Mitt Romney defends tax return secrecy with yet another lie

It doesn't look like you'll see this
headline about Mitt anytime soon When Mitt Romney justified his plan to release just two years worth of tax returns by claiming that he was meeting the same standard set by President Obama, he was lying'as anyone who follows the issue knows, President Obama has released every return since 2000.

That was on Monday. When the issue came up again on Tuesday, Romney dropped that particular line of argument'but he didn't stop lying. This time, Romney claimed that he was meeting the same standard that John Kerry set in 2004 and John McCain set in 2008.

KUDLOW: Why not release your tax returns? Why not go back 10 years?

Gov. ROMNEY: Well, we've had people run for president before, and they've released two years. John Kerry released two years of taxes, John McCain released two years of taxes. I've released one already, put the estimate out for the next year. We'll have two years of taxes.

Now, why Romney would want to compare himself to two losers is anybody's guess, but while he's basically got his facts straight about John McCain, he's lying'again'about John Kerry. Kerry actually released 20 years with of returns. From an April 13, 2004 press release:

Sen. John Kerry has made public his 2003 income tax returns, as he has for past 20 years.

In 2003, Sen. John Kerry had $395,000 in taxable income and paid $90,575 in federal income taxes.

Kerry had $43,735 in charitable contributions.

Last year, Kerry wrote "A Call to Service," of which had $89,000 in proceeds. Kerry is paying the taxes on the proceeds from the book and is donating the balance to charity.

The tax return also shows $175,000 in capital gains, from the sale of one-half interest of a painting, which was reported last year.

For a copy of the tax return, email Adam Abrams at aabrams(At)johnkerry.com.

Now, to be fair, Romney could try to get PolitiFact on his side, arguing that because Kerry had already released the previous returns, and was only a presidential candidate in the calendar years 2003 and 2004, that technically Kerry only released two years worth of returns during the campaign. And maybe PolitiFact would take Mitt Romney's side and give him a "Mostly True." But to everyone else on this planet we call Earth, Mitt Romney's claim about John Kerry was false. And that continuing pattern of dishonesty about his tax returns seriously undercuts his "trust me, I'm not a tax crook" position.