Mitt Romney, Crook? Probably.

A month back, Jennifer Epstein said:

"Mitt Romney either lied in federal filings that show he worked at Bain Capital through 2002 and could be guilty of a felony, or has lied to the American people in saying he left the company in 1999, the Obama campaign is arguing in light of news reports on the firm’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission." (Link "Bain Capital" in original quotation)

And when I read that, I came to the conclusion he was probably a crook.

This was at the time it started to dawn on the American public that Mitt Romney would finally be the Rominee, as copyrighted by John Stewart, of the party. (Also, pay close attention to how Donald Trump refused to release his "informants" on the birther issue).



Now, it seems like his tax-reporting woes have only gotten worse:From Sam Stein & Ryan Grim at the Huffington Post:

"Harry, he didn't pay any taxes for 10 years," Reid recounted the person as saying.

"He didn't pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that's true? Well, I'm not certain," said Reid. "But obviously he can't release those tax returns. How would it look?

Which I could understand--at the time. Don't hate the player, hate the game and all that. This is something Mitt Romney could have played to his advantage if he would just release his taxes. All he had to do is be like, "Hey, players, Mitt Romney here. Yeah, I paid no taxes, but I'll reform the tax code to be more accountable. Just vote me and I'll change everything.



But he did not. And that, probably, means he has something even darker to hide then not paying any taxes. Maybe he received money from the government? Nah ... Maybe he hid that tax-money, offshore, on some treasure island?

From Grace Wyler at buisness inside:

Romney has personal interests in at least 12 Bain funds in the Cayman Islands, worth as much as $30 million. Shaxson reports that "the Romney campaign insists he saves no tax by using them, but there is no way to check this."   

A $3 million Swiss bank account appeared on Romney's 2010 returns, but disappears on the 2011 returns, after the Romneys trustee closed it. USC tax law professor Ed Kleinbard told Shaxson that the Swiss account “has political but not tax-policy resonance" because it was essentially a bet against the U.S. dollar. 

And then there is the suspicious multi-millions he has in his IRA, which the average person should not, legally, be able to put in more then 30K a year.
From William D. Cohan:

While there are limits to the amount that can be contributed tax-deferred to an IRA, there are no restrictions on the amount of money that the contributed capital can earn and can continue to earn, on a tax-deferred basis, even after the contributions have stopped. (The Internal Revenue Service will get its pound of flesh from Romney when he takes the money out of the IRA.) The only limit is the skill, or luck, of the IRA’s owner. If you are the Warren Buffett of IRA investors, it is conceivable that you could turn $450,000 into as much as $102 million -- an increase of 227 times -- but not very likely, especially as in the last decade or so, the stock market has been a roller coaster. Mere investing mortals would be lucky to still have $450,000 in the account. (The median American family has $42,500 in traditional IRAs, according to the Investment Company Institute.)

So, yes, I'm pretty sure that Mitt Romney doesn't play all the rules of Wall Street. Also, I highly doubt he would be the president to reform tax-policy. (But, ironically, a great one for 'liberal' healthcare) He already gains a tremendous amount of cash from our broken systems. Remember, he tried and true lobbyist.

This corruption is already incentive enough for him to not change the tax system. But his plan doesn't even put up the facade of reform. It's blatant tax-cuts for the rich at the cost of the poor.

From taxpolicy.org (Page 2, Paragraph 2), as pointed out by Clive Crook!:

"Our major conclusion is that a revenue-neutral individual income tax change that incorporates the features Governor Romney has proposed - including reducing marginal tax rates substantially, eliminating the individual alternative minimum tax (AMT) and maintaining all tax breaks for saving and investment - would provide large tax cuts to high-income households, and increase the tax burdens on middle- and/or lower-income taxpayers. This is true even when we bias our assumptions about which and whose tax expenditures are reduced to make the resulting tax system as progressive as possible. For instance, even when we assume that tax breaks - like the charitable deduction, mortgage interest deduction, and the exclusion for health insurance - are completely eliminated for higher-income households first, and only then reduced as necessary for other households to achieve overall revenue-neutrality- the net effect of the plan would be a tax cut for high-income households coupled with a tax increase for middle-income households."

To summarize:

Mitt Romney took advantage of our tax system at every possible loophole. (from the limited tax information he has provided) Then he rubs salt in our wounds by trying to raise taxes on the middle-class. 

Even Gordon Gecko drew the line at "greed [...] is good". That fictional character said greed is good and it increases efficiency. But Mitt Romney wants more then greed at the cost of efficiency. Mitt Romney is a man who wants all the money.