It has long been my contention that the strongest of many reasons Mitt can't live up to the fine example his father set in releasing a decade or more of tax returns is the likelihood that Mitt took advantage of the Swiss account amnesty of 2009.
It's time to make the MSM do its job and ask the question.
The level of aggressiveness in legal and accounting strategies that would allow someone's IRA to grow to as high as $102 million surely invites suspicion regarding anything else that looks even emotively interesting in their finances. And the mere existence of Romney's Swiss account certainly passes that threshold.
There were about 19,000 accounts in Swiss banks that American citizens hid from the IRS until the lawsuit exposing them, and the IRS amnesty that followed. Simple logic suggests the owners are clustered near Mitt's end of the of wealth spectrum.
Logic also says that someone that instructs their lawyers and accountants to push the envelope to reduce their tax obligations to the extent obvious from what is known might be inclined to do some outright cheating too, especially if protected by the legendary Swiss banking secrecy.
My fourth estate training of long ago suggests that everyone running for President that has a Swiss account and an IRA with $102 million treads close enough to the line that it is entirely appropriate to ask the question...
Governor Romney, did you and/or Mrs. Romney participate the IRS amnesty program in 2009?
Now, I do dream about the President hitting Mitt with it in a live debate, but I think it is much safer if we can get the media to work the story before the debates.
And I think the MSM can and should pursue the story based on the publicly known information, and we should demand it. It should be the leading question at every press availability until he answers.
And even if, on this point, he's innocent as a newborn babe, I want to make Lyndon Johnson's ghost laugh his ass off. We can sure as hell make him deny it