Top Republicans stay quiet on release of their tax returns

Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential candidate, offered this year's hopefuls advice about a hard-learned lesson: Release your tax returns before the primaries and avoid tough scrutiny later. But the top three Republicans leading in national polls don't appear to be listening.

Even as other candidates — most notably Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush — have already disclosed years' worth of private tax returns to dispel questions about their personal finances, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio have failed to do the same despite promises to do so, sometimes after events that have now come and gone. None of the campaigns will say why they've delayed or when the candidates will release their returns.

The best explanation: It's postponing an unpleasant moment, said Joseph Thorndike, a contributing editor for Tax Notes who maintains the organization's tax history project.

"If you say you're going to do it, you've got to do it," Thorndike said. "I don't like the disingenuousness of 'we're working on it.'" He said the candidates' tax returns for 2014 were long ago filed with the government.

http://news.yahoo.com/top-republicans-stay-quiet-release-tax-returns-184240066--election.html

Wonder why it's taking them so long to reveal their 1040s?