Reid: Bain Investor Told Me That Mitt Romney 'Didn't Pay Any Taxes For 10 Years'

[Likely Voter]

Thus begins the game of "what's in Romey's Tax Returns?"

Hey I heard that for three years Romney was writing off millions in losses for a cock fighting business

see how easy it is.

Clearly the Romney campaign have calculated that whatever is in there is more damaging than making him look like he is hiding something combined with the speculation of the things he is hiding.

[Likely Voter]

whenever a poster starts with "I heard..." you know what comes next is the most ridiculous BS ever (on both sides).

Either link to credible sources or don't make $#!T up

[Likely Voter]

It is hard to tell the difference between wingnuttery and parody

[Likely Voter]

Any day that Romney has to defend not releasing his returns and avow that he isn't a tax cheat is a day he loses and only reinforces the perception of him being an elitist 1%er.  So the damage that would be done if he released more must be pretty bad for them to continue to endure this.

Perhaps they think that once they announce their VP and have their convention this will all go away and not be brought up in September and October. But that is some serious wishful thinking.

[Likely Voter]

when the all caps and bold get pulled out, you know a line of attack is working

[Likely Voter]

Romney's whole rationale shows that there is something bad in there. For the one year he has already released he has been hit for swiss bank accounts, tax shelters, a strangely ginormous IRA and most specificlaly his low rate of 13.9%

So if the previous years are more of the same then there is no reason not to release them. Therefore I take Romney at his word, there is something worse in the other years, and it is probably the rate he paid.

If he paid a higher rate, why wouldn't he release them to show that 2010 was just an aberration and that he ususally paid a higher rate. I doubt his rate was ever 0%, but I wouldnt be surprised if his accountants had figured a way to get it under 10% for some years. Hell this is the guy who wrote off his wife's horse as a business deduction.

[Likely Voter]

Some are treating this thing like it is a court of law talking about proof and meeting legal requirements. But this is the court of public opinion, and as I noted before, any day the Romney team have to defend the limited release of tax returns for the richest candidate in recent memory is a day they are losing.

I can remember during the primaries that many Republicans pointed out that nominating a financier in the first election following a recession that was triggered by Wall Street was not a smart idea. Remember how the party lurched from one flavor of the month to another, all in a desparate hope to find someone who wasn't Mitt Romney. One just has to look at Romney's current ratings vs past nominees by the summer to see he has a huge likabillity gap. That is what this debate is all about.

Meeting the minimum requirement and arguing with Harry Reed over whether or not he paid taxes is not making people like Mitt Romney any more.

[Likely Voter]

The only way Romney can change the subject on this issue is to release the returns (and have them contain nothing that is substantially more damaging than what is already out there). Otherwise I see this as continuing to be a distraction/drag all the way to November.

But releasing more returns is still not enough because he is already behind. His "the economy sucks so vote for me because Obama is in over his head" isn't enough to give people a reason to vote for him. He has to make people both like him and believe in him. I'm just not sure he has it in him to do that.

[Likely Voter]

Is the Reid attack fair? No. Were the Bain attacks all fair? No.

...what's your point?


In 2012 the Obama team are clearly not going to fall into ways of past democrats. They are going to play just as hard as Lee Atwater, Karl Rove and decades of GOP mudslingers.

Is it pretty? No. Is it good for the country? Absolutely not.

Does it work? Yes.

THe only danger here is blowback on Obama's nice guy ratings, but that is why they have Reid doing it and not Obama, his campaign or even Biden.

[Likely Voter]

Once again this isn't about Harry Reid. And also it is quite possible that Romney could have paid less than he did in 2011 through legal means. The fact that Romney continues to refuse to reveal the returns opens him to the charge that there is something there that isn't in his 2010/11 returns, otherwise why not reveal? He is already being hit for the techniques he used to lower his taxes in those years so if it is more of the same then all he can do is benefit by getting rid of the 'what is he hiding?' attack.

It is worth noting that Romney has a history with skating on the edge (and going over the line) with the IRS, at least on the business side. Here is an article from Bloomberg earlier this year

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and there is much more at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-22/romney-as-auditing-chairman-saw-marriott-son-of-boss-tax-shelter-defy-irs.html

[Likely Voter]

Once again this isn't about Harry Reid. And also it is quite possible that Romney could have paid less than he did in 2011 through legal means. The fact that Romney continues to refuse to reveal the returns opens him to the charge that there is something there that isn't in his 2010/11 returns, otherwise why not reveal? He is already being hit for the techniques he used to lower his taxes in those years so if it is more of the same then all he can do is benefit by getting rid of the 'what is he hiding?' attack.

It is worth noting that Romney has a history with skating on the edge (and going over the line) with the IRS, at least on the business side. Here is an article from Bloomberg earlier this year

You must be logged in to read this quote.

and there is much more at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-22/romney-as-auditing-chairman-saw-marriott-son-of-boss-tax-shelter-defy-irs.html

The tax code in its application in some of these complex tax avoidance transactions, has a grey zone. Just what constitutes a sufficient level of economic substance is not as exact as the speed of light, and sometimes generates litigation that can generate boatloads of attorneys fees. That is one reason why we think the Tax Code is far superior to the Bible. It's a work of art, and we love it.

I probably have billed about a fifth of my lifetime legal fees over tax code disputes, one involving gold swaps done in a Singapore foreign subsidiary, where the subsidiary was enjoying a 10 year tax free holiday in Singapore to induce the oil service firm to build their plant there, and thus was awash in cash (about 100 million or so), which gold swaps were designed to convert interest to something that was not Subpart F income so it would not be subject to tax in the US (we won that one, which caused the Tax Code to be amended to shut it down after the IRS lost). Another involved capital gain recognition or the lack thereof when real estate was taken out of subchapter S corp, and on that one we won too, causing the IRS to drop its national plan to go after that particular kind of transaction (that involved getting 30 year old briefs out of an IRS storage facility in the middle of a mountain in West Virginia, which that porker Sen Robert Byrd had caused to be put there of course (thank God the records had not yet been destroyed, because the attorney handling the matter unfortunately had been dead for about 15 years, and unavailable to hit up for the docs).  We needed the briefs because  the tax court opinion had an inadequate statement of facts - it turned out the facts made the case a "spotted horse," working for us, and agains the IRS, so the IRS was just totally F'ed, and had to fold).

So there is nothing dishonorable about this. It's as American as apple pie. And aren't you jealous that I get to deal with such fascinating stuff?  

Again this is the court of public opinion, so i think Romney losing a tax fight in court and having what the company was doing be called “fictitious,” “artificial,” “spectral,” an “illusion” and a “scheme” is not insignificant and cant be waved off. But my point is that Romney is clearly very very aggressive in getting tax breaks.

Here is another report from the LATimes just yesterday about how the Romney's fought for every penny on their property taxes:

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-romney-property-tax-20120806,0,4428951,full.story


Again I doubt Romney has done anything illegal. But what this all does is continue to paint him as an ultra-rich guy who is using the system to fullest to avoid taxes. If he wants to humanize himself and make himself relatable to Mr. and Mrs. taxpaying middle class American, all of this stuff doesn't help and most likely is why he is under water in terms of personal ratings.

[Likely Voter]

I am not arguing that Romney did anything that is illegal or unethical, it is just that his tax activities highlight his ultra-wealth and his working of the system to get himself a better deal.

Do you think this makes middle class Americans like him more?

[Likely Voter]

As expected, Ryan didn't make this issue go away.

Having Romney telling the world that he payed a whole 13% tax rate (without proof) is not a good thing for him. It jut reminds people he is a uber rich guy who benefits from tax loopholes.