Senate Maj. Leader Harry Reid: The 47% Aren’t Using Cayman Island Tax Shelters Like Mitt Romney

A tape released earlier this week shows Mitt Romney at a private reception with wealthy donors describing  approximately half of Americans as  “people who pay no income tax” and who are “dependent upon government.” Those people, said Romney, would probably support  President Obama “no matter what” because they believe they are “victims” who think they are “entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.”

Romney is wrong, of course, since many people who don’t pay income tax do pay Social Security, Medicare, state, and local tax. But what does Mitt Romney pay in taxes? Mitt Romney has steadfastly refused to release more than his 2010 tax return and  2011 returns, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is calling him on it.

“This week we learned that Mitt Romney only wants to be president of half the United States,” he explained. “If Mitt Romney were president he wouldn’t waste time worrying about the 47 percent of Americans who he believes are ‘victims,’ who Romney believes are ‘unwilling to take personal responsibility.’”

Reid continued, “For all we know Mitt Romney could be one of those who have paid no federal income tax. Thousands of families making more than a million dollars per year pay nothing in federal income tax. Is Mitt Romney among those? We’ll never know because he refuses to release his tax returns.”

“We know that Mitt Romney pays a lower tax rate than middle-class families, thanks to a number of things he’s done: Swiss bank accounts, Cayman Islands tax shelters. And we can only imagine what new secrets would be revealed if he showed the American people a dozen years of tax returns like his dad did.”

Mitt Romney has accused the people who want to see his tax returns of being “small minded”, saying Democrats would only use his returns against him if he released them.

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