Paul Ryan Two Tax Returns, Romney Less

Exactly one week after being named VP choice by Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan has released two years of tax returns. In releasing just two, he is displaying solidarity with Mitt, and probably showing less than he had to do while being vetted by the Romney campaign, since Tim Pawlenty admitted to showing them "bunches" of returns. Hypocrisy, thou name art Romney.

Huff Post Story

The Republican vice presidential candidate and his wife paid an effective tax rate of 15.9 percent in 2010 and 20 percent in 2011.
They paid $34,233 in taxes on an adjusted gross income of $215,417 in 2010, and paid $64,764 in taxes on an adjusted gross income of $323,416 in 2011.

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal Story

. . . A Ryan aide told the Journal Sentinel last week that a portion of Ryan's investment income is from holdings that belonged to his wife.
"As these are properties Rep. Ryan 'married into,' for lack of a better term," Ryan spokesman Kevin Seifert said last week, "he does not play an active role in them and has no plans to."
Seifert said last week that the Ryans' investments include several companies that lease land and mineral rights to energy companies.

Those holdings have resulted in some critics pointing out that Ryan's federal budget plan keeps a tax deduction for land owners who lease property for drilling. The Ryans' received a $2,543 deduction last year, and other family members in the partnership presumably would have also received deductions.

Meanwhile, the Obama campaign continued to pressure Romney to release more than the 1-1/2 tax returns he has offered so far. They suggested a deal, which Romney refused. I think that was rather stupid on the part of the Romney campaign because it reinforces the idea that the candidate is hiding something.

Washington Post Story

In a letter Friday to Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades, Obama reelection campaign manager Jim Messina pledged that if Romney released five years of tax returns filed from 2007 to 2012, the Obama campaign in turn would stop criticizing the Republican candidate for not making public more of his returns. Messina said the offer addresses Romney’s apparent “fears that the more he offers, the more our campaign will demand that he provide.”
. . . Messina said Romney “would have to release only three more sets of returns in addition to the 2010 return he has released and the 2011 return he has pledged to provide.”
. . . Rhoades promptly rejected the offer, telling Messina in an e-mail: “It is clear that President Obama wants nothing more than to talk about Governor Romney’s tax returns instead of the issues that matter to voters, like putting Americans back to work, fixing the economy and reining in spending.”

As Rachel Maddow pointed out tonight, "Precedent Matters." It may not be a "law" that Romney should relase more tax returns, but it's the custom of the country, the tradition, the way things are done.

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Ann Romney: No More Tax Returns

In an interview today with Rock Center's Natalie Morales, Ann Romney reiterated that she and her husband will never release those tax returns.

NBC Rock Center Video

Natalie Morales: Why not be transparent? Why not release more than the 2010, or the estimates for 2011?

Ann Romney (leans forward): Have you seen how we've been attacked? Have you seen what's happened?

Morales: It's been in the press quite a bit. Now are you angry that it's been in the press? I mean, should you not be questioned about your finances?

Ann Romney: We have been very transparent to what's legally required of us. But the more release, the more we get attacked, the more we get questioned, the more we get pushed. (Points finger at journalist for emphasis) We have done what's legally required, and there's going to be no more, no more tax releases given, and there's a reason for that, and that's because of how . . . what happens as soon as we release anything.
Mitt's financial disclosures when he was governor are huge! If people want to really look and see - any question they have. The other thing they have to understand is that Mitt is honest, his integrity is just golden. We pay our taxes, we are absolutely . . . beyond paying our taxes we also give 10% of our income to charity, so we have no issues that way.
The only reason we don't disclose anymore is, you know, we just become a bigger target.

Morales: So it's because you'll face more questions?

Ann Romney: It'll just give them more ammunition.

Morales: To the American people, though, when they hear about perhaps, accounts with your name on it overseas in tax shelters, they feel like you may be hiding something.

(Ann squirms, crosses legs rather defensively)

Ann Romney: There's nothing we're hiding. You know, we've had a blind trust for how many years? We don't even know what's in there. It's been managed by a blind trust since before Mitt was governor. 2002 - forward. And so, you know - I'll be curious to see what's in there, too. (smiles)

Ugh ~ Her middle name should be "Imperious."

