Secret Service Investigating Romney Tax Hack Claim

A federal investigation has been launched after hackers claimed to have stolen Mitt Romney’s tax returns. The hackers have given Romney until September 28th to pay $1 million in bitcoins or they say they will release the returns. From the article: "The claim was made in a post on the Pastebin site on Sunday that alleged that Romney's federal tax returns were taken from the offices of PriceWaterhouse Coopers in Frankin, Tenn., on August 25 by someone who snuck into the building and made copies of the document. The message author threatened to release the files publicly on September 28 and said copies of the files had been given to Democratic and Republican leaders in that county. Democrats have made Romney's refusal to release his tax returns a key point in their criticism that he is not in touch with working class voters."

Comments

One would hope

[Anonymous Coward]

that they take the money and release the information anyway. The rebplutocrats deserve worse than we can imagine.

Re:One would hope

[lightknight]

Possible, but I am thinking this is actually part of a larger ploy.

Since anyone of even a modicum of technological capability, who actually uses BitCoins, knows that they are somewhat traceable, I wonder why someone would demand such an outlandish sum in them. Let's see here...we have the key words BitCoins, hackers, and all of it tied to a presidential election.

We all know that for the last several months, the press has been falling over themselves to paint BitCoins in the darkest light possible, playing up every rumoured instanced of malfeasance even remotely tied to them. We also know that the military, for lack of enemies, has recently decided that their next shipment of bread and butter will have to come from the 'cyber-crime' division, and that they are desperate to find a playmate, domestic or otherwise, to justify the purchase orders already signed and dated, in top brass's top drawers. And seeing how the BitCoin community has been relatively effective in educating people with regards to the f*cked up claims the press loves to make, perhaps someone decided to take it to the next level. By launching an attack on a presidential campaign, you are guaranteed coverage in the press, at decibel levels well above the normal white noise; you also guarantee that the attacked opponent will respond with a calculated defence (denial, followed by revenge if / when elected), with the added bonus that since you went after a minor but incredibly irritating election issue (his tax returns, and it is), he will take it personally. If he is elected, he will willingly sign any law that mentions this incident and 'justice'; if he loses, the other guy will do the same, as he doesn't like the idea of what happened to his opponent possibly happening to him or his friends. It's the equivalent of a Morton's fork, where the tech industry is damned if they do, damned if they don't. The military gets paid either way, though they won't be invited to any tech parties for a few years.

Hackers (unknown enemy, up there with the boogey-man these days, hiding under your bed and in your computer, going to get you), BitCoins (another unknown, a 'competing' currency to the US dollar, so it's 'patriotic' to be against it; plus 'hackers' and drug dealers use it, unlike the US Dollar, so it must be bad), and a presidential election (when politicians make a black list, and begin adding names).

The best part is, even if the hackers are arrested, we may never get the people behind it all. Sounds a little conspiracy-ish, but it is in the CIA handbook, that you 'groom' someone else to do the dirty work, then get rid of them.

Romney waived a red flag

[MickyTheIdiot]

I don't know about the veracity of the claim that came in yesterday, but one of the things that I thought about when Romney started trying to surpress this information was that is was a just about the same thing as waiving a red flag in front of a bull. It's bound to make a "hacker" go for the ultimate crack and get this information (that most of us think should be public anyway) out of the electronic vault and onto the net.

It also, IMHO, shows that Romney and his band of followers live in a bubble of corporate reality and not in the real world. Only someone one the C** would be arrogant enough to think they could keep this type of information a secret forever when you're that visible to the public and when you're decisions are going to have immediate and lasting consequences for the entire world.

Re:Romney waived a red flag

[zippthorne]

Interesting. One of the things I thought when Romney stated he wasn't going to release the information was that he was trying for a rope-a-dope, much like the President did to McCain with the birth certificate issue.

Re:Romney waived a red flag

[Conception]

I think some of the resentment comes from a fallacy in the distinction you made: either they worked for it, or they got lucky. But lots of people work very hard, and the poor probably work the hardest. Effort is only one contributor to wealth. Luck and societal help play a huge role in both but many of the wealthy refuse to admit that, preferring to the inflated view that it was all them and if less wealthy people would just work harder, they'd be fine. It's an arrogant presumption that simply isn't true. The guy who works two eight hour jobs for his family, six days a week, for 30K a year works harder than Romney ever has. Yet Romney has over 3,000 times the wealth of that man and generally is of the opinion he got their on his own.

Remember George W. Bush's draft dodging?

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember when Bush II was being attacked as a draft dodger. Someone released faked documents, which the news media picked up as real. When they were discredited, no one would touch the issue anymore, whether it was legitimate or not.

This could turn out to be a similar ploy to help Romney - by associating the tax returns with criminal activity, it might get too hot for the Dems to touch, making an otherwise legitimate issue go away.

Re:Remember George W. Bush's draft dodging?

[medcalf]

It could also be the other way around. Obama's past campaigns have a history of getting private information disclosed, like opponents' divorce records. It's as plausible that the Obama campaign illegally obtained the records from the IRS, and when public pressure wouldn't force Romney to release the records, decided to stage a burglary to get them out in the public without the campaign's fingerprints on them. I doubt that happened, but it's as or more likely than that Romney was attempting to take them out of the discussion by making them "too hot ... to touch."

