Mitt is betting the GOP convention will be such big news his tax return story will die. However most political conventions are snooze fests I wonder why the networks broadcast them. I expect the story will continue after the GOP convention.

Off topic, but of course everyone’s tax return should be public record. The government, banks, employers, credit raters, brokers, mortgage companies etc etc know a lot of what’s in them anyway.

In community life not so long ago, everyone had a good idea of what their neighbors did and did not have and the sky did not fall.

It would good to have all property, all wealth, out in the open.

—Silly me.

You could replace Obama’s birth certificate with Romneys tax returns throughout this story.

I don’t get either one.

I almost feel as though I should recuse myself from participating in this particular argument. I had decided two years ago that I wouldn’t vote for Mitt. That being the case, I do know that those who’re undecided might care about Mitt’s taxes but to be honest, I wouldn’t vote for this scheister if he released 30 years of returns.

The servants must never know how much the Master makes, or how much property he owns.

The guy is such an utter disgrace. Why can’t he just go away

The difference here Alan is that all Presidential candidates have been expected for decades now to release their tax returns. Birth certificates didn’t become a matter of contraversy until a black man became POTUS.

Also…

Where a person was born really has no bearing on their character and as long as a Presidential candidate is born within the confines of the US it’s really not our business where he was born. Tax returns however do give us a look at a candidate’s character. In order to determine if a candidate has complied with the tax law it is necessary to see his taxes. This way we can see if someone obeys the law or considers him/herself above the law.

follow tradition when it comes to releasing tax returns?

Barack H. Obama
10 years

Mitt Romney
2 years

John S. McCain
2 years

George W. Bush
0 years

Bill Clinton
0 years

George H. W. Bush
0 Years

Ronald Reagan
0 years

Jimmy Carter
0 Years

Gerald Ford
0 years

Richard Nixon
0 Years

Franklin Roosevelt
0 years

alan1tx @8

You are incorrect. Here are the facts.

This way we can see if someone obeys the law or considers him/herself above the law.

Asked and answered.

Nice post. Don’t recall seeing you here before.

Thanks for that.
May be wasted on alan. :-)

Republican convention…Freedom Porn Fest!! I hope the Ron Paul folks cause holy havoc.

And of course Mittens should release his tax forms. However, there probably isn’t a pol in DC who wants to discuss why Romney paid zero taxes *totally legally* while O pushes to cut SSMM. No, as long as Romney doesn’t release the forms, the D team can attack Romney as a lying tax cheat–as if it’s a character issue rather than a feature of the tax system–to keep the D team in the White House.

There are Constitutional age and citizenship requirements.
No financial requirement exists.

BTW, I’m no birther. I just don’t know why such a big deal was made of it.

Thanks for the link.

I was going from this research:

http://www.taxhistory.org/www/website.nsf/web/presidentialtaxreturns

which is linked to in your facts.

Notice that the tax returns released were current to holding office, not back taxes to previous years.

Interesting article I saw yesterday. Allegedly McCain’s team saw Romney’s tax returns inj ’08……..Notice McCain has not come out to dispute Reid’s allegations?

I don;t think romney had a chance before this all broke. He just doesn;t have a path to 270 electoral votes. But this may be the final nail in his coffin.

Obama – 12 years
Romney – 1 year, 1 partial (both arguably incomplete)
McCain – 2 years
Clinton – 8 years
Bush I – 3 years
Bush II – 8 years
Reagan – 6 years
Ford – Summary 68-75
Reagan – 6 years
Carter – 3 years
Nixon – 4 years
Roosevelt – 19 years

Who are the other men in the photo?

Bain management I think

I think that this poll asked the wrong question or at least didn’t follow up with the important one, will this change anyones vote.

The other possibility is that Willard will release these returns after the convention and there isn’t anything very damaging in them. This whole thing could blow up in the Dems face since they have nothing positive to run on and seem to be betting the house on this one issue.

I agree, and as I pointed out in #14, those were “during years in office”.

From what I can find, McCain and Obama are the only two to submit tax returns for any prior years. Not really much of a tradition.

Doesn’t matter.

What matters is a man who is running to run the country hide his money offshore in tax havens so he didn’t have to pay taxes to the country he wants to be head of.

That’s what matters.

Prove you didn’t do that Romney.

That suits both the D team and their obscenely rich overlords, right? And so the status quo wins again.

If Romney moved his money legally to avoid taxes, he did what any rational human being would do. That rich people can avoid taxes is a deliberately installed *feature* of the tax law, not a glitch.

The only benefit from treating Romney’s tax problems as a character issue is that Democrats will have an advantage in the election this fall. I understand that a lot of people want that, but I don’t see that another 4 years of Obama will change the tax law. Just sayin’

This is our opportunity.

Start yelling and screaming to your congressman and senators that these rich are paying a lowing tax rate then you are.

And when they say it’s because of capitol gains, start screaming even louder that it should be way higher then taxes on work.

Start screaming now.

