One of the first things that I tell lottery winners or those who come into big money is to find a top notch team of advisers. My rule of thumb is to find someone who has handled more money than what you are bringing them.
That is exactly what Mitt Romney did.
As far as I can tell, Romney has not committed any crimes. He has not evaded taxes or used illegal tax shelters.
He used the tax advantages that Congress granted him and many other wealthy people.
Wealthy people can afford to hire big time lobbyists and raise tons of money for political campaigns.
Average Americans can't. Thus, the rich people get their way in Washington.
We have wound up with a mishmash of laws that favor the wealthy.
If someone receives money in a punitive damages lawsuit, the money is fully taxable. If they are a Wall Street hedge fund manager, gains are often taxed in a lower bracket.
The middle class gets hit the worst. If a coal miner loses his job and cashes in his retirement or 401(k) account to feed his family, he pays ordinary income taxes and a ten percent tax penalty to boot.
Jimmy Carter once said, "Life isn't fair," and there is nothing fair about the tax code.
This brings us to the Mitt Romney situation.
Romney has made a ton of money. He has not released all of his tax returns and keeps hoping that people will leave him alone and forget about them. They won't.
Americans want their leaders to come clean and not appear to be hiding something.
The worst thing Romney can do politically is to keep stalling. It allows Obama to be on the offensive instead of forced to defend his record in office.
There will be a day when Romney does get pressured into releasing his taxes.
When he does, we will probably find a lot of loopholes, offshore accounts and plenty of ways that Mitt has reduced his taxable income from some insanely high number to something more manageable.
To the point where he is probably in a lower bracket than Warren Buffett's secretary.
Is that Mitt's fault or Congress's fault?
If I had Mitt's money, I would be looking for every tax advantage that Congress has to offer.
If I were a financial adviser to Mitt Romney, I would be helping him find those tax advantages. Just like any other good adviser would do.
Next month will mark my thirtieth year in the financial business. I've yet to find someone who didn't take a tax break, like deducting the interest on their mortgage, when that tax break was legal and available.
You can't fault Mitt for doing what the rest of us do. He has more money so he found more complicated ways to shelter income.
Congress, not Mitt, allowed those breaks.
I'm a lifelong Democrat who voted for Obama in 2008, but I truly see Mitt's political dilemma.
If he releases his returns, people are going to see deductions, loopholes and tax shelters that average Americans are not in a position to take advantage of.
If he doesn't release the returns, people are going to assume he did something crooked.
One of the advantages that Romney has is that people seem to think he is an honest, family-oriented man.
Goofy, ill at ease, and clueless about how average Americans live their lives, but many people trust Romney.
That trust starts eroding each day the tax returns don't get released.
Romney has a chance to spin the issue his way. Courtesy of Romney's former arch-nemesis, Mike Huckabee.
Huckabee ran for president in 2008 on a consumption tax, called the FAIR tax, which also allowed credits for people with lower income. It eliminated almost all deductions and Huckabee claimed it would eliminate the IRS.
Embracing the FAIR plan could make Romney president.
It would help Romney with Tea Party members who don't trust him and give Romney an issue that would force Obama to explain why he has not closed the loopholes.
It allows Romney to take a negative and make it a positive. It also keeps him on the offensive.
Duck and run is not what people want to see in a president.
People know the tax system is out of whack and unfair. It is by the rich, for the rich, to help the rich.
A FAIR tax might level the playing field. Especially if it is advocated by a multimillionaire with a Swiss bank account.
Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC is the bestselling author of the books Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You Win the Lottery and Wealth Without Wall Street. McNay, who lives in Richmond, Ky., is an award-winning financial columnist and Huffington Post contributor. You can learn more about him at www.donmcnay.com.
Follow Don McNay on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Donmcnay
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 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
But since the FairTax takes power from Congress and returns it to the people, where it belongs, your elected officials will not pass this law until they fear being fired by their constituents. Therefore, those who denigrate the FairTax out of ignorance can be assured it will never pass, even though it will solve a lot more problems than just the unfair tax system we have now.
I doubt Romney has done anything wrong, but no one can ever be sure they have filed a 100% perfect tax return, even Tim Geithner!!
But it could all be fixed with the FairTax. No filing a report every year. No worry about what is "income", what type of income it is, or what "deductions" might apply. You may a little bit of tax every time you make a purchase, and the more you buy, the more you pay.