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Tim Pawlenty Admits Giving Romney "A Bunch" of Tax Returns

Mahahahahahahahaha!!!!! This made my day!!!

Found Via Scott Wooledge

Tim Pawlenty, ex-governor of Minnesota, who was also courted by the Romney campaign to be Veep before they chose Paul Ryan, had a deer-in-the-headlights moment on ABC's This Week when George Stephanopoulos asked how many tax returns Pawlenty provided to the Romney camp while being vetted for Vice President. After a long, long pause, he said:

Via ABC News

PAWLENTY: There were several years, I believe. Well, we don’t get into the details of the vetting process, but I gave them a bunch of tax returns. I don’t remember the exact number of years.

Ha! So we can assume that Paul Ryan also had to turn over tax returns, which begs the question why it's fair game for Veep Vetting but not for Presidential selection? When will Romney release his tax returns to the American people? This isn't going away.

The Fierce and "Decent" Harry Reid

Who would have thought that the Democrat who would finally throw down the gauntlet and not back down an inch on Romney's taxes would be the usually reticent Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid? And this story is getting bigger and bigger almost by the hour.

Harry Reid to Huffington Post

"His poor father must be so embarrassed about his son," Reid said, in reference to George Romney's standard-setting decision to turn over 12 years of tax returns when he ran for president in the late 1960s.

Saying he had "no problem with somebody being really, really wealthy," Reid sat up in his chair a bit before stirring the pot further. A month or so ago, he said, a person who had invested with Bain Capital called his office.

"Harry, he didn't pay any taxes for 10 years," Reid recounted the person as saying.

"He didn't pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that's true? Well, I'm not certain," said Reid. "But obviously he can't release those tax returns. How would it look?

"You guys have said his wealth is $250 million," Reid went on. "Not a chance in the world. It's a lot more than that. I mean, you do pretty well if you don't pay taxes for 10 years when you're making millions and millions of dollars."

On Wednesday, Reid spoke out again on the Senate Floor, repeating his accusation that Romney hasn't paid any taxes in ten years.

So, the word’s out that he hasn’t paid any taxes for 10 years. Let him prove that he has paid taxes, because he hasn’t. We already know from one partial tax return that he gave us, he has money hidden in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and a Swiss banking account. Mitt Romney makes more money in a single day than the average middle-class family makes in two years or more.

Then he told reporters that he has more than once source to back up his claim.

LA Times Story

In a conference call with Nevada reporters on Wednesday, he broadened what he said were his sources for the contention that Romney was able to avoid federal taxes.

"I have had a number of people tell me that," said Reid, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, while refusing to elaborate. "I don't think the burden should be on me," Reid told the home-state reporters. "The burden should be on him. He's the one I've alleged has not paid any taxes. Why didn't he release his tax returns?”
On Thursday morning, Reid said that a nominee for a Cabinet position couldn't get confirmed by the Senate if he made as limited a release of tax information as Romney has thus far.
"Let him prove that he has paid taxes, because he hasn't," Reid declared, then adding that “Mitt Romney makes more money in a single day than the average middle-class family makes in two years or more

This is throwing the Romney camp for a loop - and as we know, it doesn't take much to get them into a tizzy of alleged victimization by the mean old Democrats. Romney said on Sean Hannity via Mediaite:

Well, it’s time for Harry to put up or shut up. Harry’s going to have to describe who it is he spoke with, because, of course, that’s completely and totally wrong. It’s untrue, dishonest, and inaccurate. It’s wrong. So I’m looking forward to have Harry reveal his sources, and we’ll probably find out it’s the White House.

Also on Thursday, Romney spokesperson Eric "Etch-A-Sketch" Fehrnstrom accused Reid of "McCarthyism," which is rich coming from a campaign that has ignored the witch hunts of Michelle Bachmann and her pals.

Harry Reid's statements are baseless and untrue, and I would ask him one simple question - 'Have you no sense of decency, Sir?' Is there nothing that you won't do to debase yourself and the office you hold, in the name of dirty politics? . . . This reminds me of the McCarthy hearings back in the 1950s.

