Mitt Romney is not withholding his tax returns because he has something to hide. He's not doing it for his own sake.
He's doing it because releasing those returns would put the lie to something he and his party desperately need the public to believe: That multi- and centimillionaires (i.e., Job Creators™) are grossly overtaxed, and since they're overtaxed they can't Create Jobs™, because they have to pay taxes instead of people's salaries.
Most of us already know that's not true. Romney's tax returns will prove it. They will shatter the Legend of the Over-Taxed Job Creators™.
I personally don't care how much, or how little, Mitt Romney paid in taxes over the last ten years. I take him at his word when he says he paid every dollar he owed under the Tax Code. Maybe what he owed was less than 13.9%, maybe it was more, maybe it was zero. That's not the point. And let's also forget for a moment that no one Creates Jobs™ using his personal, after-tax income.
I don't think anyone doubts that Romney's tax bill from year to year has been ridiculously low. How low is pretty much immaterial. A million dollars is more money than most people see in their lifetime, but if a person makes $20 million in a year and pays "only" $5 million in taxes (that's 25%), he's still got $15 million to take home and Create Jobs™ with. Even a "punitive" 50% effective tax rate on $5 million in income leaves $2.5 million after taxes. A person paying a 10% rate on $50,000 in income, taking home $45,000, would take that "punishment" in a heartbeat.
I'm not going to turn this into a number-crunching exercise or a lesson in the declining marginal utility of money. My point is that Romney's tax returns are going to blow two huge holes in the Republican Party's core justification for its blatant and unapologetic reverse Robin Hooding.
Romney's tax returns will show a gross income of [A], a tax liability of [B], leaving a difference of [C]. All three numbers will be unfathomable to most people. But the number they will understand is [D], which is the percentage of [A] represented by [B]. Unless Romney has the worst accountants in the history of civilization, [D] will in all likelihood be a ridiculously low number. It might even be in the single-digits.
What Romney's tax returns will also reveal is what he did with that income; specifically, how much of [A] went to paying people's salaries, providing them with employment benefits, and paying payroll taxes. You know, Creating Jobs™. Apart from domestic help, if any, these numbers will probably be zero.
Which obviously begs the question: Why didn't Romney, the Job Creator™, who was left with [C] after paying his taxes (and we can safely assume that [C] is at least a seven-digit number), use any portion of [C] to hire anyone?
Mitt Romney can't release his tax returns if he and the GOP want to maintain the Legend of the Over-Taxed Job Creators™ until November. If he releases them, they will demonstrate what most of us already know: That the rich are not over-taxed, that being rich in and of itself does not make you a Job Creator™, and that tax rates, whether marginal or effective, do not drive employment.