I think Mitt Romney should release as many tax records as his opponents want to see. So far, he’s released his 2010 tax return and is planning to release the one from 2011 by mid-October. (He filed for an extension.) See, it seems to me that his reluctance to release any more than that makes it look like he has something to hide. And I am pretty confident he has nothing to hide. Well, nothing illegal, that is. But I can imagine his annual tax return is hundreds of pages long and that he takes advantage of every little loophole available to him. I am sure he has an army of tax attorneys who explore every nook and cranny of the tax code and root out the most obscure of exemptions, tax havens and offshore accounts. And I bet Romney doesn’t pay one dime more in taxes than he has to. I suppose one could characterize that as “something to hide.” Because there is a tendency for a certain percentage of the population to resent some rich guy who knocks down $43 million a year and pays income taxes at a rate of only 15 percent. On the flip side of the argument is the fact that everybody already knows Romney is a rich guy who pays taxes at a rate of only 15 percent. So there’s really no hiding that fact. Bottom line is, I really don’t think Romney is a tax cheat. He’s just a really rich guy who makes most of his money from investments. According to his 2010 return, he’s got a tax-deferred retirement account worth between $21 million and $102 million. One might ask how that account could get that large, given a $30,000 per year contribution limit. Tax experts say he probably loaded up his retirement fund with assets from his private equity firm, Bain Capital, and assigned really low values to those assets to get around the contribution limits. Of course, when he cashed in, he’ll have to pay taxes on the true value of those assets, but as it sits right now, those assets are growing tax free. Lee Shepherd is a contributing editor at Tax Notes. She told National Public Radio early this week, “If you happen to work for a partnership and your compensation is arranged this way, you get this very beneficial treatment.” Yeah you do. See, I think this is the kind of stuff Romney wants to hide. I don’t think he’s done anything illegal, but I think he’s done lots of things to minimize his tax liability and maximize his income generating capability. But is this shocking to anybody? Would this be unusual for anyone in Romney’s income bracket? Does anybody think people in the top 1 percent of earners fritter away tens of millions of dollars in income taxes every year just because they can? Frankly, I think it makes Romney look good. Do you want a guy as president who doesn’t know how to minimize his income tax bill? Who doesn’t take advantage of all the exemptions? Who doesn’t pay attention? So c’mon, Mitt. Just release the tax returns. It’s not going to show us anything we didn’t already know. You’re a really rich guy whose tax attorneys are really shrewd. To me, it just plays into the whole shrewd businessman vibe Romney counts as his No. 1 qualification to be president. He’s a successful businessman. He knows how to create jobs. He knows how to turn the economy around. I also think it’s fun to listen to Romney detractors’ haughty views on the income tax issue. Take Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat. She said Romney’s refusal to release more than two years of his personal tax returns makes him unfit to win confirmation as a member of the president’s Cabinet, let alone to hold the high office himself. Sen. Harry Reid, the Democrat from Nevada, went farther. He said Romney’s refusal to make public more of his tax records makes him unfit to be a dogcatcher. This is instructional because guess whose tax records you can’t see at all? Why, Pelosi’s and Reid’s, of course. In fact, of the 535 members of the U.S. House and Senate, only 17 have made public their tax records. I read this in a McClatchy Newspapers story by Kevin Hall and David Lightman. Now, let’s think about this for a moment. The people who actually make the laws, the people who would be most susceptible to a lobbyist or special interest group, don’t have to show us where they get their money. But a presidential candidate does. Craig Holman is a government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen, a nonpartisan watchdog group. He was quoted in the McClatchy article. Holman said, “Senior public officials, especially members of Congress and presidential candidates, should be required to disclose their tax returns so that the public can monitor potential conflicts of interest.” Bingo. Here’s an excerpt from the McClatchy story: Absent tax information, members of Congress aren’t fully transparent, said Daniel Auble, who heads the personal finance project for the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks financial disclosures by members of Congress and appointees confirmed by Congress. “Having a clearer picture of lawmakers’ interests ... is definitely important in making available to the public what possible influence there could be,” he said. “In terms of transparency, it would be helpful to have more information.” And consider this for a moment. These are the people who are voting on changes to the tax code. If constituents could look at their lawmaker’s tax returns, it would be instructional. It could show how a lawmaker’s income level and types of investments might influence his or her vote on a change in the tax code. How would lawmakers be taxed under different proposals and did they vote to get themselves a lower tax liability? That’s a legitimate question, isn’t it? So yeah. Romney should release more years of his tax records. But at the same time, members of Congress should release theirs, too. You realize, of course, that will never happen. There’s no way members of Congress are going to change their disclosure laws. They’ll just keep criticizing presidential candidates who don’t disclose.