}

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Mitt Romney’s tax dodge

Rolling Stone has published an expose of the ways Mitt Romney evaded US federal income tax. Some of them are legal, some merely a bit shady and at least one blatantly illegal. NOW we know why Mitt refuses to release his tax returns: He knows his tax cheating will be on display for everyone to see.

I’ve long said that the reason Mitt arrogantly refuses to be as open and honest as his own father was, is because it would be politically embarrassing for him; it’s not a good look to be found to have paid a tiny fraction of the rate that mainstream Americans pay. Now, however, it seems to be pretty clear he’s trying to cover up far more, including his probable illegal attempts to avoid paying income tax.

The rich Americans caught in the illegal scheme avoided prison time because they were give an amnesty and allowed to pay the taxes the law required them to pay. But does anyone seriously think that if a mainstream American was in a similar situation he or she could have avoided prison, much less kept it all secret as Mitt appears to have done?

Personally, the revelation of Mitt’s probable illegal behaviour doesn’t surprise me in the least. He has an obvious “born to rule” arrogance in which he clearly thinks that the laws that ordinary people have to obey simply don’t apply to him. He doesn’t understand or relate to mainstream America, so he has to try and hoodwink them into voting for him by using lies, distortions and deception, and by saying anything to anyone to try and convince them he really does believe what he’s saying.

Mitt is an absolute fraud in the moral, ethical and intellectual sense. It turns out, he may be one in the legal sense, too.

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