Re:Remember George W. Bush's draft dodging?

[DarkOx]

The thing is I don't really see tax returns as all that interesting or a 'legitmate' issue.

We mostly know what sort of business Romeny was in and we known plently about the caracteristics and behavior of those businesses. That said Bain Capital's tax returns would be of far more interest than Romeny's personal returns. They would provide lots of detail about the business and the kind of action Romeny voluntarily engagues in.

Personal returns won't tell us much. How much money did he make. Well we already know it was dumptruck loads, from most of our personal prespectives. Honestly does it matter if it was 3M or 5M?

What part of it was salaray and what was investment income? We know from what has been released most of it is going to be investment income.

Did Romney use tax advantaged vehicles to protect as much of his personal wealth from the tax man as possible? I am sure he did, just as I do and I am sure you do as well. Got a 401k, IRA, one of the college savings plans for your kids, did you chose to buy a home rather than rent to get the advantage of the Intrest deduction? I bet you did and that does not make you a tax cheat. Romeny did not get to make the rules. I don't think its fair to expect him to leave anything one the table when you and I don't and won't.

Now had he been a sitting Senator or House Rep and actually voted on tax rules that he himself could take advantage of there might be some scandal there but that is not true of his case. McCain and Obama were a different story.

I think this noise about individual tax returns is just that noise.

Re:Remember George W. Bush's draft dodging?

[Creedo]

I don't think that anyone is accusing the big dogs of the GOP of being idiots. Sure, some of the mouthpieces are real pieces of work(Palin, Bachmann, Akin, Perry), but the real movers are not. The common accusation is that they are selfish plutocrats who are willing to sell the country out to the religious right while pushing the middle class and poor under in the bus. Sure, the general stance in regards to science that is associated with the GOP as a whole paints them in a dim light, but I think that that is largely just pandering to ignorant voters(with some obvious exceptions, such as are listed above).

Re:What's the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=2009+FBAR+amnesty

tl;dr: In early 2009, the Swiss bank UBS was indited in a massive tax-evasion scheme and as part of their settlement with the American IRS, they revealed thousands of names of account holders (to the IRS, but not to the public). The IRS then instituted an amnesty program, where if you came clean about your previously undisclosed offshore accounts in your 2009 tax returns, your penalty would be reduced and you wouldn't go to jail for tax evasion.

Romney is only releasing his tax returns from 2010 or later.

Two pastebin post - same people?

[Anonymous Coward]

There were two separate pastbin posts.

The first stated papers had been physically copied during a burglary at PWC. There was no randsom demand. They simply stated the papers would be released Sep 28th.

The second paste said they had accessed the file servers during a break in at PWC and accessed the information this way. The second asked for a randsom.

There is no evidence the two posts were by the same people.

This is all too much complexity for most jounalists it seems.

Re:whats he worried about?

[Tora]

What do you think is "enough"?

I suspect he pays more in taxes than you, based on $$ amount alone.

there seems to be a discrepency

[slashmydots]

hackers claimed to have stolen Mitt Romney’s tax returns

and

someone who snuck into the building and made copies of the document

seem to have a slight discrepancy lol. So they want $1 mil in bitcoins and yet they sent copies to "Democratic and Republican leaders in that county." Oh yes, I'm so sure those will never see the light of day if he pays after they gave them to the democrats. No wonder these people were too stupid to hack it digitally. They're operating this like complete morons.

Re:Don't worry, Romney...

[bws111]

Wait, you don't think a crime done for the purpose of influencing the outcome of the election for the POTUS is more serious than one that is done just to annoy someone or for financial gain? By that logic the entire Watergate scandal should never have been prosecuted - after all, it was just a simple office burglary.

Re:Don't worry, Romney...

[jythie]

Infinite no, but the amount of resources that go into prosecuting a tiny fraction of the crimes could easily be spread out among a much larger set. The triage seems to be less about 'what limited resources can result in the most prosecution' and more 'resources to people with influence, anything left over goes to everyone else'

Re:Don't worry, Romney...

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

Because in the USA, the federal government doesn't have the right to make it public.

It did. Originally all tax returns were public. Not saying whether they should or shouldn't be public, just saying they had the right before, and they then chose not to.

The question about Romney's Returns:

[nullchar]

Did Mitt Romney accept the IRS Tax Amnesty program in 2009? Did he disclose offshore accounts used as tax havens?

Was Romney part of these 14,700 Americans?

You're mistaken.

[raehl]

The reasoning behind lower taxes for long term capital gains is that it lowers taxes for rich people, and Republicans support lowering taxes for rich people.

"Encouraging investment in activities that create jobs" is a lie that's used to sell it to those who don't benefit from the tax cut.

And it's obvious that it's a lie, because it is IMPOSSIBLE to encourage investment. *ALL* money gets invested NO MATTER WHAT. If you create a new company, you've invested your money. If you REFUSE to create a new company and just stash your money in a bank account, then the bank will loan that money to someone else who will invest it. It gets invested either way.

About the only way to NOT invest money is to hide it in your mattress, and there is no tax rate short of 100% where it would be preferable to hide your money in a mattress instead of a bank account.

The lower rate is nothing other than a tax break for already having money.