The most powerful man in porn has raised the stakes for the most evasive man in politics.
Larry Flynt, publisher of Hustler magazine, is offering a $1 million reward for any leading information about Mitt Romney’s unreleased tax returns. Flynt, who has two full page ad buys in The Washington Post and USA Today this week, is calling for all “documentary evidence” of Romney’s “unreleased tax returns and/or details of his offshore assets, bank accounts and business partnerships.”
Flynt asked The Hollywood Reporter about Romney’s elusive tax history on Friday.
What is he hiding? Maybe, now we’ll find out.
Flynt’s $1 million reward was publicized days after a team of hackers announced they had obtained Romney’s tax returns from PriceWaterhouseCoopers accounting office. The hackers threatened to release Romney’s returns at the end of September unless his campaign pays them a ransom of $1 million, though it’s likely bogus.
Romney’s campaign promises to release Romney’s 2011 full return in October, which they project was filed for 15.4 percent on $20.9 million. Romney’s 2010 return, which is incomplete without FBAR filings, reveals a tax rate of13.9 percent on $21.7 million.
Romney maintains he has paid no less than 13% in taxes annually over the past 10 years and claims to provide “extensive information” about his taxes “with several hundred pages of tax returns now made public” on his website. Democrats and Republicans however continue to sound the drumbeat for Romney to disclose more of his returns, including missing documents related to his Swiss and other offshore bank accounts.
As Harry Reid remarked at the DNC on Tuesday:
Never in modern American history has a presidential candidate tried so hard to hide himself from the people he hopes to serve.
