Candidates for governor – or any other political office, for that matter – aren’t legally required to release their tax returns for public scrutiny, but doing so makes sense. It generally pleases the electorate and it provides insight about the way candidates earn, spend and manage their own money. At a time when state economies are in trouble and candidates offer competing visions of how to restore fiscal order, many voters likely would find such information useful. Bill Haslam in Tennessee and Nathan Deal in Georgia, both would-be governors, apparently don’t agree.
Neither Haslam nor Deal – Republicans who recently won primaries to earn their party’s gubernatorial nomination in their respective states – has released his tax return. Mike McWherter, the Democratic nominee in Tennessee, and Roy Barnes, the Democratic nominee in Tennessee, have done so. Their willingness to do so is refreshing and in keeping with contemporary political custom.
Indeed, Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, and Sonny Perdue, a Republican, current governors of Tennessee and Georgia, respectively, released their tax returns for public review during their candidacies. Haslam and Deal, by contrast, have offered excuses for not releasing the forms.
There is, of course, some risk in releasing tax information. Tax returns can show an individual’s sources of income, detail charitable gifts and deductions, and unveil possible conflicts of interest, the use of tax shelters and other valuable information. Those who seek office, however, should willingly assume the risk. They are holding themselves up for public approval and making tax forms public is, or should be, viewed as part of their commitment to public trust and public service.
McWherter and Barnes, like Perdue and Bredesen before them, accept that and have acted accordingly. Haslam and Deal have chosen, so far, to take a less clear path. Voters who believe disclosure is important should remember the difference in November.