Mitt Romney received a HOMESTEAD EXEMPTION on his Utah home while he was running those Olympics and the fact was brought up when he was trying to claim he was a Massachusetts resident. Now, as we all know, you can only get one of those if you are a RESIDENT of a state (I pay a few hundred on a shack I have in rural Maine, that would only cost me fifteen bucks or so if I lived there instead of vacationed there).
There was an ENORMOUS stink made at the time--the whole "carpetbagger" and "bullshitter" and "out of state asshole" charges were flying around....and at the time, Mittsy wasn't sure if he was gonna run for governor of Utah or MA. If I recall, a court ruled on Mittsy's residency and they ruled in his favor--so he went out of his way to "prove" that he was a Massachusettsian. Why is he trying to pretend otherwise, now?
This is not a secret, but it is one of those things that is kind of buried in the mists of time. The Globe Spotlight people reported on it--it got a lot of play when it was revealed...to the point that Mittsy made public statements blaming unnamed accountants and he paid the full amount of taxes and maybe even a penalty fee.
I think that a review of public records with regard to Mittsy's residences might be revealing...but what this incident points out is that the guy will lie and flip-flop with sociopathic abandon, and he is one cheap asshole, that a man as wealthy as he is can't even cough up the lousy full freight for his property taxes.
I see the Globe is revisiting this, despite it getting scant attention, but it just shows that this guy will say ANYTHING to gain advantage: http://articles.boston.com/2012-07-13/opinion/32646257_1_tax-returns-mitt-romney-income-taxes
How Romney had filed his Massachusetts income taxes — as a resident or non-resident — during his years in Utah could have had some bearing on the issue. Since he had also been contemplating a run for office in Utah, some suspected he might have filed as resident there to establish more permanent roots in the Beehive State.
Romney initially refused to make a copy of his Massachusetts tax returns public, even a copy with the income information redacted. Suspicions only grew more intense after the Globe’s Frank Phillips reported that Romney had paid property taxes on his Park City, Utah, home as his primary residence for 1999, 2000, and 2001. Campaign aide Eric Fehrnstrom said that had happened because of a “clerical mistake” by the relevant county assessor’s office in Utah, an account that office pretty much backed up, though no one could say quite how the unusual error had occurred.
At the time of the property tax brouhaha, Romney told reporters he had filed his state income taxes “both as a resident of Utah and a resident of Massachusetts.” Pressed by Phillips, Fehrnstrom also insisted Romney had filed as a Massachusetts resident, adding that “you are just going to have to take my word for it.”
And how accurate were Romney and Fehrnstrom’s assertions? Well, though technically true, they stopped several fathoms short of being straightforward. We know that because, with state Democrats posed to push forward with a residency challenge, Romney suddenly reversed course. He called reporters to his campaign headquarters, where he acknowledged that he had initially filed his Massachusetts taxes as part-time resident for 1999 and a nonresident for 2000.
Once a liar, always a liar.
We could actually take a page from Dubya's book, here--
Fool me once, won't git fooled agin!!!
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