The Boston Globe just reported that Mitt Romney will release his 2011 tax returns on October 15, but will release no more after that, his campaign said late today.
Mitt Romney will release his complete 2011 tax return by Oct. 15 and possibly sooner, but that will be the Republican presidential challenger’s final disclosure, his campaign said Sunday.
Romney received a filing extension from the Internal Revenue Service, and Oct. 15 -- 22 days before Election Day -- is the extended deadline.
“We have said as soon as they’re ready we’re going to release them,” Romney campaign adviser Ed Gillespie said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.” “And I believe they’ll be ready before that.”
“They’re being finalized. There’s a lot of forms that have to come in from other entities that the governor doesn’t have control over,” Gillespie added.
Earlier this morning Eric Fehrnstrom, his campaign advisor, asserted that Mitt Romney's failure to provide more tax returns is not an issue. Please read below the squiggle for his exact quote and why I think he is wrong.
Lucia Graves, of Huffington Post reports:
Mitt Romney advisor Eric Fehrnstrom brushed off inquiries into the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's tax returns Sunday, telling CNN that “taxes are not an issue."
"Mitt Romney has said he'll put out two years of tax returns, he put out his 2010 return, hundreds of pages of tax return information that’s on the website," Fehrnstrom said on "State of the Union." ... "He’ll put out his 2011 returns once it's complete and filed," he said. "He's had financial disclosures going back to 2002 when he was governor of Massachusetts, those too can be found on Mitt Romney's website."
While Romney has released tax returns from 2010 and estimates from 2011, members of both parties have urged him to make a more comprehensive disclosure.
Eric Fehrnstrom says Romney's tax returns are not an issue in this presidential election. His very attidute is evidence of one of many reasons why Romney's failure to provide more tax retuns is an issus - its about Romney's and Eric Fehrnstrom's lack of respect for American voters and the role transparency play in democracy. Also, both Mitt Romney and Fernstrom have been caught in lies about Romney's tax returns in Utah, which had to be retroactively revised after false statements to both the press, and Romney's statements under oath to the Massachusetts Election commission. Republicans respond that the statue of limitation has expired so Romney can not be charged, or convicted for perjury in those case, however, this again is missing the point -- the bar for being elected to POTUS demands a higher bar of personal characterr than "not-yet-indicted, or convicted" of criminal charges. Yes, Mitt Romney has gotten away with many evasions" that many folks of lessor means and few lawyers get charged with.
Which brings up another issue, that of Romney's air of entitlement and privilage - he just doesn't believe he should have to live by the same rules that "you people" have to - such as releasing a substantial number of years of his tax returns and answers questions about the partial filing we've seen so far for 2010. He has reportedly left off an attachment to his 2010 which is supposed to itemize the holdings in his Swiss Bank accounts without comment
Neither free markets, nor democracy can be efficient in acheiving our goals for them, if we do not have adequate and accurate information about our choices. In medicine, informed consent plays a vital role in insuring the choices patients have in our medical care are based on access to all the available information about procedures, doctors, hospitals, and possible consequences before we choose with doctos and procedures we will undergo.
In medicine, society has spoken, it is not for doctors to decide what information patients should be given, but up to the patients, and we passed informed consent legislation to make this the law of the land. Similarly, it is not for Mitt Romney and Eric Fernstom to decide if Romney's failure to release more tax returns is an issue, it is up to the voters. We are not trained dogs, we are citizens that get to make up our own minds.
And, Mitt's father agrees. He set the precidant by releasing 12 years of his taxes when he ran for president in the 1960s.
Mitt Romney's lack of respect for voters comes through in multiple levels. His campaign of secrecy, and non-disclosure goes beyond merely his tax-returns, years at Bain, composition of overseas accounts, use of blocking corporations etc.(FABR, Non-Related Business forms), can be seen in explicit strategy of not providing specifics on his budgets, and other policies until after the election.
I'm late for a dinner, so I apologize for this quickly written post, but, before I will change my mind that Mitt Romney's failure to release more tax returns, and even answer questions about 2010 he still hasn't completely revealed, he needs to answer the following questions. Governor Romney:
1. Will you release your FABR attachments and provide voters with an outline of all of your foreign accounts, and financial holdings?
2. Will you provide information on how much exactly, is in the mysterious IRA that is valued between $20 to $100 million, and detail what contribution were made to it, and what returns allowed it to grow to the largest known amount in an IRA of anyone in the country?
3. Will you provide a balance sheets letting voters know what you real net worth is, and what financial holding you have both in the country, and around the globe, even if though, you are not legally required to. Granted, this is not legally required, but your own evasiveness has made these legitimate questions?
4. Will you stipulate that you understand why many voters consider to be legitimate questions so we can evaluate you charactor, and also convince ourselves that you do not have conflicts of interest?
5. Will you provide an explanation of what happened with you false statements to the 2002 Massachusetts Election Commission, and why you initially accused the reporter of lying, and then the Utah file clerk to making an error?
Sorry, I have to dash, I'll be back in about an hour.