As always, the coverup is worse than the crime.
Republican gubernatorial hopeful Mitt Romney contradicted his previous public statements yesterday, and said for the first time that he did not file Massachusetts income tax returns for 1999 and 2000 as a resident of this state.
At a news conference, Romney said that he filed as a part-year resident for 1999 and a nonresident for 2000. He amended those returns, claiming Massachusetts resident status, on April 2, a week after he announced he was running for governor of Massachusetts and four days before the state Republican convention that endorsed his candidacy.
Massachusetts 7 year residency requirement for governor is silly. And, as anyone who moves a lot knows, filling out various state tax forms appropriately has little to do with what you consider your homestead to be. But, the Romney campaign tried to pull a fast one here.
And here. This is much more serious.
As the Mitt Romney campaign struggled earlier this week to justify the tax break on his Park City home, the Republican gubernatorial candidate's campaign aides asked
a Utah county assessor to sign a letter asserting that the $3.8 million house qualified as a primary residence despite the fact that Romney regarded himself as a resident of Massachusetts.
Summit County assessor Barbara Kresser said she balked at the request of Romney campaign manager Ben Coes, explaining that Romney had not gone through the appropriate procedures to qualify for the break.
It was apparently at that point, after Kresser declined to sign the letter, that the Romney campaign changed its account of the tax break, from insisting that Romney was entitled to the break to
saying he was the inadvertent beneficiary of a clerical error.