From Huffington Post

"I don't think there is anything behind it. He hasn't produced any evidence," Fehrnstrom said Thursday in an interview with Fox News. "I'm telling you speaking on behalf of the governor that those charges are untrue, they are baseless and there is nothing to back them up."
"This reminds me of the McCarthy hearings back in the 1950s," he added.
Fehrnstrom's line, "Have you no decency, sir?" is a paraphrase of what Army lawyer Joseph N. Welch asked Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy in 1954, when he famously stood up to the powerful, witch-hunting senator who was falsely accusing people of being Communists.

On this issue, not only is Reid standing fast, but he is practically begging the media to keep talking about Romney's taxes, and especially to investigate people at Bain who would know the truth.

The elegant flourish of the whole thing is that Romney can't complain that people are picking on him because he is a Mormon, since Reid is also a Mormon. Ann Romney tried to play that card in the "You People" interview in which she mentioned tithing to the church, and how that meant they could be trusted on the tax issue. But it doesn't really work when another Mormon is saying it, plus where are all the other Mormons out there who should be speaking out on Romney's behalf? *crickets*

Tonight both CNN and MSNBC covered the tax return issue for hours. Lawrence O'Donnell offered a Romney-tax montage and discussion, while CNN's Dana Bash told Anderson Cooper that Reid's sources are good or he wouldn't be standing firm.

Mitt Romney could "shut up" Harry Reid. Mitt Romney could "shut up" all of us by doing what every presidential candidate does and show his tax returns. Every day that Mitt Romney refuses to show his tax returns costs him politically and therefore logically casts more and more suspicion on why he is not releasing his tax returns.
~ Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC


Tax Montage & Discussion from Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell

 

Transcript: Dana Bash on CNN's Anderson Cooper, August 2, 2012

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. We now have a couple of responses, Anderson. Let me read you the first one, that is, "Senator Reid stands by his comments. Governor Romney's continued refusal to release his tax returns raises legitimate questions about what he is hiding and whether he paid any taxes at all. Governor Romney can easily end this debate by following the precedent set by his father and releasing his tax returns."

And as you were coming on the air, Anderson, I got a follow-up like the statement, which also stands by what they call his credible source that Romney has not paid taxes for 10 years, and he's calling Romney playing tricks, many tricks at his disposal for avoiding taxes. So not backing down at all.

I got to tell you, covering Harry Reid for a lot of years, there are times when he says things off the cuff that make his aides wince, like talking smelly tourists in the capitol. I'm not making this up. This is not one of those times.

This is one of those times where he knows exactly what he's doing. He's doing it on purpose. He's doing it for political reasons because he wants this issue, Romney's taxes, to be talked about on programs like yours, and wants it to be headlines in newspapers, and wants Mitt Romney to respond on this issue, which they think is a negative for Romney as opposed to issues that Romney wants to talk about.

. . . But this is -- when Harry Reid doesn't like somebody, he goes for the jugular. And that is what he is doing now. He is an old boxer and he still likes to be a political street fighter. He knew full well that he was going to be questioned over and over again on who his source was. And he said -- he's told people close to him who I have spoken today that he didn't care. He's not telling going to tell who his source is.

But I did speak, I just have to tell you, that I did speak to one source who's very close to Senator Reid who claims to also know who this Bain investor is that Reid spoke with, and insists that this is a credible person and this person if we knew the name we would understand that they would have the authority and the ability to know about Romney's tax returns. Whether we'll find it out ever, who knows. But they're doing this on purpose so that this is the discussion.

Romney Runs from Tax Transparency

Yesterday Mitt Romney was interviewed by ABC News and said this about his taxes:

"From time to time I’ve been audited — as it happens, I think, to other citizens as well — and the accounting firm which prepares my taxes has done a very thorough and complete job, pay[ing] taxes as legally due."
. . . "I don't pay more than are legally due and frankly if I had paid more than are legally due I don't think I'd be qualified to become president. I'd think people would want me to follow the law and pay only what the tax code requires."
. . . "I haven't looked at the tax rate paid year by year. I know that I pay a very substantial amount of taxes and [have] every year since the beginning of my career, so far as I can recall."

Yep, there you have it . . . "so far as he can recall."

It never ceases to amaze me that a man running on his sterling background in business and high finance can be so blatantly obtuse and vague about his own personal finances.

