Hacker holds alleged Romney tax returns ransom for $1M in Bitcoins

Re:Hacker holds alleged Romney tax returns ransom for $1M in... by jack-r-abbit on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @05:03PM (#4481456)

Wait... I thought as a Presidential candidate he would be handing that over anyway. Is that optional? I'm confused.

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Re:Hacker holds alleged Romney tax returns ransom for $1M in... by MartinCron on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @05:11PM (#4481486)

There's no legal requirement for any candidate of office to disclose any tax returns. It has become a standard thing to do, and Romney has released at least one (2010) and has pledged to release another (2011), but it is totally optional.

Obama, on the other hand, has released tax returns going back to 2000.

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Re:Hacker holds alleged Romney tax returns ransom for $1M in... by jack-r-abbit on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @05:18PM (#4481516)

Got it. I guess since they've all done it I assumed that was just what they did. I personally don't really give a crap about their tax returns. I fail to see what it matters how much money they made last year or 10yrs ago. Is that some sort of measure of how good of a President they will be?

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Re:Hacker holds alleged Romney tax returns ransom for $1M in... by lifeguard on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @07:13PM (#4481999)

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-30-2012/rnc-201...

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Re:Hacker holds alleged Romney tax returns ransom for $1M in... by jack-r-abbit on Thursday September 06, 2012 @01:33AM (#4482975)

While a funny piece of satire typical of Jon Stewart & The Daily Show, I don't see what that has anything to do with how the amount of money a man makes compares to his ability to lead the country. Perhaps rather than just posting a link to a funny video, you could put some thought into a response that means something to the comment to which you are responding.

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Re:Hacker holds alleged Romney tax returns ransom for $1M in... by lifeguard on Thursday September 06, 2012 @09:50AM (#4484108)

How a man made his fortune says a lot about his leadership style and expectations. Presidential tax returns are expected to be release by normal non-partisans.

The video is not 100% fiction. For example, Romney did dodge the Vietnam war draft by going to France on his Mormon mission.

Statistically, American readers of Hacker News use the Daily Show as a source of news more than any other media outlet.

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Re:Hacker holds alleged Romney tax returns ransom for $1M in... by jack-r-abbit on Thursday September 06, 2012 @12:24PM (#4484868)

While I disagree with you on some points, thank you for at least making them. Sure, The Daily Show is not 100% fiction... but it is at times a one-sided, slightly exaggerated representation of non-fiction... to get some laughs. It is as much comedy as it is news. It is certainly not unbiased so it really shouldn't be used as a pure news source anymore that Fox News should. In truth, most news outlets have some degree of bias, but shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report take what ever they can use to be funny. Letterman and Leno too.

So Romney went to a private school... so? So his dad gave him a lot of money... so? So he did a Mormon mission in France while the Vietnam war was going on... so? I don't call that a dodge anymore than my dad not going because he had childhood polio. Not every single able bodied man was slogging through the jungle.

I would agree that how a man made his living could be an indicator of his leadership and expectations. But not the only one... and not always a good one. A person could be moderately successful at business, not make a huge amount of money... and be a raging dick of a leader. A person could be very successful in a business, make a crap ton of money... and be a horrible leader... or a great leader. He could have inherited a bazillion dollars from his family. Or made a couple of wise investments 30 years ago. Or won the lottery. None of which say anything about his leadership style or what we expect from him. I think there are better, less private ways to find out his leadership style and expectations than looking at some glorified spreadsheet the IRS collects every year. Sure it can be one of the useful items... and he did release some.

(for the record, I'm not a Romney supporter. I just don't really care about his tax returns. I don't care about Obama's either. I'll look at the candidates for their policies and ideas. And on some level their ability to manage money.)

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Re:Hacker holds alleged Romney tax returns ransom for $1M in... by MartinCron on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @05:36PM (#4481585)

People make the argument that it's a measure of character, but I don't buy it.

I kind of like that it has provided a concrete example of how different people pay vastly different effective tax rates, but that could have been done in a bunch of different ways.

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Re:Hacker holds alleged Romney tax returns ransom for $1M in... by rilkeanheart on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @07:17PM (#4482013)

I think the intent is for the candidate to show that he/she has not been involved in illegal/suspicious activity. Back in the 70's a sitting VP had to leave office due to charges of extortion, bribery, and others (see Wikipedia on Spiro Agnew). It was Mitt's father, George, who began the voluntary practice of disclosing tax records.

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Re:Hacker holds alleged Romney tax returns ransom for $1M in... by jack-r-abbit on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @05:47PM (#4481639)

A measure of character? Jeez... I hope we don't have too many people measuring a person's character based on the thickness of their wallet.

