The National Review got to ask Mitt Romney a few questions. Here are two of them, and Romney’s answers:
For much of this week, you’ve been asked about your tax returns. What’s the downside to releasing your pre-2010 financial records?
My tax returns that have already been released number into the hundreds of pages. And we will be releasing tax returns for the most current year as soon as those are prepared. They will also number in the hundreds of pages. In the political environment that exists today, the opposition research of the Obama campaign is looking for anything they can use to distract from the failure of the president to reignite our economy. And I’m simply not enthusiastic about giving them hundreds or thousands of more pages to pick through, distort, and lie about.
From a political perspective, a lot of pundits wonder why you haven’t gotten rid of your offshore accounts. Can you explain why you have not done that?
Well, first of all, all of my investments are managed in a blind trust. By virtue of that, the decisions made by the trustee are the decisions that determine where the investments are. Secondly, the so-called offshore account in the Cayman Islands, for instance, is an account established by a U.S. firm to allow foreign investors to invest in U.S. enterprises and not be subject to taxes outside of their own jurisdiction. So in many instances, the investments in something of that nature are brought back into the United States. The world of finance is not as simple as some would have you believe. Sometimes a foreign entity is formed to allow foreign investors to invest in the United States, which may well be the case with the entities that Democrats are describing as foreign accounts.
On the former question, Romney is admitting that he doesn’t want the political fallout that would result if people could see his taxes. He isn’t even faking a privacy argument. Also, he’s back to that All-American Republican aversion to things with lots of pages.
On the latter question, I have to ask if this is proof that Romney is Mexican, because he isn’t supposed to be a “foreign entity” or a “foreign investor.” He’s supposed to be an American. So, how can he put his money in an account that is designed for foreigners who want to make investments in American companies without having to pay any American taxes (or taxes out of their own jurisdiction)?
Is this some kind of Hedge Fund of Funds that caters to foreign tax cheats? I don’t get it. The whole thing sounds more crooked than Hong Kong.
