PRIOR TAX RETURNS HAUNT REPUBLICANS

What Is Romney Hiding

By Victor M Adamus

The question of why Mitt Romney refuses to disclose 10 years of his taxes has raised its ugly head again and is now, definitely, going to be a campaign issue in this election.  The odd thing about Romney is it was his father, running for President, who forced his opponent to disclose his taxes by disclosing his own going back 12 years.  He was the first to do so and he did so to show his loyalty to the United States.  This isn’t a story of “like father like son”.  Mitt Romney flat out refuses to go back more than one year and this has planted the seed of doubt in many people’s minds.  Not just his loyalty to the U.S. but whether there were years when he made millions and didn’t pay any taxes at all.

Romney’s classic response has been that for years his money is under the control of a blind trust and by law he has no way to influence what the blind trust does.  So if that’s true, why not disclose the tax returns?  What difference would it make if you can say it was the decision of someone else to protect your investments.  That’s a huge question because Romney still refuses to disclose the tax returns.

Vice President Joe Biden

On the stump this week talking to Latinos Vice President Biden raised the tax issue with a zinger referring to the Arizona law that requires minorities, stopped by police, to show their immigration papers: He wants you to show your papers, Biden said, but he won’t show you his”.

Biden went on to describe the wealthy Americans who invest, like Romney, in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and the Swiss Banks are not paying their fair share of taxes by not investing in America.  They make the money here but stash the bulk of it offshore.  Middle class Americans would probably do the same thing if they had it, but not a middle class American running for President.  Obama was in that group of middle class Americans and was proud to disclose 10 years of his tax filings.

So is it a question of loyalty to the U.S.?  When you think about Romney wanting to hide his tax records when every candidate going back to his Dad has, it has to make you wonder.  How important will this issue be in the elections when you really don’t know everything about one candidate but know everything about the other?

"It's the least amount of disclosure of any presidential candidate of either political party in the last 36 years,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Monday on MSNBC’s The Ed Show. “There are two reasons to have a Swiss Bank account: To conceal your wealth and transactions involving your wealth from government scrutiny, No. 1. Or, No. 2, because you happen to think the Swiss Franc is a stronger currency than the United States dollar.”