For example: Romney won't release his taxes and asserts we have to take his word for the fact that he's never paid less than 13% (as if that's a fair number for a multi-millionaire, either). Yet when he was running for governor in Mass., he asserted that he had claimed Mass residency on his taxes when his fulfillment of the residency requirement was questioned. He refused to release the tax returns to prove that he had done so, even with the financial information redacted. Then he was forced to release the tax forms, and he had lied.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2002/0 ... story.html
Republican gubernatorial hopeful Mitt Romney contradicted his previous public statements yesterday, and said for the first time that he did not file Massachusetts income tax returns for 1999 and 2000 as a resident of this state.
At a news conference, Romney said that he filed as a part-year resident for 1999 and a nonresident for 2000. He amended those returns, claiming Massachusetts resident status, on April 2, a week after he announced he was running for governor of Massachusetts and four days before the state Republican convention that endorsed his candidacy.
The Massachusetts Constitution requires a governor to be a resident for each of the seven years prior to the election. Romney has been embroiled in a controversy over his residency since Wednesday, when the Globe reported his home in Park City, Utah, was classified as his “primary residence” for 1999 through 2001, giving him a $54,000 break on his property taxes.
His filing of Massachusetts tax returns as a nonresident and a part-year resident may weaken his argument that he has long considered this state his primary home. The Massachusetts Department of Revenue considers an individual a part-year resident if he leaves the state during the year, and has “terminated your residency in Massachusetts to establish a residence outside the state” but still has a source of income here. In 2000, he filed as a nonresident, defined as someone who is not a resident, but again has a source of income in the state. He received an extension for his 2001 return.
Romney’s revelations about his amended returns came one day after he told reporters he had “filed both as a resident of Utah and a resident of Massachusetts” when asked whether he filed taxes as a resident of Massachusetts from 1999 to 2001.
Earlier in the week, he rejected a request by the Globe for copies of his returns with financial information redacted, but his residential status visible. A Romney spokesman insisted at that time the GOP candidate had filed his returns as a Massachusetts resident, but told the Globe reporter, “You’re going to have to take my word for it.”
Maybe Romney's problem isn't that he lies more than any other politician, but he's worse at it and gets caught more.
