Mitt Romney came out on the offensive Thursday night during the Republican presidential primary debate. “It’s very unfair, because I’ve been audited, I think, for 12 years”.
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“I watch him backstage”.
Romney on Wednesday joined the 2016 campaign fray by aggressively criticizing Trump for not releasing his returns during an interview on Fox News.
Trump said Monday his plan would end “the current tax treatment of carried interest for speculative partnerships that do not grow businesses or create jobs and are not risking their own capital” and pointed specifically to hedge fund managers.
“As far as my return, I want to file it, except for many years, I’ve been audited every year”, he said.
“Think of an audit as an investigation, an on-going investigation”, Goldburd said. However if Trump is telling the truth and the IRS has had to spend the past decade poring over his records, it means that he has been setting off alarms for a while.
Mr Romney, whose own wealth and tax history were targeted by Democrats in the 2012 election, also called on Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz to disclose their recent tax returns. “Twelve years, or something like that”, Trump said at the debate.
“I think people are saying, ‘If Gov. Romney is saying this, there must be something there, ‘” Evans said, including Rubio and Cruz, who are Trump’s closest competitors. I get audited every year. Romney isn’t quite pulling a Harry Reid here, as he’s not peddling rumor as fact – but he is employing Trumpesque innuendo to raise questions that The Donald may find unhelpful.
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said Friday it would be “rare” for an individual taxpayer to be audited as frequently as Trump says he has been.
“If his return is under audit, I would advise not to release it to the public as there could be an embarrassing upward adjustment or they could “bless” the return by not making any changes which would be an affirmation of the accuracy of the return (or they could make a highly unlikely downward adjustment)”. Romney is suggesting that perhaps Donald Trump is not as wealthy as he claims, and is not paying certain taxes. But he did not release additional returns.
Immediately following the GOP debate, Trump told CNN’s Chris Cuomo that he thought he might be being audited because of his religious beliefs. “I tell my people: ‘Why is it that every single year, I’m audited, whereas other people that are very rich … are never audited – and they don’t even know what I’m talking about when I talk about audits”.
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While tax returns do not offer a view on someone’s net worth because there are plenty of assets that don’t have to be reported on one’s 1040, they do offer a window into how someone conducts his financial life, Thorndike said. “Until the investigation is concluded”, Goldburd said, “he should not be releasing anything”.