I get that, and I’m all ready to do the screaming if we ever get to see the tax returns. However…from my angle it’s clear that Democrats like the unfair tax system as much as the Republicans and the peeps in power have a vested interest in keeping the status quo. X2 since Citizens United.

So what if they do.

Start letting them know we are not going to stand for it.

You don’t have to wait for any more returns.

Romney paid 13.99% in 2010.

You and I paid a higher rate.

Scream.

Doubtful.

We don’t need the tax returns to scream, but our screams will be more impactful with them in hand. I’d never discourage anyone from petitioning the government for redress of grievances, but… the elected class listens to money before the screams of the unwashed.

Lately I’m convinced that change will not come from the electoral process but from either stepping around the carcass of the failed system or from a peaceful global revolt.

Romney’s 13.99% tax rate is his Effective Tax Rate.

If you claim to pay anywhere close to that you’re talking about your Marginal Tax Rate.

The effective tax rate generally means “tax paid” divided by “income”.
Marginal tax rate is the tax rate that applies to the last unit of currency of taxable income.

So if Romney makes $10,000,000 per year and pays $1,399,000 in taxes his Effective Tax Rate is 13.99%. His Marginal rate is 35% on everything over $388,350 (except for the capital gains part which we agree on).

On the other hand if you make $50,000 and have normal deductions and personal exemptions your Marginal Tax Rate would be 15% and your effective tax rate would be around 4.27%.

You should make sure you’re comparing apples to apples before you start screaming.

I know for sure that paying 15% on your money making money doesn’t compare to paying 15% on working your ass off day after day, week after week, year after year.

I’m screaming.

Where did you get this misinformation? Was it some viral email like the ones that conservatives so frequently pass around to misinform their friends?

So you want to yell and scream at the elected representatives responsible for the legislation that created the existing tax laws that benefit them and their paymasters in hopes of having the laws changed to decrease their wealth. Does the term “exercise in futility” mean anything to you?

Which part do you consider misinformation?

It’s pretty standard basic accounting.

The $10M Romney income I just made up as a round number for illustration.

Here’s a fun little generic tax calculator to help you understand.

http://www.cpasitesolutions.com/content/calcs/TaxMargin.html

Plug in your income, dependents and deductions and see how little you actually pay. I used $50,000 income, married with 1 child and $10,000 in home interest deductions. Comes to 4.27% tax.

The last thing Romney should do is release a single shred of additional information,
nor should he discuss the issue again. Surrendering on this obvious ploy by the
Chicago mafia would show an irrevocable weakness. The American people need to
start worrying about the taxes they will owe to cover Obama’s massive deficit spending
and stop being duped into caring about Romney’s. I find it frightening that people
are falling for the pathetic attack on Romney’s wealth. We have had 4 years to witness
how clueless Obama is about economics. How could anyone give this man another
dime to misallocate?? He is incapable of telling the truth and it’s past time for the
MSM to stop covering up his misdeeds, corruption and failures.

It also points out, importantly, that Romney’s assertion that taxes need to be lowered for the rich is an outright lie. If he’s already paying 5% or whatever, even 13%, his entire spiel is a lie and poor, old, and middle class people will be dragged down the drain with that lie.

Obama’s ‘massive’ deficit spending is the direct result of crooks like Romney crashing the economy and stealing all the money. Want to let them do it again, eh?

Those tax returns must be REALLY fucking bad if he doesn’t want us to know! He clearly thinks that whats in them is MORE damaging than the fall out he takes now over them.

Obama already released his birth certificate.

We don’t need them!
Aside from the fact that a birth certificate is NO predictor of what president he’s gonna be, we ALREADY HAVE FOUR YEARS OF HIM BEING PRESIDENT, which tells what kind of president he’s gonna be.

We don’t have that for Rmoney

Wait, Romney wasn’t in office when he was governor? the larger picture is, his father did it, and what is he hiding? If he’s such a honest guy, why not release them?

http://www.whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com/
What has Barack Obama done so far?
-4.2 million jobs saved;
-Taxes cut for 160 million Americans;
-Wall Street reforms passed;
-18 tax cuts for small businesses;
-Unfair credit card fees eliminated;
… -Nearly half a million new manufacturing jobs;
-$1 trillion in spending cuts;
-Protected reproductive rights;
-Stem cell research funded;
-Fuel efficiency standards doubling;
-U.S. oil production at eight-year high;
-Natural gas production at all-time high;
-Renewable energy production up 27 percent;
-First Latina Supreme Court justice appointed;
-$100 billion invested in science and research;
-Iraq war ended;
-Libya liberated;
-Osama bin Laden dead;
-Incentives to hire unemployed veterans;
-”Don’t ask, Don’t tell” ended”
-Unemployment benefits extended;
-Equal pay for women protected;
-Health care reform passed;
-Seniors’ drug costs lowered;
-College Pell grants doubled;
-Guaranteed coverage for contraception;
-Medicare and Social Security protected;
-and the auto industry saved.