According to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the reason that Mitt Romney hasn’t released his tax returns from before 2010 is simple: A Bain investor told him that Romney “didn’t pay any taxes for 10 years.”
In an interview with The Huffington Post, Reid exclaimed: “He didn’t pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain. But obviously he can’t release those tax returns. How would it look?”
Politico reported in July that Romney press secretary Andrea Saul denied similar allegations as simply “not true.”
But, as The Huffington Post pointed out, there is limited political downside to the type of open speculation that Reid is making, so long as Romney refuses to budge on the issue of his tax returns.
“You guys have said his wealth is $250 million,” Reid added. “Not a chance in the world. It’s a lot more than that… I mean, you do pretty well if you don’t pay taxes for 10 years when you’re making millions and millions of dollars.”