Mitt Romney has taken a public relations beating for the last two weeks regarding his decision to release only one year of his Federal Income taxes. Romney's efforts so far at damage control and changing topics have been unsuccessful.
Romney does have a temporary reprieve, given the suspension of campaigning due to the Colorado massacre and several long-planned foreign trips by the Romney campaign. However, the IRS tax return PR nightmare for Romney has not gone away; it has merely been put on hold for a week or two.
Romney's answers might not ever satisfy the Obama Campaign, the Democrats or members of the media. But now, Romney is facing increased pressure from leading Republican politicians, conservative media outlets and the entire GOP establishment.
Thus far, Romney's response that he is simply not going to give more than one or two years of tax returns to the public because he is not legally required to do so is not satisfying anyone. The essence of good damage control is that people feel like the big questions have been answered and that there is nothing very interesting left to discuss. Unfortunately for Romney, every time he talks about his taxes it arouses more and more curiosity and questions from political observers and even his supporters
If Romney wants to contain the issue of his personal tax returns in order to move on to other issues, he is going to have to answer all or most of the following questions:
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Questions for Mitt Romney
BUSINESS DISCLOSURE YOU REQUIRE
1. As a businessman, did you ever acquire a business that was an ongoing concern that refused to divulge its profit and loss statements for more than one year, even though it had been in business for more than a quarter of a century?
2. If you did wanted to look at the profits and losses of a mature company for more than one year before investing Bain Capital's money or your own money, how many years did you ask for and why did you want that many years?
3. Is the decision to invest in a company a more important decision than who will be a leader of the free world?
VICE PRESIDENT DISCLOSURE
4. How many years of tax returns will you be asking for from your vice presidential nominee?
5. Why?
6. What sorts of things are you looking in the tax returns of your prospective VP candidates?
7. What is the sort of thing a prospective running mate might have on a personal income tax form that might make you remove that person from consideration as your running mate?
8. What if a potential running mate paid zero in taxes one year?
9. Would that be a reason for not selecting him or her?
10. What would you do if a potential running mate failed to file a tax return one year?
11. How would you judge a potential running mate who used extraordinarily aggressive techniques in creating tax deductions and was later fined by the IRS, but never found guilty of any criminal wrongdoing?
12. Why did you give John McCain 22 years of your tax returns?
13. Was it inappropriate for McCain to ask for so many tax returns?
14. Why didn't you tell McCain that is was none of his business what your tax returns were?
15. Why should John McCain get to know 22 years worth of tax information about you when considering you as a vice-presidential selection, but American voters only get to know one year's worth of tax information?
DISCLOSURE
16. You suggest that because you do not legally have to make your tax returns public, then you should not have to do so. Aren’t there many things American voters expect from serious presidential candidates that are not legally required?
17. If your opponent refused to disclose whether he believed in God or practiced any religion, would that be unacceptable to the American people?
18. Would you criticize such a candidate?
19. You only paid 13.9% of your income in taxes in 2010, a year that was two years after your last run for President and during a time in which you were again planning on running for president and when you knew your tax records would become public record. This leads many political observers to conclude you had every incentive to make your tax bill higher than normal in order to avoid criticism from the media and your political enemies. But, if 13.9% was your high mark, it makes many people wonder if perhaps your average tax rate was more like 10%, 5% or even lower. Isn't that fair?
DEDUCTIONS
20. Conservatives once ridiculed Bill Clinton for writing off his own underwear as a charitable tax deduction to the IRS. Are there any deductions you could have taken on your taxes but you didn’t because you feel they would be inappropriate or unseemly, even thought they might be legal?
21. How much of a business loss on your dressage horse ballet ventures have you put on your tax returns over the years?
22. Can you think of an example when you said to yourself, "I know I could claim that as a tax deduction, but it just would not look right?"
23. If so, when was that?
24. Can you think of times when you said, "I know I could legally claim this as a deduction, but it would not be the morally right thing to do?"
25. If so, when was that?
LIFE IS UNFAIR
26. A fundamental tenet among conservatives is that life is unfair. Is it possible that while it is unfair that you should have to release all your tax returns, you are simply going to have to do so before your campaign can focus on other issues?
27. They may be judging you unfairly, but more and more political observers are surmising that you do not wish to make your tax returns public because you are guilty of exploiting every possible loophole, offshore account and accounting gimmick to pay almost zero percent in taxes. Why are they wrong for surmising this?