That interview must have raised new questions and we know how much Mitt hates those, so he must have put his little foot down. Ann Romney will get the last word when she said "We've given all you people need to know" about their income taxes. As of today, they just aren't going to answer any more of these persnickety tax questions, so there!

Now all you journalists and snoopy people, please slink out the back servant's door and leave us alone in our counting house!

CNN Reporting:

Mitt Romney's campaign said Monday they would not release any more of the candidate's personal income tax information, despite an acknowledgement from Romney that he had been audited in the past.

"Mitt Romney has paid his taxes in full compliance with U.S. Law, and he has paid 100 percent of what he has owed," Romney spokesman Ryan Williams wrote.

. . . He continued, "As has previously been reported, in 2011, the Romneys will pay more than $3.2 million in taxes on $20.9 million in mostly investment income and will have donated more than $4 million to charity. In 2010, The Romneys paid more than $3 million in taxes on $21.6 million in mostly investment income and donated nearly $3 million to charity."

Romney has disclosed his income tax returns from 2010, and released an estimate of his 2011 tax information in April. He has vowed to release 2011's full return one it's completed by his accountant.

Romneys Say "Trust Us, We're Rich"

Mother Jones has a slideshow of Mitt Romney looking unhappy on the campaign trail, and it's not surprising. What seems most depressing to the candidate is that ordinary people just won't trust him and believe whatever he says about his past business deals, his offshore accounts, and especially his old tax returns. To Mitt it is just unreal that he might be questioned or mocked over money, of all things, when money is what has come easiest for him in life up till now.

Paul Krugman has a column in the New York Times about why the Romneys feel entitled to be unquestioned by  "we-the-people."

Pathos of the Plutocrat

Like everyone else following the news, I’ve been awe-struck by the way questions about Mr. Romney’s career at Bain Capital, the private-equity firm he founded, and his refusal to release tax returns have so obviously caught the Romney campaign off guard. Shouldn’t a very wealthy man running for president — and running specifically on the premise that his business success makes him qualified for office — have expected the nature of that success to become an issue? Shouldn’t it have been obvious that refusing to release tax returns from before 2010 would raise all kinds of suspicions? By the way, while we don’t know what Mr. Romney is hiding in earlier returns, the fact that he is still stonewalling despite calls by Republicans as well as Democrats to come clean suggests that it could be something seriously damaging.

Ann Romney is simply outraged that anyone would question her husband's ability as a financier, espcially that "undignified" President Obama. In an interview with ABC News yesterday, she got quite huffy when asked about their tax returns, which led to the not-politically-savvy move of making a remark with the now trending-on-Twitter phrase "You People" which some have taken as dismissive and condescending.

Honestly, Ann Romney doesn't sound like a seasoned political wife, and this stonewalling strikes me as a form of deep denial about the state of her husband's campaign right now. How long do they think they can wait on the tax returns?  Sorry, Ann ~ "Trust Us, We're Rich" just isn't going to cut it. In fact, that's a line many con men use to lure suckers, and "we people" just aren't as stupid as you think.




From ABC News

Robin Roberts: One distraction has been the tax returns. Both Bushes gave multiple years, ten, twelve years. President Obama gave 7 years of tax returns. Your husband has been adamant about only the two years that have been released. Why won't he follow the example of others on both sides of the aisle?

Ann Romney: You know, I think there's reasons for all of these things. You should really look at where Mitt has led his life, where he's been financially. He's a very generous person. We give 10% of our income to our church every year. Do you think that's the kind of person who is trying to hide things or do things? No, he is so good about it. When he was governor of Massachusetts, didn't take a salary in the four years.

Robin Roberts: Why not show that then? Why not release the returns because then it's a moot point?

Ann Romney: Because there are so many things that will be open again for more attack, and you just want to give more material for more attack. And that's really -- that's just the answer. We've given all you people need to know and understand about our financial situation and about how we live our life. . .

On the attacks from the Obama administration over Bain outsourcing and whether Romney lied in his SEC filings:

Ann Romney: I'm not disappointed, I'm not surprised but I think it was beneath the dignity of the office of the president. to do something as egregious as that. To do something on that level, I believe it was beneath the dignity of the presidency.

