Presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s latest excuse, in a long line of poor ones, is that, ”Our church doesn’t publish how much people have given. This is done entirely privately. One of the downsides of releasing one’s financial information is that this is now all public, but we had never intended our contributions to be known. It’s a very personal thing between ourselves and our commitment to our God and to our church,” he told Parade magazine.
There are quite a few speculated reasons why Mitt Romney won’t release his taxes. One of which, interestingly enough, is that he may have hid money from his church. At a news conference, he is reported to have said, “Every year, I’ve paid at least 13 percent, and if you add, in addition, the amount that goes to charity, why the number gets well above 20 percent,” Romney said. First of all, you don’t get to add your charitable donations to your tax rate. It doesn’t work that way. Second, tithing isn’t exactly the same thing as charity, and 20% is still an extremely low tax if you’re worth as much as Romney.
While Mitt’s most recent excuse for not releasing his tax returns (not wanting to disclose tithing) is a shoddy one, it completely loses credibility altogether when his wife, during an interview with ABC News’ Robin Roberts, says the following: “You know, you should really look at where Mitt has led his life and where he’s been financially. He’s been a very generous person. We give ten percent of our income to our church every year. Do you think that is the kind of person that is trying to hide things?”
Well, he didn’t want to reveal that amount (although it’s well-known how much Mormons are supposed to give), so yes, he is the kind of person who is trying to hide things. The positives of this, however, cannot be denied: Mitt Romney’s latest excuse now fails to hold any water.
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Why is this still an issue?
If I was worth $250 million I’d give a lot to charity too, maybe even to a church. So what? Would they be so generous if they had to work for minimum wage like millions of their fellow citizens? doubt it!
I continue to believe that it’s very possible Mittens is hiding his true worth from the LDS Church. He fears they’ll find out he hasn’t been forking over nearly enough.