We Already Know That Mitt Romney Lied About His Tax Returns

Most of the traditional press likes to avoid strenuous activities such as research. After all, how could CNN be bothered to “look up” such trivial things as “facts” and “the historical record” when they’re busy figuring out to give their talking heads some substance by turning them into holograms?

Rachel Maddow excels at uncovering and contextualizing facts. She’s one of the few to point out that we’ve been here before with Mitt Romney and his tax returns.

MADDOW: In 2002, ten years ago, when Mitt Romney was running for governor of Massachusetts, his taxes were relevant then, not just on the question of whether he was actually paying any taxes. Specifically, in that race there was a question about whether Mr. Romney would be allowed to even run for governor. It was not clear that he had been living in the state for the seven years that was required by the Massachusetts constitution in order to run for governor. His defense at the time was that he had been filing his taxes as a Massachusetts resident and that that showed he was legally qualified to run for governor. But then, just like know, he would not prove it. He would not release his tax returns to show this thing that he was claiming about them. Instead, we were all just supposed to take his word for it.

Sound familiar? Well, we know now what facts they were hiding back then, as Romney was forced to admit his lie during the course of the gubernatorial campaign.

THE BOSTON GLOBE (June 7, 2002): Republican gubernatorial hopeful Mitt Romney contradicted his previous public statements yesterday, and said for the first time that he did not file Massachusetts income tax returns for 1999 and 2000 as a resident of this state.

We already know that Mitt Romney lied about his tax returns in 2002. The question is whether he is lying again now, and about what.

MADDOW: The last time [Romney and long-time adviser] Eric Fehrnstrom were up against a wall like this, and he said to trust him, it turned out he was not telling the truth. Do you think he’s telling the truth now? Do you trust him? Do you trust him enough to be comfortable with him as President of the United States?

Look, we know that Mitt Romney avoids contributing financially to this country by stowing money in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland. We know that Mitt Romney has somehow finagled his IRA so that he has more than $100 million there, while most of us stupid non-wealthy are limited to contributing just $6,000 a year, if we can even afford that. We do not know the extent to which Romney was involved in the Son of Boss criminal tax avoidance scheme — kudos to CNN for finally noticing this possibility, at least on the web!

From what I’ve read, the smart money shouldn’t be sent to the Cayman Islands. It should be placed on a bet that what Romney is really hiding is that he took advantage of a tax amnesty offered by the IRS to those who used their Swiss bank accounts to hide money from Uncle Sam. Profit Patriotism first, Mittens!