House Democrat makes another play for Romney tax records

By Bernie Becker - 09/13/12 07:48 PM ET

A senior House Democrat re-upped his push to force Mitt Romney to release more tax returns on Thursday, saying there were serious questions about the GOP nominee’s finances that could not be answered otherwise.

Rep. Sandy Levin (Mich.), the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, cited a new report from The Daily Beast that said Romney had asked for a decade’s worth of returns from his potential running mates.

Romney has released his 2010 tax return, which showed he paid just under a 14 percent rate on $21.6 million in income, and his campaign has said his 2011 return will be circulated by next month.

But Levin and other Democrats want more, citing reports that Romney gave Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) more than 20 years' worth of returns when he was being vetted as a potential running mate in 2008.

“It is an insult to the American people that Gov. Romney required ten years of tax returns from Paul Ryan but won't disclose his own for the same period of time," Levin said in a statement. "The American people should not be left in the dark without clear answers regarding Gov. Romney’s income and assets whether in the United States or offshore.”

Levin has said he is crafting legislation that would require presidential candidates to make at least 10 years of returns public, and to specify any outside accounts or capital gains income made from managing the funds of others.

In addition to Romney’s tax returns, Democrats have also tried to make the case that the former Massachusetts governor’s offshore holdings — in countries like Switzerland and the Cayman Islands — call into question how he would lead the country.

Romney and his campaign have accused President Obama and his allies of trying to use the tax return issue to distract from a sluggish economy, which added less than 100,000 new jobs last month.

The GOP nominee also said last month that he paid at least a 13 percent rate over the last 10 years, and his wife, Ann, has said that releasing more records would only give Democrats more ammunition with which to attack the Romneys.