It is a tactic used to make something an issue, so that when the target of the tactic refuses to reveal information the tactic is calling for, an entire campaign of "What are they hiding?" will manifest itself, allowing tons of the worst kind of speculation to happen.  

In the case of Romney's tax returns, the idea is to either get him to go into denying revealing and letting that speculation bubble up, or have him reveal, and then see where he made his money, and show that he had a marginal tax rate lower than what other people normally end up paying (or so it gets spun).

Well, there is also the case where maybe he did end up paying no taxes over a number of years, due to how he shuffled his income around, which wouldn't look good at all for him.

Cutting the taxes for the top 10% will magically grow the American economy and create more jobs. Hopefully the bottom 90% do not have to foot the bill for the top end tax cuts. 

With the emphasis on the deficit being a bad thing, of course the bottom 90% would have to foot the bill to make up the difference.

Showing his tax's would show how uneven the tax code is. The tax's are made hard so only the rich can achieve the benefits. Also tax's show how much you support your country. If you hide money around the world and don't want to pay in. Thats like saying, F-ck the roads, the bridge's, the people, teachers, cops, firefighters ect. You get it. I pay in and am happy I got protection and good sewer system, Good drinking water. You know this sh-t kinda matters.

So yes every single president has released tax's. This is why. We want to see who we are electing. I do, I wanted to see obama's too. I wanted see every presidents tax's and that well stay the same. If you just want to put your head in the sand thats cool but us that actually want to know who is running our country. I will stop there.

This is what I don't get, You people who don't care. Dude if we didn't have these things our ecconomy would be sh-t and only a few would make it. So we must up keep it. IT'S NOT FREE!!! ITS NOT WELFARE. PAY FOR IT.

Actually, I disagree with the conspiracy you laid out.  Taxes become harder over time, as special interests get in there and put this tax break and that, in order to save money for themselves.  As it goes on, more and more rules pile up, and it gets to a place where only those with good accountants can manage to navigate through things.

Ok, Who has the money to pay for accountants. THE RICH. THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT.

I was addressing what looked to me like a comment that there was a conspiracy they make the code difficult in order to benefit rich people, because they are the only ones who can afford the accountants to navigate.  I would say that such is a byproduct of other motivations, and not the cause.  Actually, if you see the said conservative and libertarian arguments, they want the code to me smaller.  There are arguments that the complexity of regulations and tax code work against small businesses also.

Every rational person will do everything within their power to pay as little tax as possible ... What Romney paid in taxes under rules he didn't create is irrelevant to whether he would be a good president or not; it only demonstrates whether he was intelligent and rational enough to take advantage of the rules.

The tax code is to complicated and could be simplified to:

Tax rates are as follows:

• 0% tax on first $25,000 a person earns
• 25% on each additional dollar

Of course, that is one of those "radical" conservative ideas that only benefits the rich ...

And so has Mitt Romney.

Mitt Romney released 2 years of taxes just like John McCain before him... and nobody was complaining about McCain's taxes.

Also, Mitt Romney largely pays so little in taxes because he gives a over 16% of his income to charity.

Which means 16% of income is tax deductable.

you are showing a complete lack of understanding as to what republicans want.  They want to reduce the tax code and make it simpler so that people don't need acountants to do their taxes.  They want to take out all the deductions and exemptions that special interest groups have put into the tax code over time that has made it completely unbalanced.  Right now, the tax code is not fair.   To be honest, neither the democrats or the republicans have really presented a fair plan yet.  For example, I'm a teacher.  I make about 60k a year.  My effective tax rate is usually around 3 to 5 percent.  I barely pay any taxes at all.  According the the tax code, I should be paying something like 20 or 25 percent.  However, since I am a teacher there are a lot of deductions that I can make that eliminates a huge chunk of my tax liability.  Is that fair for the other people that make the same amount as me but aren't teachers?

As for not caring about romney's tax returns.  He has released two of them.  Honestly, it really doesn't matter because he has had his finances managed by a blind trust since 2002.  Romney doesn't actually have a clue what he is invested in and I could care less what some acountant that manages his funds invests in.