Republicans Want Romney To Release His Past Tax Returns

Mitt Romney is facing a growing chorus of calls from within his own party to release his tax returns going back many years before 2010. Romney recently announced that he will not release his tax returns beyond the 2010 returns (which he already released) and the 2011 returns when they are finished.

Conservative political analyst Bill Kristol criticized Romney’s refusal to release his taxes saying that all Presidential nominee’s should have to bear the fallout from their tax records.

Kristol told Fox News Sunday,

“He should release the tax returns tomorrow. It’s crazy,. You gotta release six, eight, 10 years of back tax returns. Take the hit for a day or two.”

Candidates commonly release many years of tax records so that the electorate can see they have nothing to hide. President Obama has released his tax records going back to the year 2000. Romney’s own father, when he ran for President in 1968, made it a point to release 12 years of tax records.

Kristol is not alone on the Republican side of the isle calling on Romney to be more straightforward about his taxes.

Other prominent Republicans who have called on Romney to release tax documents include Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and strategist Ana Navarro.

Speaking at the National Governors Association meeting in Williamsburg, Virginia Alabama’s Republican governor, Robert Bentley, called on Romney to release all the documents requested of him.

Bentley said,

“If you have things to hide, then maybe you’re doing things wrong. I think you ought to be willing to release everything to the American people.”

A top adviser to President Obama, David Axelrod, on Sunday also ramped up attacks on Mitt Romney’s tax record, saying he had used “every single conceivable tax shelter and loophole.”

Axelrod told Candy Crowley on CNN’s “State of the Union.”,

“I’m not suggesting that, based on what we know, that he’s done anything illegal. I’m not suggesting that. But what I am suggesting is that he’s taken advantage of every single conceivable tax shelter and loophole that we can see.”

The issue of Romney’s tax returns has dogged him since the early days of the primaries. Newt Gingrich made Romney’s refusal to release his tax records a key component of his failed run at the Presidential nomination.