Mitt's Sunday Show Train Wreck

It reminds me of the song "Sunday Will Never Be the Same." Even pundits on the Right know that their candidate is a disaster, and for some reason the Romney camp still can't get all their excuses straight. It's like watching a train wreck in slow motion, and yet we can't look away. And I have to admit that I'm enjoying every minute of it, LOL.

I especially love the new "retroactively retired" meme started by Ed Gillespie. If you want to know what I mean, check out my post on Snark Amendment


. . . feel the embers die . . .




Romney Campaign Surrogate Ed Gillespie on CNN: "He took a leave of absence and in fact ended up not going back at all, and retired retroactively to February of 1999."



Republican George Will on ABC's This Week: Mitt Romney's losing it, and he's losing in a big way. If something is going to come out like this, get it out in a hurry. I do not know why, given that Mr. Romney knew the day that McCain lost in 2008 that he was going to run for President again, that he didn't get all of this out and tidy up some of his offshore accounts and all the rest. He's done nothing illegal, nothing unseemly, nothing improper, but lots that's impolitic. And he's now in the politics business.
. . . The Republicans have now nominated someone from the financial sector at a time when the financial sector has a bad odor. Hardly a day goes by - the LIBOR scandal, TARP . . . all of this conditions the atmosphere in which this is occurring.





Karl Rove Via Daily Caller 

“Two different attacks — one is he didn’t take a leave of absence to run the Olympics Committee and run Bain,” Rove said. “Total baloney — even The Washington Post said this was baloney. The fact of the matter is, look, when Steve Jobs was the CEO of Apple and took a leave of absence for medical reasons, nobody continued to say, ‘Well you are the guy who made the day-to-day decisions.’ Romney was busy running the Olympics and they were ready for this particular attack. I agree with Joe. They were not ready for the regular attack on the six companies that Obama raised [saying] these companies all outsource jobs. It took them a week to respond and say four of these companies didn’t outsource jobs, move a single job overseas. They created jobs at home and two companies were brought by Bain after Romney left.”

Rove added that, if the Obama campaign continues this line of attack, it could ultimately hurt the president.

“But the fact of the matter is, if the president makes the charge … [the] outrageous charge that Mitt Romney is guilty of felonious activity and committed a felony — that is it a big mistake. Remember who is up for grabs in this election: independent voters,” Rove said. “They were drawn to Obama in 2008 because he was going to change politics and would raise and elevate the discourse. This is gutter politics of the worst Chicago sort.”

Chicago mayor and Obama campaign surrogate Rahm Emanuel: Stephanie Cutter cited the law, and it's very clear. Either the filing with the SEC is accurate and his personal financial disclosure is not honest. Or that's honest and the SEC isn't. But both can't be accurate depicting a time when he said he was doing one thing or another.
George Stephanopoulos: He says it was just a formality during the time he was untangling his involvement with Bain.
Rahm Emanuel: George, he has made Bain Capital his calling-card for the Presidency. And when you look at it, it doesn't measure up to what he claims. And number two, on both of those filings, one is accurate and one isn't. And they both have consequences when one is not accurate. And that is what she (Cutter) stated.
And the other thing is, give it up about Stephanie. Don't worry about that. What are you going to do when the Chinese leader says something to you or Putin says something to you? Are you gonna whine as your way? You cannot do that? As Mitt Romney said once to his own colleagues, stop whining! I'd give him his own advice. Stop whining and if you want to claim Bain Capital as your calling card to the White House then defend what happened to Bain Capital. And what happened to those jobs that went overseas, those jobs that were actually cut and eliminated, and those companies that went into bankruptcy.
. . .
Stephanopoulos: The campaign has been pushing hard for Mitt Romney to release more of his tax returns. He says the public has everything they need to know to understand his finances, and we do know that Mitt Romney made a lot of money, we know he paid a relatively low tax rate. What more will the returns tell us that we don't know?
Rahm Emanuel: . . . Mitt Romnney's own father said you shouldn't release one year, and in my view he's released one year. . . . transparency and what that says. Okay, to the McCain campaign he released 23 years. And he's telling the American People, okay, I'm not going to give you what I gave John McCain's people in 2008. And when he gave them 23 years, McCain's people looked at it and said let's go with Sarah Palin. So whatever's in there is far worse than just the first year.
The Romney campaign isn't stupid. They've decided it's better to get attacked on lack of transparency, lack of accountability to the American people versus telling you what's in those taxes. They're not enjoying this.
Stephanopoulos: So what do you think is in there?
Rahm Emanuel: He can clear this up, just make it public. . . . he paid 14%, just about half of what a middle-class family pays. Second, we've learned in just one year about The Caymans, about the Bahamas, about Luxembourg, and about Switzerland, all about where his different accounts are. His tax filing looks more like the Olympic village than like a middle-class family. Third, the next four years the President of the United States is going to have tax reform. And you're going to have to debate it with Congress and shape it. And unless you have his taxes, and I've seen this in the Oval Office, George, there's going to be times when a President has to make trade-offs and choices, and will it be the middle class family trying to send their kid to college, or will it be to save the loophole in the Cayman Islands? . . .
He has fully used what is legal in the tax code, and that's the problem with the tax code.




