Right now we know:

(a) Mitt Romney is rich
(b) He keeps money in offshore accounts

What else could you possibly learn about him from other returns?

If there's any wrong doing, the IRS would already be investigating.

Obama has been president for almost four years. His efforts have lead to a saving of the auto industry, the economy, which Republicans destroyed and healthcare for 30 million Americans. He sounds like the first really competent president in 60 years. Oh, did I mention he nailed bin Laden and ended that fucked up Republican trillion dollar cluster fuck called Iraq? They sound pitiful.

Not to mention the fact that Sununu's speech reinforces the idea that Hawaii is somehow not part of America. When did we last hear that — was it Cokie?

It's likely not anything illegal, but could one of the following:
1) Information showing he was paid more than he's said from Bain from 1999-2002, possibly pointing to more involvement in decisions during that time than he wants to admit. Or that he benefitted handily from decisions based on outsourcing or shutting down companies, even if he wasn't directly involved.

2) Investments in businesses that might be controversial to one side (left) or the other (right).

3) That he paid very little to no tax, which makes the whole argument that the rich pay their fair share or the majority of taxes fall a little flat.

4) That he might have actually done something which -- if looked at more closely -- might be considered illegal, tax-haven-wise.

And, so the Romney campaign will fall back on the President being a vaguely foreign communist....

In the end, it all boils down to the fact that Romney wants to benefit off the way HE portrays his record at Bain and made his money...while tax returns may open that record up for interpretation (either not as successful as he claims, or successful off the potential suffering of others who lost jobs and such). It's obvious that his campaign feels like there is something really potentially damaging there, otherwise they'd release them. Valid or not, the ongoing speculation about them is hurting Romney.

#6

Since I'm so obtuse, could you possibly name one or more of these?

There may or may not be anything really bad in Romney's tax returns, but you can tell by the way the Romney campaign is acting that they are really worried about how the tax returns are going to look to swing state voters.

I believe them too. After all, they are professionals. If they think the tax returns are going to hurt Romney, who am I to argue?

Portraying Obama as a wild-eyed crazy foreigner didn't work when he was relatively unknown. Now that he's been president for four years, it's going to get even less traction. Ditto the "socialist" charge -- we've all had time enough to see that he's nowhere near as left-wing as we've been (incessantly) warned he would be.

@4: or that he didn't tithe 10% to the LDS.

BTW, willard, i can't think of anyone who thinks the "World of Finance" is simple. don't talk down to us, .001%-er. it makes us proles less enthused, even the brainwashed ones like my dad.

@9 Some contenders.

#1: Bain Capital invested during his 1999-2002 tenure in a company that profited heavily off of the incineration and disposal of medical waste from from medical facilities, with a special apparent emphasis on burning aborted fetuses. Let's see that rolls with fundies if it's revealed Mittens directly signed off on during work with abortionists and profited off of "dead babies".

#2: one or more years with an effective tax rate of less than 10%. There goes your independent, moderate working class standing out the door.

#3: one or more years of an effective rate of 0%--or less, due to refund. There goes that working class again, but in a nuclear explosion.

#4: Purposefully had investments routed to foreign banks and firms. Why is our POTUS so heavily invested in China?

And so on. This isn't about true believers, it's about the wide sea of moderates that make up the middle. The people that Willard is terrified of.

Obama has been sinking in the polls lately while Romney has been rising, so maybe this relentless mudslinging is coming at a cost to Obama. However at least there's now some negative connotation with Romney's Bain record, as there should be, and I do hope they keep up the pressure on his tax returns.

What better way to 'celebrate success' than to dole out a new round of fat tax breaks to the most 'successful'?

President Gingrich would have known how to handle this.

Oh, and fuck your "i'm not enthusiastic", Willard. I'm not enthusiastic about your dressage horse deduction.

@14: the polls, by an large, are static. has this attack, which started last thursday with the boston globe article, shown up in polling? i kind of doubt it.

and really, "relentless mudslinging"? compared to what - what GOP PACs will start after the Olympics end?

Bailo, I direct you (and the rest of SLOG) to:
http://danshaviro.blogspot.com/2012/07/w…

1) We know from the 2010 tax return, in which he had a net capital loss carryforward from 2009, that he zeroed out his net capital gains - including from carried interest Bain income - in 2009.

2) 2009 was the last year in which he received certain Bain payments as the playout of his "retroactive retirement."

3) It's been hard to understand what benefit he thought he was getting from the Swiss bank account, and there was an IRS amnesty program in 2009 for fraudulent nondisclosure of offshore income. If he had to come clean in 2009, this might be embarrassing, especially given that there was an iron fist inside the IRS leniency offer (i.e., if you held out, they might get you without any amnesty).

