President Obama is blaming Romney of not releasing his tax returns. But the criticism goes further. Democrats suggest that Romney is evading taxes. Denounce have been made throughout a video that Obama’s department has elaborated. The video shows some video clips from different TV channels, where Romney is accused of not releasing his tax returns, and recriminates him on investing his money in offshore accounts. They incriminate him for having accounts in tax havens such as Bermuda, Switzerland, and the Cayman Islands. The video can be seen on Youtube.

But accusations do not come just from the video. Examples are Vice-President Joe Biden declarations, who attacked Romney for not releasing his tax returns: “ ‘Mitt Romney wants you to show your papers, but he won’t show us his,’ said Biden in a speech to Latino leaders in Las Vegas during the National Council of La Raza convention.

Romney’s father who was a candidate during the 1968 elections released 30 years of tax returns when he was asked for them. Now, the son is not following his father’s steps. During the Latino meeting, Biden did not forget about this familiar kinship: “His son has released one year of his tax returns. Making a lie of the old adage: Like father, like son.”

Due to the relevance of the topic, even some Republican sectors are pressuring Romney to reveal his tax returns. “If you have things to hide, then maybe you’re doing things wrong,” Robert Bentley, Alabama Republican Governor, told reporters at the National Governors Association meeting on July 14. “I think you ought to be willing to release everything to the American people.”

The question is why is Mitt Romney hiding the rest of his tax returns? With this movement, Romney is allowing people to assume he has something to hide.

It seems that Obama’s team is very confident about Romney’s tax evasion. If it isn’t true what they are saying about the Republican candidate, they would seem like liars, and could make him loose the presidency.

Romney has not taken long to respond, and has said that the 2011 tax return will be released when it is completed. “None of those tax returns are required by law to be put out,” he said. “What is required, the financial disclosure, has already been made.”

According to Yahoo news there are various hypotheses about why Romney is not releasing the information. The first theory that they came up with says that Romney’s income might have been extremely high. Supposedly Romney earned  21.7 million USD in 2010 and  20.9 million USD in 2011, says John Cassidy of The New Yorker.

Second theory says that his tax rate might have been close to zero, which will bring up the thinking that he has might being doing something “shady to bring his tax rate way down,” tells Martin Sullivan of Tax Analysts to  Agence France-Presse.

Then there are other theories such as each return provides a reminder of Romney’s Mormonism, and all the money that he has given to its church, which could subtract votes from other religions. According to Doug Matacoins in declarations to the Outside the Beltway, Romney’s tax returns “reveal the extent of his tithing to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” Others says that Romney is just being arrogant, or that he won’t give in to attempts to divert attention from Obama.

Despite Romney is not doing anything illegal, it is a fact that something cloudy is around all this. It cannot be assured that Romney is actually hiding something , but why is he doing this? Shouldn’t the Obama team be pretty confident about this in order to make this accusations?

Despite Romneys acts, it should be reconsider withing the political sphere that they sometimes spend more time on attacking their rival than explaining what their platforms are. It is true that there are some occasions when it is acceptable to criticize the opponent if they have done something that get close to the illegal barrier or breaks from precedent, but this practice should be taken into consideration

Image Courtesy of  NewsHour

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About the author

Francisco Fajardo
Journalist graduated from the Navarra University, he has worked on newspapers and radio in Spain. His passions are sports, history and politics. Now he is part of the Toonari Post team.