What Romney's Tax Returns Mean

CORE MESSAGE

America was built on rewarding hard work more than wealth -- Romney's tax returns show just how backward things have become.

Connect: America was built on rewarding hard work more than how much money anyone's family has. 

Define: Mitt Romney's tax returns show just how backward things have become: money that millionaires like Romney make off the money they already have is taxed lower than a paycheck earned from working in a job.

Illustrate: Romney has paid less than a 15% tax rate, used offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands, and even had a Swiss bank account.

Discredit: Middle-class families shouldn't pay higher taxes than millionaires. But Romney's fighting to cut his own taxes in half and shift the burden to working families.

Look ahead: Romney may think we're just jealous, but working Americans who pay higher tax rates than he does deserve to see what else he's hiding.

Tweet: Is Mitt hiding the rest of his tax returns on the advice of his lawyers? Shld follow Dad's advice instead. http://bit.ly/wPXOts

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

• Obama has released more than a decade of tax returns, and presidential candidates routinely release theirs. Even Romney's own father released 12 years of tax returns when he was running for president, saying "one year could be a fluke, perhaps done for show."
• The special tax loopholes available to the richest 1% include "deferral" of taxes on millions of income that allows them to postpone paying taxes on it for decades, the hedge fund manager's loophole, offshore tax havens, and the 2009 tax amnesty deal for taxpayers hiding money offshore.
• Mitt Romney is trying to cut his own taxes by nearly half, or up to $4 million in 2013 alone. In contrast, President Obama's "Buffett Rule" would increase how much taxes he'd pay.
• Romney claims to be part of the middle class, even though his net worth is estimated to be up to $250 million.
• Over the last two years, Romney paid an average tax rate of 14 percent -- lower than the rate that millions of middle-class Americans pay -- and his income comes nearly all from "shoving around money," as Warren Buffett called it.
• Romney says he's "proposing no tax cuts for the rich," but actually, his proposal would be a $6.6 trillion windfall overwhelmingly benefiting the wealthiest few and big corporations -- while raising taxes for many working parents and middle class families.

We develop messaging by aggregating, analyzing and distilling polling, tested messaging, and expert recommendations, and monitoring the media to identify what is and isn't working. See here for some of the experts and organizations we draw on.