Businessweek: What's Romney Hiding in His Tax Returns?
...snip...
When the stock market collapsed in 2008, the wealthiest investors fared worse than everyone else. (See, for instance, this Merrill Lynch study.) The ultra-richthose with fortunes of more than $30 millionfared worst of all, losing on average about 25 percent of their net worth. There was really nowhere to hide as an investor in 2008, Merrill Lynchs president of global wealth management pointed out in 2009. No region ended the year unscathed.
As a member of the ultra-rich, Romney probably wasnt spared major losses. And its possible he suffered a large enough capital loss that, carried forward and coupled with his various offshore tax havens, he wound up paying no U.S. federal taxes at all in 2009. If true, this would be politically deadly for him. Even assuming that his return was thoroughly clean and legala safe assumption, it seems to methe fallout would dwarf the controversy that attended the news that Romney had paid a tax rate of just 14 percent in 2010 and that estimated hed pay a similar rate in 2011.
The zero tax in 2009 theoryagain, this is sheer speculationgains further sustenance when you consider its the only year for which nobody knows anything about Romneys taxes. Hes revealed whats in his 2010 and 2011 returns, and he reportedly submitted 20-some years worth of returns to the McCain campaign when he was being vetted for vice president in 2008. Steve Schmidt, McCains chief strategist in that campaign, said on MSNBC last night that while he didnt examine Romneys returns himself, nothing that McCains vetters found in them disqualified Romney from consideration.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-07-17/whats-romney-hiding-in-his-tax-returns
Hmm, moving out of the political realm into the business world...
Skinner
(63,645 posts)The "zero taxes in 2009" hypothesis is interesting.
Dalai_1
(1,301 posts)I would imagine..the 2009 returns...
Thank you for posting this
safeinOhio
(32,714 posts)got a big fat refund.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)I'd bet Mittwit paid nothing in taxes or got a nice fat refund while still remaining stinking, filthy rich. Which will go over with the just-starting-to-pay-attention masses like a Virginia ham at a Passover seder. Willard is hiding some really ugly stuff in one of those years, whether it was technically legal or not.
starroute
(12,977 posts)The attention is definitely focusing on those two years, since McCain's people saw the earlier returns and Romney released 2010. But exactly what happened then is still in question. No taxes? Swiss bank account? Or this:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/17/decoupled-and-divided/
There are two competing theories about his tax stonewalling. One is that he had one or more years of zero taxes. The other is that he actually made a lot of money in 2009, because he shorted the market. We may never know which is true.
Bill USA
(6,436 posts)On the Road
(20,783 posts)they might have outweighed his income, which was true of a lot of rich people that year. In that case, it might have been legitimate.
Still not going to fly very well with independent voters.
brooklynite
(94,721 posts)It will be impossible to justify politically, and will generate demands for an in-depth analysis of his tax returns to determine which shelters, credits etc. in the tax code allowed him to pay nothing.
The BIGGER question is: if he knew he was running for office, why he didn't forego the extra million dollars or so in order to have a tax return he could share.