From the first two items above, it may be a reasonable guess that Romney had a lot more gross income in 2009 than 2010 and 2011, yet paid less tax or even zero tax.

(via Sullivan)

Bailo, you are not obtuse, you are an idiot. Proven repeatedly.
Do you really volunteer for the Republican party? Do those fools know how much damage your complete lack of credibility causes? You come in here, get soundly trounced every time, and you think you are "helping"?
My god, you tool. When three or five or more Sloggers quickly and easily refute your stupid right wing arguments every flippin' time, dont you see the damage?

I've learned so much that repudiates most every conservative position and belief just because you can't shut up!

Stay ir go. But the stupider you are, the more you keep repudiating Republican thought on... just about everything.

Well done. Very well done.

@14 - what are you smoking? Romney's favorables have been sinking ever since the Obama camp started the Bain attacks in earnest, and his unfavorables slightly rising.
And Obama's favorables have been steady/slightly rising. Obama isn't getting any appreciable blowback for the negative ads.

Romney is not in the least worried about his tax returns. They amount to approximately 52 pages, by one report, and it's not likely any member of the public is going to go through that crap. He knows that as long as my stupid party belabors that point, we're ignoring more important points, such as the fact that the job creators--the 1%--are not creating jobs, but instead are sitting on their piles of cash.

@18 and @21 I'm looking at the Talking Points Memo Polltracker, which I check obsessively every day. They graph the results, so you can see the trends both nationally and in various states. Obama had a really nice first-half of July, but Romney has caught up with him recently.

I also go by my gut, a bit. If I, as an Obama supporter, think that a particular strategy or attack is silly or petty, I know it's going to seem a lot worse for most people, and all this Bain "did he or didn't he" is starting to wear out its welcome. It's okay to poke holes in your opponent, but it's tiresome when all a candidate does is attack. In my opinion, Obama should also keep talking health care reform, saving Detroit, ending the Iraq war, not deporting young illegal immigrants (never mind he's already deported a near record number of people), making welfare easier, taxes on the wealthy, more oil drilling, etc. All that stuff is positive for him. He should point out whenever the GOP House proposes ideas that screw over the poor and middle class and benefit the wealthy. I would also like to see him at least showing up at scenes of natural disasters and hardships, such as drought stricken farms. All I can remember him doing is visiting the Colorado fire. In general, I want him hammering the case that "smaller government" = destroying all governmental functions and regulations that were there for a reason, while diverting as much national capital to the Sheldon Adelsons and Koch Brothers of the country. I want him searing the message that Romney is not pro-America, or pro-worker, but pro-international corporation, and pro-international corporation =/= pro-jobs.

And with Romney, it's not that hard to make the case. I mean, just look at a photograph of the guy. Listen to him talk. He's straight from central casting. He's a bigger sitting duck than John Kerry. But again, he can't contrast himself with Romney if all he does is talk about Romney. Remember that Republicans are uncannily good at playing victim.

@23: he is making the points you mention in his speeches. but the MSM likes the tax returns. blood in the water.

I'm wondering how long Romney will be able to stall on his taxes and still be considered a viable candidate.

While Romney may claim that he wants the discussion to be about the economy, his actions will result in the discussion being about what Romney is afraid of in his own taxes.

And no amount of crying from his team will change that.

@25, just who do you think would be a viable candidate if Romney isn't? He IS the Republican candidate and they will close behind him and vote for him. There's not one Republican in this country who cares about his tax returns. Hopefully there's not one Democrat who will vote for Romney, but Obama could make that more certain if he'd do what Floater says he should.

WTF is with conservative and portraying a US state (Hawaii) as foreign? I've seen this numerous times over the last few years with regards to Obama and it pisses me off. I remember even seeing an Obama trip to Hawaii referred to as "too foreign". I know there's a whelks chance in a supernova of Romney winning Hawaii but you think they would at least make a show of not antagonizing the entire population of the state.

Give poor Mitt a break. It is merely prudent to have bank accounts outside of the country you are pillaging via the tax code.

@23 - see http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/… for graphs in swing states for the past month that show what I'm talking about.

@26
"just who do you think would be a viable candidate if Romney isn't?"

That would be Obama at this point.

"He IS the Republican candidate and they will close behind him and vote for him."

The point being that people not in his base will not vote for him if Obama can make this campaign about his refusal to release his taxes.

I don't think you're going to see huge movements in the polls this early on. Most normal folks just aren't paying close attention to the election yet... at least, consciously. Subconsciously, however, I think this news lays the groundwork for when the election gets real (ie, after labor day).

What Obama's doing right now, to a large degree of success, is paint Romney as the living embodiment of everything that's wrong with our economy. Few people are actually going to officially change their vote already... but Romney's going to have a huge hurdle to clear later on.