After over five years of running for the GOP presidential nomination, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney shouldn't have anything left to hide, but he apparently does. Mr. Romney is refusing to release his tax returns despite the fact that his vast wealth is already well known and he has admitted that his significant annual income is taxed at around the 15% level. So why not just release the returns?

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When challenged on the issue during the most recent GOP debate, Governor Romney stumbled through his response eventually saying he would "probably" release the documents around April. But 24 hours later told reporters "People will want to see the most recent year" implying that whatever he might release would be limited. Again, the question is why?

Tax experts have suggested that the reason could be an attempt to hide Mr. Romney's use of offshore strategies to avoid taxes. According to Daniel Berman, a former US Treasury deputy international tax counsel and current director of tax at Boston University's graduate tax program, "Certain interests in foreign investment structures would have to be reported on attachments to his return."

Mr. Romney's significant investments in funds linked to his former firm Bain Capital are, according to an analysis of securities filings, scattered from Delaware to the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Ireland and Hong Kong. While Candidate Romney frequently touts that he knows how the economy works, it may not be advantageous to his presidential aspirations if voters were to become aware of how he has used that knowledge to avoid paying taxes.

There is also speculation, especially in light of Mr. Romney's comments about releasing only his most recent tax filing, that information relating to the candidate's charitable donations may adversely affect his campaign. While it's well know that Mr. Romney regularly tithes to his church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), stock contributions made during his years at Bain Capital could total millions more than has been previously disclosed.

Filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission reveal that an unnamed Bain partner donated 65,326 shares of Burger King stock to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and numerous other donation gave the church a stake in such other Bain properties as Domino's Pizza, electronics manufacturer DDi, phosphates company Innophos Holdings and Marquee Holdings, the parent of AMC Theaters. Could Team Romney be keeping the specifics of these huge transactions under wraps out of concern that voters may not want a president who is so financially involved with a religious institution?

Regardless of why Governor Romney has yet to release his tax returns, even his staunchest supporters are encouraging him to do so. Appearing on NBC's Today Show this morning, New Jersey Governor and early Romney endorser Chris Christie said, "I would say if you have tax returns to put out, you know, you should put them out sooner rather than later because it's always better in my view to have complete disclosure, especially as the front-runner."

Evidently Team Romney thinks it's better to hide some information until it's too late for voters to consider it against him. But as Texas Governor Rick Perry said in an interview this morning, "It is important for Mitt to release his tax returns. The fact is, we can't fire our nominee in September. By then, it's too late. So if we've got a flawed candidate that's going forward and someone who's gonna get eaten alive either because of business practices...we need to talk about it now."

On a related note, Governor Perry has released his tax returns for the last 30 years.