FYI: Mitt Romney Doesn’t Get to Use Form 1040EZ

Posted on by Caleb Newquist

Have you heard? People want to see Mitt Romney's past tax returns ASAP. Some people are so desperate to get questions about his taxes answered that they're throwing digits at the presumptive GOP nominee. 

Mittens has said that he'll release his 2011 return just as soon as it's ready (that task presumably falls to PwC's David Feheley, who prepared the 2010 return) and that'll be all we get because he'd rather not give the Obama campaign "more pages to pick through, distort and lie about.” Plus, who likes to follow their Dad's example anyway?

I mean, what will we learn? Well, maybe a lot actually but Mitt, for one, isn't sure what all the fuss is about. He just assumes that everyone knows all the important stuff – he's rich; he donates to Mormon Church; he's really rich. Oh, and here's another newsflash he'll share with you: his tax returns are long. Sayeth Mittens:

“My tax returns that have already been released number into the hundreds of pages,” he said. “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.”

Seriously, people. Do you really want thousands of pages of Mitt Romney 1040 goodness? He's actually doing you a favor.

Romney: Releasing tax returns would give more for Obama to 'lie about' [The Hill] 

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BREAKING: Tax Reform Will Be a Long Process

Yesterday in a Senate Finance Committee hearing, Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) said that he would like a “weekly set of get-togethers” to address reforming our tax code. You see, Baucus was having similar weekly hearings for two years leading up to the healthcare reform bill that was passed last year. And since those were such a hoot, he figures attacking a equally polarizing issue like tax reform will demand a similar strategy. However, witnesses before the committee – all former assistant Treasury secretaries for tax policy – warned that this debate will likely haunt our dreams and news cycles for a long time:

Fred Goldberg, Jonathan Talisman, Mark Weinberger, Pamela Olson and Eric Solomon discussed, among other issues, the difficulties in crafting a revenue-neutral tax reform plan; problems with the alternative minimum tax and the tax exclusion for employer-provided healthcare; and issues with double taxation in the corporate code.

The former Treasury officials also declared that any successful overhaul of the tax code could take several years and would require leadership from the Oval Office.

Now for the older crowd, the long arduous process of tax reform harkens you back to days of when Charlie Sheen was winning by dodging…er, Charlie in Platoon. For many of the Millennials, well, you were all a lot cuter back then.

“We saw that in 1986,” Weinberger said. “President Reagan at the time made it his No. 1 domestic policy initiative and it still took over two years and failed three times before it was ultimately enacted into law.”

Baucus wants weekly tax reform hearings [On the Money/The Hill]