The Corbett campaign today announced the launch of an online petition calling on their opponents to release 10 years of personal tax returns. The campaign is also calling on millionaire Secretary Tom Wolf to release his corporate tax returns due to the vested interest the Pennsylvania taxpayers have in the company that Wolf used as collateral to get a $4.5 million loan to fund his primary campaign. Corbett is still the only candidate to publicly release 10 years of tax returns.
“Our campaign has released tax returns to the public going back to 2004 because we believe that the people of Pennsylvania deserve to know the long-term financial interests of those seeking to serve as their governor,” stated Campaign Manager Mike Barley. “Candidate disclosure of tax returns is an issue that has been supported in the past by both Democrats and Republicans across Pennsylvania, so I hope that our opponents for governor will join Governor Corbett in the spirit of total transparency in providing a long-term snapshot of their financial interests.”
The Corbett campaign’s petition is available at www.tomcorbettforgovernor.com/tenyearsoftaxreturns.
Secretary Tom Wolf has indicated that he has no intentions of releasing further tax returns beyond 2010, 2011 and 2012 where he paid an average of 8.73 percent in taxes. By contrast, Governor Corbett paid 16.5 percent over the same time period. In 2012, former Governor Rendell criticized Presidential candidate Mitt Romney for paying 14 percent, characterizing that, despite being nearly double the rate that Wolf paid, as being “at the low end of the spectrum.”
On Wednesday, Corbett’s campaign called on the Pennsylvania Democratic Party and Governor Rendell to condemn the extremely low tax rate, but both have remained silent. The campaign also noted that they will be sending personal invitations to the Democratic officials across Pennsylvania who have previously voiced their support for the long term release of tax returns to sign the Corbett campaign’s petition.
“Governor Rendell and the Democratic Party beat up Mitt Romney for paying a 14 percent tax rate, so I would only expect that they would join us in criticizing millionaire Secretary Tom Wolf for paying nearly half of that,” added Barley. “How did he get to that tax rate? The people of Pennsylvania deserve to know who the real Tom Wolf is and that will require him to be open and transparent about his campaign loans and questionable business practices.”
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