Unrelated image of Mitt Romney harbour Dino Flintstone via Rick Friedman / Corbis
During the GOP argument last night in South Carolina , Mitt Romney was asked yet again if he intended to make his tax returns public . The former governor of Massachusetts first avoided the question , then hemmed and haw , then render a resounding … maybe ?
It ’s not the first time Romney , the former principal executive of Bain Capital , a successful individual fairness firm , has performed a verbal do - International System of Units - do on stage with regards to this inquiry . Last calendar month , he told Chuck Todd of MSNBC , “ I do n’t specify to free the tax take . I do n’t . ” But later , he was more equivocal , read , “ Time will tell , ” and “ I ’ll keep that opened , ” and then suggesting that he “ would n’t be opposed ” to free the forms , “ if that ’s been the custom . ” Finally , he said he ’d “ probably ” release them — but only maybe , and only if he becomes the nominee .
The affair is , Romney does n’t have to release anything if he does n’t want to . Legally , taxation returns are secret . Presidential hopeful must only file a financial revealing report to the Office of Government Ethics , and Romney did that ( disclose , for the record , that he ’s worth between $ 190 and $ 250 million buckaroos ) .
Politically , though , Romney ’s refusal to release his tax returns may be a little trickier .
Already , his fellow Republicans , including Sarah Palin , have hail out swinging on the issue . Texas Governor Rick Perry — the only candidate in the Republican primary who has , in fact , unfreeze his tax returns thus far — demanded last nighttime that Mitt release his records like a shot . “ Mitt , ” he say , slowing down his voice for core , “ We need you to publish your income taxation so the multitude of this country can see how you made your money . I think that ’s a fair thing . ” Newt Gingrich , who has promised to release his own revenue enhancement returns on Thursday , also beat Romney for dragging his heels on setting a release date .
The Democratic National Committee has been less diplomatical . originally this calendar month , it produced a web video , complete with horror - picture show screen background music , claiming that traditionally , all presidential and vice presidential candidates have released their tax criminal record , “ but Romney wo n’t . ” “ What is Mitt Romney veil ? ”
Past Precedent
The DNC actually has a point . According to PolitiFact , a non - partizan Pulitzer Prize Winning fact - check internet site , the vast majority of candidates who have go for president or vice president in the last thirty - five years have indeed release their taxation coming back . Of the thirty - four candidate who ran during that fourth dimension menstruum , only seven — Jerry Brown , Pat Buchanan , Mike Huckabee , Steve Forbes , Rudy Giuliani , Richard Lugar , and Ralph Nader — have refused to release their taxation returns altogether . Most give up their records in the late bounce . Even Romney ’s pa , George Romney , released his taxation income tax return when he ran against Richard Nixon in the Republican primary in 1968 .
But Mitt Romney has never released his taxation returns . Not during the US Senate race in 1994 . Not during the Massachusetts governor race in 2002 . And not during his last presidential bid in 2008 . Ironically , during the 1994 Senate race , Romney challenge his opponent , Senator Edward Kennedy , to resign his state and federal taxes to prove Kennedy had “ nothing to hide . ” Romney say he would release his own revenue enhancement records after Kennedy released his , but Kennedy never did .
Then again , Romney ’s refusal to release his personal tax records might be the correct pick , as far as his campaign is concern . In the past , when candidates have released their taxation take , it has n’t always gone well . In 1984 , Vice Presidential prospect Geraldine Ferraro and her hubby , John Zaccaro , released their tax proceeds only to key out that — oops!—they owed more than $ 50,000 in back tax . And during the presidential backwash between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford in 1976 , both released their taxation returns , only to discover that a tax credit , signed into law by Ford himself , “ leave in a significant tax bunce ” for one of Carter ’s goober storage warehouse — a disclosure that both men perhaps would have preferred to keep out of the headlines .
