New Hampshire Newspaper Says Romney Must Release Tax Returns

[Parkbandit]

That's exactly the reason why, you're so smart!

Just send me the $20.12 you owe me. Take responsibility for once and prove me wrong for believing you are a good for nothing deadbeat.

I'm not holding my breath. $20.12 is quite a bit of money for you.

[ClydeR]

It's the job of the IRS to determine this. Are you saying that a government agency is incapable of handling their primary responsibility?

Being chosen for audit is, in part, random. If there is a chance you can cheat on your taxes and not get caught, then some people will do it, especially when you can put your money in tax haven jurisdictions outside the easy audit reach of the IRS.

The IRS estimates that the voluntary compliance rate is about 85%.

I would hope that presidential candidates, who if elected will be in charge of the agency enforcing the tax laws, would want to show compliance with the laws. Or as Mitt Romney demanded of Ted Kennedy, he should release his tax returns to show that the has "nothing to hide."

[Tgo01]

Being chosen for audit is, in part, random.

Are you suggesting you can cheat on your taxes and only have to worry about it if you're audited?

I know you're ClydeR and all but come on.

[ClydeR]

Are you suggesting you can cheat on your taxes and only have to worry about it if you're audited?

Temporally, yes. Contrary to what you may have heard from Batman, crime pays if you don't get caught.

Eternally, no. You still have to worry about the afterlife. But if you're a Mormon, then it won't matter anyway.

[Tgo01]

How many years have you cheated on your taxes ClydeR?

[ClydeR]

How many years have you cheated on your taxes ClydeR?

I would never even consider it.

[Tgo01]

What religion is ClydeR that he has to worry about an after life?

[ClydeR]

A former Bush I Treasury official called on Romney to release his tax returns yesterday in an article in the New York Times. And he appears to agree with me about audits.

But every good tax professional knows that gift tax returns are rarely audited, except after the transferor’s death. And normally the I.R.S. cannot challenge such a return after three years from its filing.

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No one should begrudge Mr. Romney or his family the wealth they have earned. But if he has not paid the taxes that apply to transfers of such wealth, this should concern us all. After all, who do you think pays for the shortfall?

He also said Romney appears to be lying about paying the same tax that he would have paid if the did not have the overseas bank accounts.

After all, the one year’s tax returns that he has released raise doubt about his campaign’s claims that his offshore accounts did not save him one penny of tax. Putting business assets into an individual retirement account invested in a Cayman Islands corporation allows Mr. Romney to avoid the “unrelated business income tax” — a 35 percent levy — on at least some of his I.R.A.’s earnings, a tax that he would have had to pay if his I.R.A. were held directly by a financial institution in the United States.

With an I.R.A. account of $20 million to $101 million, the tax savings would be more than a few pennies.

The I.R.A. also allows Mr. Romney to diversify his large holdings tax-free, avoiding the 15 percent tax on capital gains that would otherwise apply. His financial disclosure further reveals that his I.R.A. freed him from paying currently the 35 percent income tax on hundreds of thousands of dollars of interest income each year.

Given the extraordinary size of his I.R.A., we have to presume that Mr. Romney valued the assets he put in his retirement account at far less than he would have sold them for. Otherwise it is quite a trick to turn contributions that are limited to $30,000 to $50,000 a year into the $20 million to $101 million he now has there. But we cannot be certain; his meager disclosure of tax records and financial information does not indicate what kind of assets were put into the I.R.A.

Mr. Romney’s Cayman Islands and Bermuda corporations also probably allowed him to avoid limitations on deductions for investment expenditures that would otherwise apply. So we don’t need any more tax returns to know that Mr. Romney is an Olympic-level athlete at the tax avoidance game. Rich people don’t send their money to Bermuda or the Cayman Islands for the weather.