Romney’s Elusive Report on Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts for 2010

It’s just a technical requirement like SEC forms.

Apparently, it provides more detail, though, about the account—maybe enough information for experts to be able to tell what the purpose of the account was. Apparently, they can’t tell from the tax return itself even whether that account was interest-bearing, which in turn would indicate whether Romney might have used it to dodge taxes (and thus taken the amnesty in 2009) or instead used it to hide an outside source of income. The additional form might, I guess, tell where the deposits into the account came from, too.

So, basically, it’s not that Romney did anything wrong by withholding the form; he said he was providing his tax return for 2010, and that’s what he did. But since the form could have some important additional information, he’ll now be pressured to disclose it. And if he doesn’t, the speculation about what it would show will get pretty hot, I think.

@ Beverly: the form will tell us the highest balance in the account during the year, and that’s it. It won’t tell us anything notable, IOW.

We know it was interest-bearing, because Mitt disclosed it on his 2008 disclosure. In light of that, I’d say it’s pretty unlikely that he was using it to hide assets.

Ah. Of course, Jack. Sorry for missing what I shouldn’t have missed.

Hi Beverly — He doesn’t disagree. the author says that release of PY returns would shed more light.