July 18, 2012 10:15 PM UTC

The next question for Mitt Romney...

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• by: Fidel's dirt nap

(It’s a fair question.   – promoted by ProgressiveCowgirl)

Did you take IRS amnesty for fradulent nondisclosure of offshore income ?

A couple of telling articles on the subject from Kenneth Thomas at Business Insider, Matthew Yglesias at Slate and Paul Abrams at Huffington Post:

https://www.businessinsider.com…

https://www.slate.com/blogs/mon…

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

It appears that a few of the pieces of the Mitt Romney tax puzzle are coming together. A lot of the facts that are out there already point toward Romney potentially participating in a IRS amnesty program in tax year 2009, as this was the time it was in place and offered to those 1%’ers who (ahem) forgot to report offshore income, or what we normal people would regard as tax evasion.

We know for a fact that Ann Romney’s $ 3 million blind trust was at Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS), and the Romney camp has admitted as such. We also know that in Mitt’s 2010 return he amended his 2007 return (RETROACTIVE rears its ugly head again), which didn’t specify that this particular Ann Romney UBS trust was indeed held in Switzerland (oops).  

We know from all the articles in the press from a few years ago that UBS was the primary target of the IRS prior to this amnesty program, as they were seen as the primary and most frequent offender in assisting US investors in setting up strictly confidential accounts in order to evade the dreaded Uncle Sam.

As we know Romney has released his 2010 returns and has promised to release his 2011 returns when they are available but nothing more.   That in itself is pretty damning, because 2009 is the year that the IRS offered this program and thousands of well to do US taxpayers rushed to participate in this, and meet the tax year deadline and thus avoid the wrath of the IRS.  It would then make sense for Romney to release returns that aren’t particularly revealing (2010, 2011) but to hold out and stonewall on on any others, because the next logical year is the money year, 2009.

As one of the articles astutely points out, if you live in America and have no business interests or family or other connections in Switzerland, why would you invest in a Swiss bank account for any reason OTHER THAN TO EVADE US TAXES ?

All in all, it looks like 2009 was a fine year for tax cheats to come clean, and it is increasingly looking like Mittens is one of that proud group.

I therefore think directly asking Romney whether or not he participated in amnesty is an excellent question to ask. I am pretty certain the answer will be far more damaging than the question.