From Face The Nation with Bob Schieffer on CBS

Obama spokesperson Stephanie Cutter said Romney's departure date matters, because his experience at Bain is "his sole rationale for being president."

"If you're signing an SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission] document with your own signature that you're the president, C.E.O., chairman of the board and 100 percent owner of a company, in what world are you living in that you're not in charge?" Cutter said Sunday on "Face the Nation."

"If he wasn't the head of it, who was?" she asked.
Romney adviser Kevin Madden said what Romney has also said: that he left the company in 1999.

"The reason there is a document in 2002 that had his signature is, during that transition from 1999 to 2002 where there was transfer of ownership to the new partners of Bain, that there was a duty to sign those documents. But every single - even a bipartisan commission indicated Governor Romney left Bain in 1999," Madden told host Bob Schieffer. "This has been established, yet the Obama campaign, the president himself, continued to pursue these inaccurate statements, and I think it's to the detriment of the public right now."

"It doesn't make any difference that we're arguing the semantics of when Mitt Romney left Bain Capital," Cutter said. "He has put for his sole rationale being president his experience at Bain Capital, and that every decision he'll make as president should be seen through the lens of his experience with Bain Capital, and we're just getting a taste of that, whether it's investing in companies . . . and those investments happened before 1999 when Mitt Romney was, in his words, 'in charge' that became the pioneers in outsourcing, or whether it's investing in companies, loading them up with [debt] and pushing them into bankruptcy and yet you walk away with hundreds of millions of dollars but you're leaving workers without jobs, pensions, health care and companies decimated."

Cutter said Romney's responsibilities at Bain - and when those responsibilities began and ended - are legitimate discussions to have particularly, she said, because the presumptive GOP nominee "put it on the table.

"And the simple point is, if you're telling the SEC you're in charge but you're telling the American people that you bear no responsibility, one of those things is not true," she added.

Referring to Cutter's comment made to reporters last week in which she said an executive misrepresenting his role on SEC documents is a felony, Madden said her suggestion that Romney committed a felony is "troubling."

"First, I think it is very troubling that the president would direct this campaign to label someone like Governor Romney, who is a very good and honorable man, as a felon," Madden said.

Cutter said the Obama campaign is not going to apologize for the comment.

"Just a few months ago in the primary, Mitt Romney said to his opponents, who were crushing him at the time, 'Stop whining.' And that's a good message for the Romney campaign," Cutter said. "Instead of whining about what the Obama campaign is saying, just put the facts out there and let people decide, rather than trying to hide them.

"The tax returns is exactly just about that," Cutter said, pointing to Romney's refusal to release tax returns from before 2010. "If he didn't gain any tax advantages from having investments in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and a Swiss bank account, then show us. Show the American people. What are you hiding?"

Madden said Romney has gone "above and beyond" by releasing his 2010 returns and 2011 estimated taxes.

"Governor Romney has dutifully and according to the law filed all of his financial disclosure requirements. He's gone above the law," he said.

Cutter, however, said Romney's refusal to release his tax returns is an issue of transparency. "This discussion is about transparency and showing the American people what your perspective is and what judgments you're going to make as president," she said.