OP here- I would venture to say that his returns are 100% within the law. He certainly had access to the best tax accountants and legal advice.

It's appearance that matters. His tax plan according to analysis provides additional tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. Tax cuts for millionaires who pay no taxes??

Fodder for the Obama PACs advertising, more doubt that he can relate to to the average guy who can't take advantage of shelters. The only loss carry forward most voters know from, as of late, is loss of their home, job, credit rating, retirement plans and they have to paying income tax on Social Security and IRA income at a higher rate than a millionaire .

Now Romney, in street talk, is being called out by the most powerful man in the US Senate, not some blogger, or lamestream reporter. Reid has Mitt backed against the wall. If Mitt fails to respond to Reid's accusation, its defacto confirmaton of it's accuracy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After bashing Romney for a week (and oh boy did you deserve it, Mittens), I'm going to go sympathetic on him for a minute.

I bet that it's true, but not for dishonest reasons. He could be holding a lot of loss carryforwards, which would be totally legitimate tax-wise but hard to explain to a bunch of people who have no idea what they are.

If this is true, it makes me sympathetic to him. His tax bill could be zero for justifiable reasons that would nevertheless lose him a lot of trust and that would be unfair.

So I might blame him for using foreign tax shelters. I might despise him and his hedge fund supporters for buying off the politicians to ensure they get a 15% rate on carried interest. But I can't say a word about NOL carryforwards. That's just basic fairness.

I am a tax lawyer and I am having problems conceiving of a situation where someone would have millions and millions of dollars of NOLs on their personal income tax return (absent some sort of disaster, like maybe a set of tornados wiped out all his mansions, or someone stole the Hope diamond from him). What sort of deductible business expenses do you think he incurred while running Bain?

I'm not talking about business expenses. I'm saying that he realized lots and lots of capital losses on his portfolio. Not hard to do over the last decade.

Werent his tax forms vetted while running for Governor?

Anonymous wrote:So Harry Reid (who is an idiot) quotes some unnamed investor who is familiar with Mitt Romney's tax returns? Is the unnamed investor also Romney's personal tax attorney? Sounds like a solid indictment to me. But let's assume - zut alors - that it is true. I say great. Romney ought to be able to better identify with the one half of folks in the country that don't pay any federal income taxes.

You call Harry Reid an idiot in the same post where you state what I bolded? Really?

The half of the people who don't pay any federal income taxes don't do so because they are poor.

I agree, however, that Mitt should have that experience. Let's pass a private bill in Congress imposing a 99.99% wealth tax on the Romney family, trusts and all. Then he can be one of the people. I know he won't object, right?

So Harry Reid (who is an idiot) quotes some unnamed investor who is familiar with Mitt Romney's tax returns? Is the unnamed investor also Romney's personal tax attorney? Sounds like a solid indictment to me. But let's assume - zut alors - that it is true. I say great. Romney ought to be able to better identify with the one half of folks in the country that don't pay any federal income taxes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After bashing Romney for a week (and oh boy did you deserve it, Mittens), I'm going to go sympathetic on him for a minute.

I bet that it's true, but not for dishonest reasons. He could be holding a lot of loss carryforwards, which would be totally legitimate tax-wise but hard to explain to a bunch of people who have no idea what they are.

If this is true, it makes me sympathetic to him. His tax bill could be zero for justifiable reasons that would nevertheless lose him a lot of trust and that would be unfair.

So I might blame him for using foreign tax shelters. I might despise him and his hedge fund supporters for buying off the politicians to ensure they get a 15% rate on carried interest. But I can't say a word about NOL carryforwards. That's just basic fairness.

I am a tax lawyer and I am having problems conceiving of a situation where someone would have millions and millions of dollars of NOLs on their personal income tax return (absent some sort of disaster, like maybe a set of tornados wiped out all his mansions, or someone stole the Hope diamond from him). What sort of deductible business expenses do you think he incurred while running Bain?

I work in tax too. I think it's a zeroed-out GRAT. Look at Ann Romney's 2010 trust return and tell me what you think. There's not enough info to tell for sure, but it fits.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/31/harry-reid-romney-taxes_n_1724027.html?ref=topbar

How long can Mitt avoid revealing his taxes?

