How Mitt Romney will pay heavily for his unreleased tax returns

[ProSense]

How Mitt Romney will pay heavily for his unreleased tax returns

Romney's refusal to release his tax returns allows Obama's team to turn his greatest asset, business experience, into a liability

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After all, there's an easy way to disprove Reid's charges: Romney could simply release his tax returns.

That he will not – and that Reid knew he will not – is the root of Romney's dilemma. Clearly, there is information in those IRS transcripts that is so toxic and so politically devastating that Romney is unwilling to take the political risk of releasing them. But Romney's refusal to release means that he opens himself to attacks like Reid's. In the absence of contrary evidence, Democrats can spend the next three months speculating or passing along gossip about what Romney is hiding.

A consistent focus on Romney's taxes raises all sorts of questions with the potential to plague the Romney campaign: why did he have overseas accounts in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland; why does he have a tax-deferred individual retirement account (IRA), which could be worth close to $100m, even though the annual contribution limit to an IRA is $6,000; how did he accumulate all of his $200m fortune? To be sure, even if we had Romney's tax records, the Obama campaign could raise these issues. But the absence of Romney's returns – and the obvious inference that he has something to hide – serve to give the speculation real resonance.

Above all, the tax issue goes to the heart of Romney's biography – namely, his business experience. This was always supposed to be the calling card of Romney's presidential campaign: the notion that his years at Bain taught him the lessons he needs in order to turn around the US economy. Considering that Romney has basically run away from his signature accomplishment as Massachusetts governor, healthcare reform, his private-sector business experience is the greatest asset of his political biography.

- more -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/07/mitt-romney-pay-heavily-for-unreleased-tax-returns?newsfeed=true

Here's How Mitt Romney Might Have Paid No Taxes
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021087432

Look, Romney's Failure To Disclose Is a Disqualifier
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021087307

[Frustratedlady]

1. I wonder if his reluctance to release the forms, might...

catch the interest of the IRS CPAs to look and see what he's trying to hide?

I also wonder if Obama's offer of amnesty for those outsourcing their wealth might have been a signal to anyone seeking his office? That he already knew who they were and they'd best prepare carefully for presidential debates if they became his opponent?


I really MUST stock up on popcorn. This campaign keeps depleting my stash.