28. If it isn't zero, why don't you want people to know this?
29. If you paid a tax rate as low as 1%, isn't that better than 0%?
30. Life and politics can often be unfair. You seem to suggest that you do not want to release your taxes because Democrats will be mean to you. Is that really a good reason not to do something?
31. Aren't they already being mean to you already?
32. You claim that you do not want to release your taxes because your opponents will distort and lie about them. Isn't that what is already happening?
33. How exactly would releasing your tax returns give greater license to your enemies to attack your tax records than what they are already doing?
34. Your wife says so many more things would be open to criticism. Why?
35. Does your rationale for not releasing your tax records because your enemies could criticize you for elements within also justify hiding heart disease or a criminal record?
36. You have paid tens of millions of dollars in taxes over your lifetime, far in excess of most people but people just are not focusing on the amount of taxes you pay. Should the amount be what people focus on, not the fact that you paid 14% of your income in taxes and the middle class paid more than twice that percentage?
37. Conservatives believe that policy makers must accept human nature for what it is, not what we want it to be. A corollary is that humans can be greedy and resentful. Can you understand why a married couple of schoolteachers with a combined income of $87,000 who pays 35% of their income in income taxes might resent that you paid only 13.9% of your income in taxes in 2010?
38. Would you support a cap on personal income taxes of, say, $1 million?
39. What is wrong with saying no one should have to pay more than a million dollars a year in federal taxes, even if they make $100 million or a billion?
40. Do you resent paying taxes?
FATHER
41. Your father released all of his tax returns for 12 years when he ran for president. Was he wrong?
42. Did your father feel an obligation to pay many taxes and to avoid tax shelters?
43. Was he moral or just naive?
44. Why did your father release 12 years of tax returns?
45. Did he set a bad precedent?
46. Was he stupid?
47. Why do you want to be less transparent than your father?
48. Isn't there a chance your father would have wanted you to follow in his footsteps regarding disclosure?
49. Do you remember talking to him about that?
LIBERALS, MEDIA & REPUBLICANS
50. You have taken a brutal pounding for more than a week over your refusal to release your tax returns, not only from the Obama campaign and the mainstream media, but also from conservative commentators and leading Republicans. Can you understand why many political observers conclude you must have horrible skeletons and political landmines hidden within your tax returns that are much more politically damaging than the pounding you are receiving for not releasing your tax returns?
51. Do you understand why this scares your supporters?
52. And do you understand why this is fomenting even more interest in your tax returns?
53. George Will, Ron Paul and the editors of National Review have all called on you to release your tax returns. Are they all simply liberal media establishment types carrying water for Obama?
54. Are liberals and their allies in the media focusing on the wrong thing?
55. Why are increasing numbers of prominent conservatives demanding that you release your tax records?
BAIN CAPITAL
56. People are curious as to how you could have absolutely “no role whatsoever” in running Bain capital from 2000-2002 and yet still get an income each year in excess of $100,000 that is not connected to profits or dividends. Can you understand why people might want to know how much you received for not doing any work?
57. Even though you "had no role whatsoever" in running Bain Capital in 2000 what salary did you receive for doing no work?
58. If the wealthiest of Americans are "job creators," why tax them at all?
59. Wouldn't it be a net gain to the economy if we reduced income taxes to zero for successful business people who have proven track records as "job creators?"
60. Is there anything in your tax returns that will tell us more about your Bain retirement IRA?
61. How did it get to be worth $100 million?
NET WORTH
62. You are known as a brilliant investor and yet you were reported to have a net worth of around a quarter of a billion dollars when you were running for president four years ago and you are still rumored to be worth a quarter of a billion dollars today. How is it possible that you did not have a major increase in your net worth during the last four years?
63. Your campaign is largely premised on your competency as a successful businessman. As a bottom line businessman, and not a community organizer, can you respect people’s desires to want to measure you, at least partially, by what you generated for your own personal bottom line during the last decade or so?
64. Some critics have suggested that Obama clearly has not had much experience in the private sector and that it shows. However, some of those same critics suggest that you really do not have much relevant experience in the public sector and your inability to understand the need to be transparent on issues like your personal tax returns is a clear sign of this. Why do you agree with the first observation and not the second?
65. You are rich and successful, why are you seemingly ashamed to show people how successful you been in managing your own personal economy via your income tax returns from the last decade?
66. Isn’t your reluctance to show your income over the last ten years a de facto concession to the idea that making money and generating wealth are bad things?
67. Why are you ashamed of the money you have made?
68. Are you worried that you are sending a message to American schoolchildren that they should be ashamed of being successful in business?
