Reid: Romney can’t be trusted on taxes

By Ramsey Cox - 10/02/12 02:06 PM ET

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) went after GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney for not being forthcoming about his own taxes or his tax plan for the American people.

“Mitt Romney could clear up these issues tomorrow if he would simply release his tax returns and release the details of his tax plan,” Reid said in a statement Tuesday. “Instead, he's asking the American people to just trust him. Mitt Romney does not seem to understand that trust is earned — and not by playing shell games with the American people.”

Reid’s comments came after a New York Times article about Romney’s use of offshore accounts.

“Today’s report proves that nothing Mitt Romney says about taxes can be taken at face value,” Reid said. “Instead of owning up to his use of secret offshore tax havens in places like Bermuda and Switzerland to enrich himself, Mitt Romney parsed words to try and convince the American people that he did not benefit from these havens — when in fact, he appears to have made millions from them over the course of his career.”

Reid also went after Romney’s running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), for having recently told Fox News that he didn’t have time to explain the details of the Romney-Ryan tax plan.

“This is the same pattern we have seen from Mitt Romney when it comes to his tax plan: instead of respecting the American people’s intelligence by offering facts and straight answers, he and Paul Ryan have offered nothing but evasion, dissembling and half-answers,” Reid said. “Congressman Ryan even went so far as to claim that he couldn’t provide details about their tax plan because he didn’t have the time.

“With the fiscal cliff fast approaching, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan had better find the time to provide some real answers to the American people about how they would approach tax reform.”

Bloomberg broadcast an interview with vice presidential candidate Ryan earlier Tuesday, in which he provided more detail on the tax plan for the GOP ticket.

Romney and Ryan have proposed lowering taxes by 20 percent across the board for individuals and 25 percent for businesses, in a deficit-neutral way that shields the middle class from tax increases. But Democrats have said the plan's math doesn’t add up.