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An interview with Mitt Romney aired Wednesday night on NBC News, where Romney said he would not release his tax returns should he win the presidential nomination for the Republican party.
“Never say never, but I don’t intend to do so,” Romney said
If Romney had released his tax returns, he would have allowed voters to better judge his financial history along with conflicts of interest that could be present. It can also be argued that he would have received less criticism for not releasing the returns and would have received even just a bit of credit for releasing the returns.
On the other side of things, if Romney had released the tax returns, it would have created more headaches by putting Romney’s immense wealth on display. The returns would have also displayed the fact that Romney pays a lower tax rate than those who vote from the middle class.
“I think the implications are that he is afraid of what this says about who he is and who he will represent if he is in the White House,” said David Donnelly, the national campaigns director of the Public Campaign Action Fund, according to the Huffington Post.
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Advisers for Romney decided that releasing the tax returns would not be worth the pain, and so far they have been correct since there has not been much outrage over the announcement. Romney has begun to cement his legacy as one of the most secretive presidential candidates in the modern era though.
Recently, Romney declined to name those who bundle money for him and it has been reported that he destroyed records from his time spent as governor. Reuters also announced that Romney sought out to destroy 150 boxes of paper records from his time as governor. If Romney should win the Republican nomination and not release his tax returns, he will be the first to not release that information in the modern era.
“Romney ought to be releasing his tax returns and the names of his bundlers,” said Fred Wertheimer, president and founder of Democracy 21. “There is no understandable reason why he isn’t doing that except for the fact that he wants to keep secret from the public information that other candidates in his situation have made public and that, for some reason, he doesn’t want voters to know.”
“I can tell you we follow the tax laws. And if there’s an opportunity to save taxes we, like anybody else in this country, will follow that opportunity. But we don’t have any current plans to release tax returns — but never say never. We’ll see what the future holds. We’ve released, of course, all the information required by law—which is a pretty extensive release. But down the road, we’ll see what happens if I’m the nominee,” Romney said Thursday.
