McInnis now says guarding tax forms to avoid revealing total law firm profits

On Monday, Scott McInnis campaign Communications Director Sean Duffy told the Colorado independent that McInnis’s income from law firm Hogan & Hartson was reported on K1 forms— forms used to report partnership income– and that McInnis would not release those forms because they would reveal the names and incomes of each of the firm’s partners. Releasing that information to the press would be inappropriate, said Duffy.

Indeed, Duffy said that McInnis’s now-famous remark about “taking a beating” should he release his tax forms was a reference to the “beating” he would take from his partners for releasing the K1s. But K1 forms do not list the names or incomes of all partners in a firm.

“Each partner gets a unique K1 with only their personal information. Depending on the structure of the partnership, the K1 may indicate what percentage of the partnership is owned by the individual named on an individual K1. In that case, someone seeing even one K1 would be able to calculate the total profit made by the firm in that year,” said Certified Public Accountant James Vander Laan, of Lakewood.

Campaign communications director Sean Duffy, responding to an email with this information, wrote back that that’s the reason the forms won’t be released.

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Scot Kersgaard has been managing editor of a political newspaper, editor and co-owner of a ski town newspaper, executive editor of eight high-tech magazines (where he worked with current Apple CEO Tim Cook), deputy press secretary to a U.S. Senator, and an outdoors columnist at the Rocky Mountain News. He has an English degree from the University of Washington. He was awarded a fellowship to study internet journalism at the University of Maryland's Knight Center for Specialized Journalism. He was student body president in college. He spends his free time hiking and skiing.