As have presidential candidates before him, Romney faces controversy over his tax filings

 Mitt Romney’s promise to release his 2011 tax return in April follows the practice of leading presidential candidates that began after Watergate. If history is any lesson, questions and criticism will continue long afterward.

For more than three decades, the major party nominees have released their income tax records. Some offered one year and others more than 10 years of returns. The same has been true for vice presidential candidates, except for Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas when he joined President Gerald Ford on the GOP ticket in 1976.

Former California Gov. Ronald Reagan broke his longstanding rule of keeping his personal finances private in July 1980 when he released his 23-page 1979 income tax return weeks before accepting the GOP nomination. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton weathered weeks of criticism in 2008 for not releasing tax returns showing family income after Bill Clinton left the presidency. She ultimately produced the records in April of that year after taking a pounding from her top party rival, Sen. Barack Obama.

Even after returns are released, controversies persist. Democratic Sen. John Kerry took heat in 2004 after releasing his returns because his wife, heiress to the Heinz Co. food fortune, initially refused to release hers, which were filed separately. Four years later, Republican Sen. John McCain faced similar criticism because his wife didn’t release her separately filed returns, which reflected income from a Phoenix-based beer distributing company she inherited. She later released the two top summary pages of one year’s return, the same that Kerry’s wife had released.

Now it’s Romney’s turn. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who released his own tax returns dating back to 1991, urged Romney during a debate Monday to release his. Romney, whose net worth is estimated at roughly $250 million, previously had resisted calls to release his tax returns. Anticipating a key question about his taxes, Romney disclosed Tuesday that he pays an effective federal tax rate of about 15 percent, still higher than the rate paid by many Americans.

Romney said in the debate that he will decide whether to release returns in the coming months.

“I hadn’t planned on releasing tax records because the law requires us to release all of our assets, all the things we own. That I have already released,” he said. Later, he added, “What’s happened in history is people have released them in about April of the coming year and that’s probably what I would do.”

Romney’s right. There is no law requiring presidential candidates to release personal tax information. Since 1978, however, they’ve had to disclose information about their income and some about their assets, like real estate holdings, investments and outside business interests. But those disclosures only show a range of values for assets, making it impossible to use those forms to identify a candidate’s actual wealth.

He’s also right that many leading candidates in recent history chose April to release their tax returns.