Though twenty years of Romney tax summaries released and vouched for by PricewaterhouseCoopers today would seem to indicate that Harry Reid and his mystery source were incorrect about Romney’s alleged failure to pay any income taxes for an entire decade (“Over the entire 20-year period, the lowest annual effective federal personal tax rate was 13.66%”), Reid has declined to admit that he made the whole thing up for kicks/was duped by a prank caller. Quite the contrary:
What we don’t know is why he refuses to be straight with the American people about the choices he’s made in his financial life. When will the American people see the returns he filed before he was running for president? Governor Romney is showing us what he does when the public is looking. The true test of his character would be to show what he did when everyone was not looking at his taxes.
It’s true: Romney still hasn’t released any tax returns from earlier than 2010, presumably because there is something in there he doesn’t want the public to see. But from what has been released, we now know that Reid’s accusation, at least, was wrong. Admitting that would also be a sign of character.
