Taxes. They are a necessary and unavoidable thing in life (unless you hire skilled accountants to loophole out every cent of them).
When a politician releases his or her taxes it in effect says, “I have nothing to hide”.
At the 1:21 mark of the video below, Wisconsin candidate for U.S. Senate Tommy Thompson says:
“When I was governor and I was employed [by] the people of the State of Wisconsin, I released my tax returns, but I’ve been in the business world, and the question is, ‘Am I going to release my tax returns?’ The answer is ‘no’. No. The answer is ‘N-O.’ What part don’t you understand?”
Tammy Baldwin has released 10 years of her tax returns. Tommy: zero.
Tommy can’t just drop and do 50 to get out of this one.
What might Tommy be hiding? Oh so MANY things. Tax forms from years gone by can reveal whether Tommy protects his wealth in offshore “tax haven” accounts, which according to Nicholas Shaxson, takes away 100 billion U.S. dollars per year in tax income for the United States. (seems downright un-American to me).
If Tommy released his taxes for 10 years the way Tammy did, we’d know what loopholes he’s used that are available only to the ultra rich, and whether Tommy is still getting paid by a corporation or two that we *might* have assumed was done with him (yes, it is appropriate to laugh here).
Revealing years of his taxes to us would help us know just how thoroughly Tommy used his former position as Secretary in the federal Health and Human Services Dept. [HHS] to later profit.
I say “just how thoroughly” because we already know that in 2009 he was pegged as the “most prodigious corporate advisor” (AKA “revolving door lobbyist”) to come out of the George Dubbya Bush administration having worked for 42 different companies as a lobbyist from Jan. 2005 to Jan. 2009.
We also know through a required candidate statement that he’s very recently been profiting handsomely from his influence in the health field with the bulk of the $5.2 million he earned Jan ’10 – Oct ’11 coming from health vendors: Logistics Health, Akin, C.R. Bard, and Centene Corporation. (details at Thompson’s assets top $13 million — handy list to pop in a spreadsheet if you’re keeping track of Tommy’s top campaign contributors)
The Tommy T. fans out there might just be wildly gesticulating about now and wishing to interject that according to MJS Tommy “provided a letter from his accountant saying he paid an effective federal tax rate of 31.1% in 2010 (36.1% when state taxes are factored in)”.
Isn’t that as good as a note from mom?
Isn’t that enough to satisfy the public’s curiosity about this wanna-be-congressman?
Nothin’ to see here folks?
Let’s do this Tommy-style:
N-O.
My guess is the huge gov contracts at Logistics. His brother ED had a big mouth