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Re:Hacker holds alleged Romney tax returns ransom for $1M in... by Karunamon on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @06:26PM (#4481826)

Well, when a guy is running on a platform of being as American as mom and apple pie, it wouldn't look good for him to be using all kinds of offshore tax havens and loopholes.

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Re:Hacker holds alleged Romney tax returns ransom for $1M in... by MartinCron on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @07:17PM (#4482014)

I think it is more about the aggressiveness if their loophole exploitation than mere thickness.

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Re:Hacker holds alleged Romney tax returns ransom for $1M in... by jack-r-abbit on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @11:29PM (#4482715)

Just like I encourage my tax man to find every possible way for me to reduce my tax burden, I would expect everyone to do that. A loophole is a legal way to do that. If a person has the know-how to aggressively find and use the resources available to them... that shows a great deal of character to me. Don't hate the player... hate the game. You have a problem with a loophole, lobby to get it closed. Or use it also. But I imagine this view is not shared by everyone.

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Re:Hacker holds alleged Romney tax returns ransom for $1M in... by Deestan on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @07:33PM (#4482064)

Openness and transparency makes corruption more difficult.

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Re:Hacker holds alleged Romney tax returns ransom for $1M in... by jack-r-abbit on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @11:18PM (#4482692)

Do you really think they are going to report illegal stuff on their taxes? Those get sent to the IRS.

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Re:Hacker holds alleged Romney tax returns ransom for $1M in... by Deestan on Thursday September 06, 2012 @05:01AM (#4483385)

No, but there are many forms of corruption and immoral tax-avoidance that are technically legal.

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Re:Hacker holds alleged Romney tax returns ransom for $1M in... by jack-r-abbit on Thursday September 06, 2012 @12:31PM (#4484915)

ah... morality. How we all like to think ours is the one.

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Re:Hacker holds alleged Romney tax returns ransom for $1M in... by goggles99 on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @05:23PM (#4481535)

>Obama, on the other hand, has released tax returns going back to 2000.

Pelosi won't release her tax returns because she was only the 3rd most powerful person in the US government...

She jokes that she will release them when she runs for president.

I think that all these crooks in government be required to release all of their financial information. They need to be held accountable to us the us public. After all - they work for us. We need transparency, we need to see when they are taking kickbacks or making side deals, bribes ETC.

What is your take on this?

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Re:Hacker holds alleged Romney tax returns ransom for $1M in... by MartinCron on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @05:30PM (#4481565)

My take is that this little token of transparency doesn't really matter all that much. It's not like there's a line item on the 1040 for "bribe income". Fixing the transparency and disclosure requirements for super-pacs would probably be even more valuable than opening up everyone's taxes, which does have personal privacy implications.

Nancy Pelosi, like Romney, is making a strategic decision not to disclose because she sees the drawbacks as greater than the benefits of doing so. And just like with Romney's taxes, or the Obama's "short form" birth certificate, I'm not going to jump to the conclusion that anyone has something to hide

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Re:Hacker holds alleged Romney tax returns ransom for $1M in... by jcheng on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @06:50PM (#4481913)

> It's not like there's a line item on the 1040 for "bribe income"

Amusingly: http://www.irs.gov/publications/p17/ch12.html#d0e33264 http://www.irs.gov/publications/p17/ch12.html#d0e34287

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Re:Hacker holds alleged Romney tax returns ransom for $1M in... by rprasad on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @07:29PM (#4482052)

There is a line for bribe income. You include it as "other income" and must provide an attached statement describing each of the income items that are included in "other income".

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Re:Hacker holds alleged Romney tax returns ransom for $1M in... by taligent on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @10:35PM (#4482606)

Obama released his long form birth certificate and the Hawaii Department of Health certified it.

What more could he possibly do ?

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Re:Hacker holds alleged Romney tax returns ransom for $1M in... by MartinCron on Thursday September 06, 2012 @12:51AM (#4482889)

You missed my point, which is that people jump to the "they must be hiding something" conclusion too readily. I don't doubt, for a second, where and when our president was born.

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Re:Hacker holds alleged Romney tax returns ransom for $1M in... by drivebyacct2 on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @05:02PM (#4481453)

I actually am more upset about it being ransomed rather than simply released.

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Re:Hacker holds alleged Romney tax returns ransom for $1M in... by MartinCron on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @05:13PM (#4481491)

Releasing someone's private financial documents against their will is pretty ugly as well, but I agree that the ransom/blackmail/extortion angle makes this particularly ugly.

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Re:Hacker holds alleged Romney tax returns ransom for $1M in... by rhizome on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @05:54PM (#4481676)

"it" is BS.

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