HESITANCY UNDERSTANDABLE, BUT RELEASING TAXES BETTER

Let’s say you’re running for governor. More than a year out from the election, a media outlet requests a copy of your income tax return. What do you do?

It’s easy for all of us who don’t make the big bucks to sit on the sidelines and insist these wealthy candidates — and let’s be frank, most of them are — reveal all.

Although we couldn’t cite exactly what we made or what the Internal Revenue Service extracted from us, we would revel in knowing to the penny what the candidate earned last year and what taxes the candidate paid. Depending on what might be revealed, we also might glean information about the candidate’s assets and liabilities.

So what would the information tell us? It would tell us the candidate is wealthy, but we knew that already. It would tell us the candidate might have paid a hefty sum in taxes, but we could expect that if the candidate is wealthy. It would tell us the candidate had a diversified investment portfolio, but we would know that is common for an individual with a lot of money. And it might tell us the candidate had a $1 million mortgage on a home, but we would recognize that a person of means is likely to live some place larger than a three-bedroom, two-bathroom rancher.

Should the candidate’s tax return make us jealous? Angry? Covetous? Accusatory? Should we think less of the candidate if he or she is wealthy? Should we think he or she doesn’t deserve what they’ve got? Should we think they never had to work for what they have? Should we assume they came by what they have in ill-gotten ways?

Those questions and others undoubtedly rolled around in the minds of the seven top-tier candidates for governor of Tennessee in 2018 when USA Today Network-Tennessee asked in October for copies of their federal income tax returns.

The candidates have no legal obligation to release their returns, but it’s our job as news gatherers to seek such information and report our findings.

Unfortunately, the perception has become that if candidates refuse to release their tax returns, nefarious reasons must abound. They might, but they also might not.

A candidate, for instance, may not want an asset holder revealed because the candidate may want to seek campaign contributions from other such asset holders and may believe the revelation could preclude those contributions. Or a candidate with a business may not want information about that business’s assets and liabilities to be revealed because it might, in some way, give a competitive advantage to a rival business.

Or a candidate may not want a complicated, extensive return revealed because it would be little understood by the public and easily could be misconstrued.

There are advocacy media organizations and other campaigns all too happy to do the misconstruing. If a tax return that is one thing can be made to look like another, all the better. Just tell part of the story. Emphasize the money earned but not the taxes paid or the charities supported. Touch on the investments and the worth of the house. Forget the backstory, the by-the-bootstraps business, the soundness of the income management.

We’re all aware of President Donald Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns during the 2016 campaign. When they’re complete, he kept saying, he’ll release them. But he likely never intended to, and his reasons may be perfectly legitimate (or not). They certainly would fit in the aforementioned category of complicated and extensive, and there is no end of haters who would be happy to exploit them.

Our current governor, Bill Haslam, never released his returns during his first run for office in 2010. He said doing so would reveal information about other family members’ income and about the family’s private Pilot Corp. However, he did provide a summary of income and taxes paid, excluding any income from Pilot.

As to the USA Today Network-Tennessee’s request, U.S. Rep. Diane Black, R-Nashville, state House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh and state Speaker of the House Beth Harwell released their returns. Former state Sen. Mae Beavers, Knoxville entrepreneur Randy Boyd, former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean and Williamson County businessman Bill Lee did not.

Boyd and Dean indicated they eventually might release their returns, Lee said he would not and a Beavers spokesman did not respond to multiple requests about a potential release.

While we understand all the reasons candidates would be hesitant to release their tax returns, and while we acknowledge there are oppo-researchers just waiting to exploit candidates’ returns, we come down on the side of transparency.

We feel a candidate should enter a competitive gubernatorial race with eyes wide open, knowing some privacy may have to be sacrificed. But a candidate, where possible, can get out in front of a request for tax returns by releasing them, speaking frankly — not apologizing — about what they show, and candidly answering questions about them.

Voters a year later may little remember what the candidates said on the issue, but they’ll know — and frequently be reminded — who didn’t release their returns. And that nagging fact could make a difference in the race.