No muss, no fuss, and no worry about whether or not you are in compliance with more than 80,000 pages of regulations. (That change every year, BTW!!!)
www.ohfairtax.org
In Romney's returns he is making legal assertions to the IRS and the IRS workers do not know everything there is to know about Romney so Romney may have told the IRS some lies that the IRS staff can not prove are lies. But if Romney were to make his returns public then people all over the world who know truths about Romney might see some things that Romney told the IRS that are lies and then those people could report that to the media and then all you-know-what breaks loose, including the IRS could criminally prosecute Romney and he could go to jail. I don't think that the issue is that he has simply exploited legal tax shelters. That would not stop him from releasing his taxes. He is scared that if he releases his tax returns then people who know truths about Romney would be able to disprove some of the things that he has told the IRS and then he would go to jail. He is trying to keep his returns a secret so that nobody can figure out that he has told the IRS some lies.
The CA property tax issue is equally bad. He bought a 12M property, claimed it crashed in value and then hired a very high priced lawyer to get a reduction in tax- that's ~legal but not available to the rest of us. Don't see how that reflects real American presidential values. This is not filling in a form right, that's taking positive action to reduce tax bils, in a way that every middle class Californian should be able to, but can't afford to.
He released incomplete forms for the one year he HAS disclosed, and been caught in the uncomfortable position of having to explain MULTIPLE instances of lying, either in signed documents or in testimony - the two do not agree, and no one with any sense is buying the whole "retroactive retirement" dodge. Combined with his flip-flopping on nearly every issue, you OUGHT to arrive at the same conclusion as many even in his own party...he's an unprincipled LIAR that you trust at your own peril.
Yes, he SHOULD release his returns...However, it should be more informative, indeed, worrisome, to you that he has not, and shows no signs of EVER complying -"proudly," or otherwise. If he IS following the rules congress provided and this is only about his privacy, as he claims, it is equally troubling - should a man with Mitt's history and so obsessed with his personal privacy be trusted with the keys to the most powerful PUBLIC office...in the world? I think not.
I am sure that is why Obama has provided everything asked of him by an adoring public!!
This whole move started decades ago. What was once a tax obligation has been transformed into an investment opportunity for these guys. Who do you think actually OWNS all this debt that conservatives are wringing their hands over?
A stark example illustrating how he and his friends have helped to orchestrate this phoney debt crisis and there would be a groundswell for exactly the kind of tax reform that is so sorely needed.
He can't have that. No, he can't have that at all.
But more importantly, they need to be forthright and coming about thier past. If you try and hide something Americans will know it, and wonder why (as they should).
Mitt DID/HAS and IS using tax loopholes/laws created just for people like him, it not all his fault, but the blame can be put on people like Mitt for bribing elected government employees to get the laws changed in thier favor.
I also believe that Mr. Romney MADE MONEY on the Salt Lake Olympics, something he would and should be VERY ASHAMED of...
This revelation, if proven true would lose him the election, thus the hiding...
CHANGE THE LAWS
Every elected public employee lives MUST be an open book, good and bad.
Otherwise how do we know who you REALLY are?
If you don't like it, get a differnet job...
The whole artilce is premised on this unfounded ill-conceived assumption.
False.
More likely: Americans want the opposition leader 100% scrutinized. Yet they want their own candidate left alone. Think of all those records sealed by Mr. Obama.
The IRS hasn't indicted Mitt. His refusal to release simply isn't tax code related. Of course his handlers could could give release a positive conservative spin.
The smart business man capitalizes on legal technicalities. His people have known this for at least a year. To imagine otherwise is purely naive.
Mitt can't now release for two reasons:
1) He already said 'No'. He's taken a stand. Releasing now would be caving-in to public pressure--in America, the stuff of weak leadership.
2) He's hiding a game-over embarrassing association or action. Those returns contain connections to all sorts of public and private persons and entities...corporate and governmental, foreign and domestic.
What if, for examples, they connected dots to:
Profiting from transactions with Libor? Jamie Dimon? or Bernie Madoff? How 'bout capitalizing on the BP oil spill, stock market crash, TARP or Ben Bernanke's backdoor benefits? What if he deducted lunches with Ashley Dupree, Heidi Fleiss or Octo-Mom? What if he donated to OJ's defense fund? or profited from the Indonesian tsunami? Iraq war? Blackwater covert ops? or Obama's Yemen drone strikes?
Are ya gettin' it yet?
Such deformed logic.
So, we have a king now? Or are you suggesting the congressional Republican blockage wouldn't have stymied it, too?