Riddle me this:

Steve Pagliuca is one of the owners of the Boston Celtics. He made his fortune at Bain when he was WAY junior to Romney. Yet today he left Bain worth twice as much as Mitt Romney says he's worth on financial disclosure forms ($410 million for Pagliuca in 2006, according to Bostonian Magazine compared to $230 million for Romney, according to Forbes).

My own take is that Mitt Romney is actually a billionaire but made all his wealth disappear for tax purposes with a network of trusts and offshore accounts.

Does anyone have any other explanation? This is like some senior director at Apple being worth more than Steve Jobs.

clarification: he didn't leave Bain today. I meant to say he left Bain with xxx

Anonymous wrote:After bashing Romney for a week (and oh boy did you deserve it, Mittens), I'm going to go sympathetic on him for a minute.

I bet that it's true, but not for dishonest reasons. He could be holding a lot of loss carryforwards, which would be totally legitimate tax-wise but hard to explain to a bunch of people who have no idea what they are.

If this is true, it makes me sympathetic to him. His tax bill could be zero for justifiable reasons that would nevertheless lose him a lot of trust and that would be unfair.

So I might blame him for using foreign tax shelters. I might despise him and his hedge fund supporters for buying off the politicians to ensure they get a 15% rate on carried interest. But I can't say a word about NOL carryforwards. That's just basic fairness.

He could also have a zero-out Grantor Retained Annuity Trust (see http://www.kuhnandkuhn.com/blog/estate-planning/forbes-zuckerberg-moskovitz-zeroedout-grats/).

In fact, I suspect that's what it is.

What is the sunset on NOL carryforwards? 3 years?

Anonymous wrote:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/31/harry-reid-romney-taxes_n_1724027.html?ref=topbar

How long can Mitt avoid revealing his taxes?

Riddle me this:

Steve Pagliuca is one of the owners of the Boston Celtics. He made his fortune at Bain when he was WAY junior to Romney. Yet today he left Bain worth twice as much as Mitt Romney says he's worth on financial disclosure forms ($410 million for Pagliuca in 2006, according to Bostonian Magazine compared to $230 million for Romney, according to Forbes).

My own take is that Mitt Romney is actually a billionaire but made all his wealth disappear for tax purposes with a network of trusts and offshore accounts.

Does anyone have any other explanation? This is like some senior director at Apple being worth more than Steve Jobs.

Anonymous wrote:After bashing Romney for a week (and oh boy did you deserve it, Mittens), I'm going to go sympathetic on him for a minute.

I bet that it's true, but not for dishonest reasons. He could be holding a lot of loss carryforwards, which would be totally legitimate tax-wise but hard to explain to a bunch of people who have no idea what they are.

If this is true, it makes me sympathetic to him. His tax bill could be zero for justifiable reasons that would nevertheless lose him a lot of trust and that would be unfair.

So I might blame him for using foreign tax shelters. I might despise him and his hedge fund supporters for buying off the politicians to ensure they get a 15% rate on carried interest. But I can't say a word about NOL carryforwards. That's just basic fairness.

I am a tax lawyer and I am having problems conceiving of a situation where someone would have millions and millions of dollars of NOLs on their personal income tax return (absent some sort of disaster, like maybe a set of tornados wiped out all his mansions, or someone stole the Hope diamond from him). What sort of deductible business expenses do you think he incurred while running Bain?

Pretty please let this be the reason and pretty please may it somehow come out. I agree that there may be a technically legitimate reason he didn't pay taxes but if that's true it would sink him.

Regardless, whatever's hidden in his taxes has to be so incredibly bad that he'd rather let people speculate than release them.

After bashing Romney for a week (and oh boy did you deserve it, Mittens), I'm going to go sympathetic on him for a minute.

I bet that it's true, but not for dishonest reasons. He could be holding a lot of loss carryforwards, which would be totally legitimate tax-wise but hard to explain to a bunch of people who have no idea what they are.

If this is true, it makes me sympathetic to him. His tax bill could be zero for justifiable reasons that would nevertheless lose him a lot of trust and that would be unfair.

So I might blame him for using foreign tax shelters. I might despise him and his hedge fund supporters for buying off the politicians to ensure they get a 15% rate on carried interest. But I can't say a word about NOL carryforwards. That's just basic fairness.

Well if a Bain investor told him so, it must be true.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/31/harry-reid-romney-taxes_n_1724027.html?ref=topbar

How long can Mitt avoid revealing his taxes?