Pop quiz: Who was the first presidential candidate to disclose their tax records?
I'll give you a hint, odds are you're familiar with his son.
It was George Romney, Mitt Romney's father.
George Romney released 12 years worth of tax returns to the American people when he ran for president. Since then, presidential candidates -- Republicans and Democrats -- have followed his lead and released multiple tax records for public scrutiny.
All presidential candidates, except one.
Mitt Romney has only released one year of records after persistent pressure. It raises the question: What does Mitt Romney have to hide?
Romney has some explaining to do:
Romney admits he has huge amounts of money in offshore bank accounts -- but won't say how much money, how many accounts, or where they all are
Vanity Fair reports that Romney set up shell companies in Bermuda and tax shields in the Cayman Islands and Swiss Bank accounts
And just this week, Romney's campaign said it was "unseemly and disgusting" for people to scrutinize his tax returns and business holdings
Unseemly? Disgusting? It's the same thing every presidential candidate has done since 1968. Everyone except Mitt Romney. So, we have to ask: What's he hiding?
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Comments: 2
He's a tax cheat. Otherwise he would have no problem showing the American people his tax returns.
"Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, in an interview with ABC News today, called on presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney to release his tax returns in order to show voters that he has "nothing to hide."
Bentley said that Romney's refusal to release more returns has created a "distraction" that Democrats were successfully exploiting.
"I just believe in total transparency," Bentley told ABC News at the National Governors Association conference. "In fact, I was asked today that question - do you think that Governor Romney should release his tax returns? And I said I do. I said, I release my tax returns. I may be the only public official in Alabama that does, but I release mine every year and I just believe that people should release their tax returns. And if you get them out and just get past that, it just makes it so much easier."
Bentley, who took office in 2001, warned that failure to do so would continue to open the door for the Obama campaign and their Democratic allies to "cause distractions away from the real issue in this campaign and that's the economy."
Earlier this year, Romney released his 2010 tax documents and his estimated returns for 2011, but so far he has declined to offer disclosures for additional years and has indicated he is unlikely to do so. Democrats have pounced on Romney for what they see as a lack of transparency."