Here's something a friend sent me that explains how Mitt intends to address this problem.

MY FINANCES: AN EXPLANATION FROM MITT ROMNEY Posted by Andy Borowitz, a new columnist for the New York Times.

Dear American Person:

As many of you know, in recent days my opponent has spread the rumors that 1) I have refused to make my tax returns public and 2) I have hidden my money in bank accounts in Switzerland and the Caymans. These two rumors, while true, have made me look very bad. So I thought I would take this opportunity to explain my finances in terms even a poor person could understand.

Let's say you met the love of your life, and you wrote her a series of passionate love letters. In these letters, you told her how you intended to protect her, cherish her, and always keep her safe. And then let's say somebody went and told you that you had to make those love letters available for the world to see. If you're even half the man I am, you'd say, "Heck no."

Well, in my case, the love of my life is my money. (If you don't believe me, ask Ann.) And my tax returns are like my love letters to my money, detailing the lengths to which I'll go to keep my precious money from being taken away from me. If you think I should make those love letters public, then I'm sorry, my friend, but you don't believe in love.

Now, let's say you asked the love of your life to marry you, and you're fortunate enough that she said yes. Should someone be able to force you to spend your honeymoon in a ratty room at some Motel 6, where God knows what crackheads and whores slept before you? Or should you be allowed to take your bride to a five-star Swiss chateau, perhaps, or an exclusive beach on Grand Cayman? I think you can see where I'm going with this.

In conclusion: if refusing to release my tax returns and having foreign bank accounts is wrong, I don't want to be right. I did it all for love. And as your President, I promise I will never, ever come between you and the thing you love. Unless you're gay. (Laughing Out Loud.)

Vote for me,

Mitt Romney

"If you have nothing to hide, then why not let us search your house?"

"If you didn't do anything wrong, then why not answer our questions?"

Because regardless of what might be in there, the expectation is that something IS there, so even minor quirks will get blown out of proportion and we'll be seeing stories like, "Romney's 2009 tax return SHOCK experts!" and other equally absurd claims. The Right will try and explain why nothing is out of the ordinary, and the media will find the uncrossed T and just run with it.

The entire thing will be a self-fulfilling prophecy, regardless of actual content.

The shoe's on the other hand now, isn't it, Inso?

Slate: Did Mitt Romney Take the 2009 Swiss Bank Account Amnesty

HuffPo: Mitt Romney's 2009 Tax Burden Likely Even Lower Than 2010, Experts Say

WSJ: What Was Mitt’s Income in 2009?

WaPo: Did Mitt Romney pay any federal taxes at all in 2009?

NYU Tax Professor Dan Shaviro: Why won't Romney release his 2009 tax return?

Business Week: What's Romney Hiding in His Tax Returns?

Romney's 2000-2009 tax returns aren't done yet guys!

So given the fact you missed all of these, and you "hear" (not watch or read) your news, Im going to assume Rush is your only source of news?

Um a lot of articles are clearly calling on him to release "past" tax returns, many in his own party are saying this is standard and he should do it. I don't think anyone cares much about the most recent return, considering he was running for presidency already. We want to see some returns when he was actually in private business and not running for office.

Will mean liberals PLEASE give Romney time to complete his taxes from 3 years ago? Liberals just don't understand the most BASIC level of understanding of the tax filing system, which is that Romney's 2009's tax returns might be available by 2017 or something, so LEAVE MITT ALONE.

The OP clearly mentions plural returns, no less. Unless Romney filed 5 times in 2011, OP was clearly talking about more than just last year's.

Butthurt ITT.

The mob wants blood to feed on, and they're not going to get it.

Can I take my turn at calling for release of past documents that have no real relevance to the current state of affairs?

WHERE ARE OBAMA'S COLLEGE TRANSCRIPTS? RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE!

Keep fighting the good fight, guys.

My favorite part of this whole ordeal is that I am 99.9% sure that RMoney is the type of guy who give that smug "well what do you have to hide" line to someone if the debate was about right to privacy. But now that the tables are turned he's scared as hell even if he has nothing to hide. Excellent schadenfreude.

By the way, and I agree it's incredibly, like incredibly unlikely Romney actually did anything nefarious or illegal, but incredibly likely he's just trying to avoid political unpleasantries, and this clearly is a political and not some sincere attack about the quality of Mitt's tax returns, but the standard for politicians releasing their tax returns to reveal potential conflicts of interest actually has a meaningful historical precedence, since Nixon did likely abuse the tax code, if he wasn't outright guilty of fraud. Romney's dad's pledge to go back 12 years (which is now more or less standard) didn't originate out of thin air, it was meant to be a contrast in the 68 GOP primaries between him and Nixon -- where Romney was trying to show Nixon was dirty and he was clean.

Maybe he's running one of those scams where you filed a bunch of other people's returns and take their EITC, and that's what's so embarrassing!

Has Romney released his college transcripts?

I think it's somewhat important since one of the talking points for Republicans is that the rich pay too much in taxes or something.