The Ghost Of Christmas Past . . . Mitt Romney Haunted By Long Dead Tax Returns

Yesterday, Mitt Romney visited his campaign television network, FOXROM, and the topic eventually moved, of course, to those darned tax returns. Here’s what he had to say about the unending controversy over his refusal to release more than two years of federal tax returns:

“John McCain ran for president and released two years of tax returns. John Kerry ran for president – you know, his wife has hundreds of millions of dollars – she never released her tax returns; somehow this wasn’t an issue.

The Obama people keep on wanting more and more and more. More things to pick through, more things for their opposition research to try to make a mountain out of,and to distort, and to be dishonest about. We’re going to put out two years of tax returns. I put out one already. As soon as the most recent year’s complete, we’ll put that out. It’s hundreds of pages of documents, and, by the way, none of those returns are required by law to be put out. What is required by law has already been made.”

Like Scrooge confronted by his virtual doppelgänger, long dead partner Jacon Marley, Mitt’s haunted by IRS documents of long past . . .

Here are the chains of misrepresentation, half truth, and preposterous humbug Mitt Romney has forged for himself:

1. As Mitt indicated above, he has not yet released two years of completed tax returns. The missing return, his 2011 estimated tax, was released last January. He promises to release his 2011 tax return when it’s completed, and, under IRS rules, has until October 15, 2012 to file it. (Romney used this same extension for his 2010 federal tax return and filed them at the deadline, October 15, 2011.)

Having a tax extension is not the problem here. These extensions are common when an individual’s income sources are complicated and far flung, like global tax shelters far flung. What rankles is that Romney often acts as if he’s already released two years of returns until he’s pushed on it. Will he wait until October 16th to release 2011’s return, a few weeks before the election, leaving little time for public analysis? Perhaps, but he’d be taking a huge risk if his taxes appear legally calculated, but expose foreign tax shelters, and extravagant tax-avoidance strategies.

2. Yes, John McCain did release only two returns, 2006 and 2007, but he had for decades been complying with Senate financial disclosure requirements; a cornucopia of information was already available for voters to examine. John McCain, though, unlike Mitt Romney, didn’t base his campaign almost exclusively upon his business acumen. John McCain is wealthy enough to sometimes forget how many homes he owns, but he is not a cento-millionaire. McCain’s tax returns totaled 43 pages for both years. Romney’s, for 2010 and his 2011 estimate? 307 pages. Taxable income? McCain (2006-2007), $473,604; Romney (2010, 2011 (est.) , $32,325,863, or 68 times McCain’s 2006-’07 taxable income. It’s fine that Romney has that much income, just it’s misleading to equate the meaningfulness to voters of his own tax returns to those of John McCain’s comparatively paltry ones.

Now, let’s momentarily flirt with a logical fallacy of some sort or other. We’ll assume we are vetting two acquaintances before getting into a four year business deal with one of them. One is the owner of a successful neighborhood-style deli that we often visit and like, the other acquaintance owns a 68 businesses, some in town, some in five other states, and a dozen or so more in Bermuda, Switzerland, and Macau. Assuming due diligence on our part, which acquaintance’s tax returns would we be most interested in examining? That’s quite similar to John McCain versus Mitt Romney, then. That’s President Obama versus Mitt Romney, now.

And, don’t forget, Mitt put himself in this position. At every whistle stop he underscores his business career and his strong allegiance to investing in American business. In a real sense, we’re about to pick a businessman to lead the country for four years. It is thereby highly relevant that we have information that will guide us in separating his business decisions from his campaign rhetoric, such as – for starters – how Romney’s business career has demonstrated his commitment to American investment. In this sense, Romney’s tax returns are among the more politically relevant tax returns in our presidential election history.

3. A minor point, perhaps, but recall that neither John Kerry nor John McCain kicked, screamed, and whined about releasing their tax returns.

And about John Kerry, although Romney didn’t mention it during the FOXCOM interview quoted above, he and his campaigners have maintained that Kerry also released only two years of taxes during his 2004 presidential campaign, thus, as you’ll see, drawing a false comparison. Here are the facts: John Kerry had previously and routinely released each year’s income tax returns since the mid-1990s. So, at the time he was the Democratic choice for president in 2004, Kerry’s prior federal tax returns were already part of his public record. When he released the two returns during the 2004 presidential campaign, that brought the number available for public inspection up to a total of 20 years. “Two returns,” Mister Romney? Humbug!

4. Regarding Romney’s shock that John Kerry’s wife, Teresa Simões-Ferreira Heinz Kerry (let’s simply call her “Heinz”), did not release her tax returns, we have to first accept that a candidate’s spouse has an obligation to do so. That’s quite debatable. But let’s assume they are obligated to release at least some tax information. Then, Romney’s recitation of the facts about her on FOX news was a half-truth. Heinz did release the summary pages of her 2003 federal tax return: she paid $627,000 in federal income taxes on $2.3 million of adjusted gross income (AGI),

primarily from dividends and interest. She received $5.1 million of gross income, $2.8 million of it tax exempt interest income. Also, she filed separately from Senator Kerry and thus paid federal income tax at the rate of 12.3% of her gross income and 27.4% of her AGI.

Finally, you just have to be amused by Romney’s voice inflection when he said that Heinz had “hundreds of millions of dollars.” Heaven forfend! . . . Oh dear, oh dear, where are my smelling salts? I think I shall faint.

Who do you think you’re talking to, Mitt?

[So you can hear his inflection, here’s where you can find the video. His Kerry comment begins at 46 seconds.]

Is the Romney campaign willing to continually wage this battle, one that that if won will be no more than a pyrrhic victory. Who is advising Romney? One would think that a savvy group would urge him to release a few more years of tax returns, even two years more would likely end the conflict for all but the Democratic party version of the GOP’s birthers. It’s gone on so long, though, that I wonder if Mitt himself has taken over the reins on this issue. And if true, if ignoring better advice, he’s forging chains that may weigh him down more than he imagines.

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