Friday, September 7, 2012

Is Romney a Tax Cheat and Felon



In 2009 the Swiss bank UBS agreed to settle U.S. criminal charges that it had engaged in a multi-billion dollar scheme to help wealthy U.S. taxpayers hide assets from the IRS. This meant those secret accounts hiding money from the IRS in foreign banks were about to be revealed. The IRS offered an amnesty program for these wealthy people to avoid felony conviction if they owned up to these secret accounts and paid back taxes and penalties.
We know that Romney was heavily involved with foreign accounts; his 2010 return shows he has accounts in Switzerland and at least 5 other countries. Did Romney take the amnesty offer in 2009? And is that why he refuses to release his 2009 return that would show the felonious behavior and the amnesty?
They keep reporting in the media that Romney has released two years of tax returns, 2010 & 2011, but that is not quite true; he has only released a partial return for 2010. His 2010 return is missing one key page. The Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) in his 2010 return for detailing offshore accounts is purposefully absent. It just coincidentally happens that this one missing page would have referenced his previous (2009) amnesty if he had taken it. Why is the FBAR page the only page missing from his 2010 return? John McCain looked at Romney's taxes in 2008 and I'll take McCain's word that he didn't see anything illegal but the amnesty didn't occur until 2009 so McCain wouldn't have seen it.
Of course this is speculative, but why would Romney take so much heat for not releasing his tax returns if he wasn't hiding something pretty bad? The circumstantial evidence presents a strong case that Romney is a tax cheat who stashed money in Swiss accounts and then took the IRS amnesty in 2009 to avoid prosecution. For what other reason does he refuse to show his 2009 return? For what other reason would that one page be missing from his 2010 return?
Romney could clear up all these questions by just releasing his 2009 return or even releasing his complete 2010 return with the FBAR but he is not going to do so which is a pretty strong indictment that he is hiding some seriously nasty stuff that would disqualify him from the presidency. Even if you are a Republican, are you willing to vote for a likely tax cheat who hid money offshore and thus committed multiple felonies, or are you going to just vote for the guy no matter what, just because he has an “R” after his name?