Is a Tax Amnesty the Skeleton in Mitt's Closet?
Back in 2009, the US Government offered an tax amnesty:
Wealthy U.S. taxpayers, concerned about an Internal Revenue Service crackdown on the use of secret overseas bank accounts as tax havens, are rushing to meet a Thursday deadline to disclose those accounts or face possible criminal prosecution. The concern was triggered this summer when Switzerland's largest bank, caught up in an international tax evasion dispute, said it would disclose the names of more than 4,000 of its U.S. account holders.
The decision shattered a long-held belief that Swiss banks would guard the identities of its American customers as carefully as they did their money, and it raised concern that other international tax havens might be next. Under an amnesty program, the IRS is allowing taxpayers to avoid prosecution for having failed to report their overseas accounts. As a result, tax attorneys across the nation have been besieged by wealthy clients who are lining up to apply even though they will still face big financial penalties.
Mitt Romney should release all of his tax returns; it's hard for me to believe that any independent voter would even consider voting for him if he refuses to do this. But I would expect that for the most part his tax returns will show that he took advantage of every possible loophole written into the tax code by wealthy Congresspeople on behalf of their wealthy friends.
And when Romney says: "I didn't pay one dollar more than required." many Americans will agree: Why would I pay more than I have to my government?
But what if Romney took advantage of the 2009 amnesty? This is a completely different matter. American citizens took this action specifically to avoid paying taxes that they owed the government (us, in other words, the taxpayers).
And it sure wasn't an issue of not being able to pay those taxes. He just didn't want to.
That would make Mitt Romney a tax dodger.
And that could lose him a whole bunch of votes.
