the naif can’t admit that neoliberalism was the means to an end. It’s a conspiracy!! Very useful self-censorship developed in the day when wingnuts looked to be on the losing end. Now applied uselessly to left and right.
One day, Palli the naif will wake up and say, my God, “There is no conspiracy” was a conspiracy! Then he’ll join ‘em since he couldn’t beat ‘em.
Actually, being the sacrilegious atheist that I am, the “holey” was a play on “holy” and the “buy bull” a reference to the Bible and those ignorant enough to interpret it literally as the word of their god. I must admit I’m comfortable with your interpretation as well.
Where do these misinformed, disinformed, willfully ignorant commenters come from and how do they wind up at FDL?