69. Unlike other past Presidential candidates, you have Swiss bank accounts and other financial instruments in various offshore islands known for legal and even illegal tax shelters, like the Cayman Islands. Can you understand why this has heighted people’s interest in your own personal tax history?
70. Why have you used so many financial institutions better known for their secrecy than for their financial acumen?
71. Do you find most American banks lacking the level of sophistication you require?
72. Some theorize that you are actually a billionaire many times over and that you have created an elaborate network of generation-skipping trust funds to shield your wealth. Why can't you show the entirety of the wealth you have created over your lifetime, even if you have already given it to your wife, children and grandchildren?
73. Kennedy, Roosevelt and John Kerry were all personally very wealthy when they ran for president, but none of them ran on a platform to reduce income taxes on the wealthiest of Americans, including themselves and their extended families. Given that your public policy goals for taxation would personally benefit you immensely, can you see why people are more interested in your taxes, than, say, John Kerry's tax returns?
PERCENT OF INCOME
74. You were one of the most brilliant students of your generation, earning a spot in Harvard's prestigious joint degree program in its law and business schools. Did you fully exploit, in a legal way, your knowledge of both business and law to figure out a way of paying very low taxes, say in the single digits, during the last 10 years?
75. What is wrong with making lots of money and paying 15 percent tax?
76. When your enemies guess that you paid nothing in taxes in some years, is it a fair guess that this just might be accurate?
TAX ACCOUNTABLY IN POLITICS
77. Are you disappointed that only you family and your staff are satisfied with your level of public tax disclosure?
78. Are you afraid someone at the McCain campaign or the IRS could leak your returns to a reporter?
79. If so, do you have a crisis management plan in place?
80. If a candidate for high public office were found to be a tax cheat, would that be a reasonable issue for voters to take into consideration?
81. Have you ever taken part in any form of an amnesty program with the IRS?
82. Do you think that if a candidate for high public office took advantage of a tax amnesty program, that you and other voters might find that information relevant in deciding for whom to vote?
83. People can certainly understand why you would not want to release your personal tax records because no one enjoys that. But, why have you seemingly raised this to an issue of paramount moral principle when it is clearly a tactical or procedural issue?
84. You demanded that Sen. Ted Kennedy disclose his taxes to show he has "nothing to hide." Why?
85. What do you think you would have learned from him releasing more tax records?
86. Were you disappointed that Kennedy did not release tax records?
87. Why did you ask Kennedy to release his tax records when you ran against him and then decided not to release your own tax records when you ran against him?
88. Did you figure that if Kennedy did not have to release his tax records, then you should not have to either?
89. Does that mean if one candidate does release tax records, than the other should too?
90. If so, why does that not apply to the 2012 presidential campaign?
91. In terms of politics, how do you change the dynamic whereby the more you refuse to release you'd taxes, the more your enemies and the media increase the intensity of their demands for your income taxes?
OTHER ISSUES
92. Why is your commitment to limiting public tax returns seemingly more resolute than your commitment to your positions on abortion, gay rights, government run healthcare, global warming, and mandate issues?
93. You are known as a prudent, mature and responsible planner. You knew, since at least 2007, that you were running for president. How is it possible that you do not have returns for the last 5 years ready for public consumption?
94. Specifically, if a leader knows that most citizens who make above a modest middle class income pay at least a quarter of their income in taxes, does a leader have any moral imperative to pay a fair share that is similar, even if he might have tax deductions that could get his taxes to 5% or even zero?
95. Nobody likes to pay taxes and everyone likes to pay the lowest possible tax rate, but is there some rate of taxation where it is just unseemly for a wealthy person with a huge income to pay below?
96. Do you understand that middle class Americans feel like the tax deck is stacked against them?
97. Do you understand that they believe that they have to pay all of their taxes or they go to jail or have a lien put on their house, but if you are super wealthy, you can hire fancy lawyers and shift monies to offshore accounts to avoid most of your taxes?
98. If this common belief is wrong, can you tell people why they are wrong?
99. Is there the chance that, even though you do not legally have to release your tax returns, it would still be the right thing to do?
100. Do leaders have any moral obligation to lead by example regarding taxation?
101. What happens if at every single press conference and town hall meeting you have for the rest of the campaign, the only question anyone ever asks you is "Why won't you release your tax returns?"
BY TJ Walker www.tjwalker.com and Virginia Grant www.VAGrantwriter.com or VirginiaAnnGrant.Com
