I asked Romney The Question, myself, to no response. I doubt that he’ll listen to the next guy to ask him. But. If wherever Romney speaks, every city, every stop, the question is repeated, he’ll get the message. Maybe.
Asking The Question
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On one hand, I cringe at the thought of what biased media people who aren’t tax experts could do with complicated tax returns, and how their audience of average taxpayers (who are not tax experts and who generally use tax software or pay others to do their tax returns) might react.
On the other hand, I think Romney should give his tax returns to some presumably objective group of tax experts, of which there are probably a number.
For example, I think the CPA tax experts at AICPA would be a good choice for such an exercise in transparency. Tax bloggers will be knowledgeable but not necessarily unbiased. But I don’t think the average person who pays others to do his taxes is well suited to evaluate complicated tax returns beyond his own experience.
Excellent comment! Thanks for visiting.
Your suggestion would be a great compromise. Until Romney makes a move, the question remains, “What is he hiding?”
How about an even exchange. Romney’s tax returns and Obama’s originally filed birth certificate, not the one the State of Hawaii has provided.
I actually don’t care where either man was born, but I think that any politician needs to produce what’s needed to avoid these distractions.
If you don’t care how Romney came to find himself with a $100M IRA, possibly loading it with investments that aren’t permitted in a 401(k) or IRA, that’s ok. If you don’t care about Ryan trading on inside info during the banking crisis, that’s ok too.
Bravo, Joe, for publicly pushing this point. This took guts. (Secret Service schmecret shervice. Mr. Obama takes much worse.)
Still trying to distract from Obama’s record of failure, eh?
I suppose any question to Romney or Ryan that they don’t wish to answer can be deemed ‘diverting the issue.’ I’m still going with “Bin Laden is dead, GM is alive.”
Bookmarked your site then read this thread and deleted the bookmark. I thought I would get non-political tax comment and advice on this site, not political pro Obama rants. I was mistaken.
To be fair, in the past I’ve called out politicians on bad math from both sides. Last year I wrote http://www.joetaxpayer.com/obama-innumeracy/ in which I call out an error he made that I felt was important to clarify. I don’t care for politicians at all. “The Question” is about Romney’s returns, I’d ask the same of Obama if hadn’t already published his. Sorry to lose a potential reader, but the cartoon wasn’t ‘pro’ anyone.
If my writing here, and articles such as http://rothmania.net/lets-kill-all-the-lawyers/ don’t hold your attention, I understand. But, if you ever have an odd tax issue and need an answer with both a clear explanation along with cited IRS regs, the door is always open.
Dear Joe,
Another new reader that got tipped to your site by Allan Roth. Like Don, I also bookmarked your site but deleted the bookmark when I read the political posts. I see too much of the political ragging on both sides already. It’s your blog, and you can can do what you want, but just thought I’d let you know. You might want to think about putting the political commentary in a different section (or start a second blog). It really does detract from your other good postings.
I understand. I’ve been putting up political cartoons on Saturdays for some time now, but am rethinking, and may stay 100% finance/market related moving forward.