For whatever reason, Democrats love to know what candidates' finances look like. One of their litmus tests is to see a candidate's tax returns.
Last month, billionaire Michael Bloomberg was asked whether or not he would release his taxes to the public.
CBS News' Tim Perry started to ask Bloomberg about his net worth, which is said to have drastically increased from $4.5 billion to more than $33 billion during his time as New York City's mayor.
"Those numbers are somebody making an assumption about what the company is worth. It's not my money," Bloomberg responded. "It's the company's money."
Bloomberg said he has no idea what his company is worth because "nobody has ever bid for it, it's never been sold and he's never paid taxes on it."
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Perry followed up by asking the former NYC mayor if he'd release his tax returns before people begin to vote.
"Our tax returns will be, we think, a few thousand pages," Bloomberg responded. "And we'll put them out when we're required, and I think that's sometime in March."
A testy Bloomberg said he couldn't produce the documents because his team is working on them.
"It's not so easy when you file tax returns in virtually every state and in almost every country," he explained. "Voters have a right to know whatever you can give them. I don't know what to tell you. It takes a long time to do all of it. We've been working on it for a couple months. I've said I'm going to release my tax returns. And I will release my tax returns. And it will certainly be before the general election when everyone gets a chance to vote."
The simple answer: Democratic voters won't get to see Bloomberg's tax returns before their primary or caucus. Who knows if that's considered acceptable or not to Democrats.
WATCH:@MikeBloomberg responds to reports of his net worth drastically increasing during his time as NYC Mayor."Those numbers are somebody making an assumption about what the company is worth. It's not my $"
— Tim Perry (@tperry518) January 24, 2020
Says he will release tax returns "sometime in March." pic.twitter.com/HzcnV5eOas
