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How did the obsession with tax returns begin?

CNN tracks it back to a famous speech vice presidential candidate Richard Nixon made about financial transparency. While his words inspired his Democratic opponents to release their forms, Nixon didn’t follow through himself.

By the late 1970s, every major party presidential nominee was releasing his returns, though the number of years they released often varied. Politico has only identified sevenpresidential and VP candidates who didn’t follow suit with this unofficial rule, most of who were Republicans, and all of which didn’t become the nominees.

Sorry, CNN. You can't get anything right. It started in 1967 with George Romney running for the Republican nomination.

Romney formally announced on November 18, 1967, at Detroit's Veterans Memorial Building,[187] that he had "decided to fight for and win the Republican nomination and election to the Presidency of the United States."[188] His subsequent release of his federal tax returns – twelve years' worth going back to his time as AMC head – was groundbreaking[189] and established a precedent that many future presidential candidates would have to contend with.[190] He spent the following months campaigning tirelessly, focusing on the New Hampshire primary, the first of the season, and doing all the on-the-ground activities known to that state: greeting workers at factory gates before dawn, having neighborhood meetings in private homes, and stopping at bowling alleys.[191] He returned to Vietnam in December 1967 and made speeches and proposals on the subject, one of which presaged Nixon's eventual policy of Vietnamization.[170][191] For a while, he got an improved response from voters.[192]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Romney

The existence of tax returns is a violation of our original Constitution which prohibited the income tax which is why the US Constitution had to be amended in 1913 to allow this evil deed. 103 years later, we're $20 trillion in debt, with the weakest military situation in 50 years, 94 million of our working age population out of the work force, our industrial base evaporated, our borders wide open, trade deficits that range from $500 billion to $800 billion a year, less than 1.7% annual GDP growth, most Americans existing with no savings, no retirement or pension, more than 1/3 of our work force can't get 40 hours of work a week from one employer, all the while our political system, media and "free press" are obsessed with the tone, rhetoric, temperament and tax returns of our political candidates running for President instead of what they want to do to fix our country.

We have too many issues on the table right now, but if we're ever really going to fix our country, we need to change our federal tax system to a national retail sales tax system on new goods and services and eliminate the income tax system altogether. If Americans want to wave their Constitutions in each others faces and talk about liberty til they're blue in the face, then honestly, the first thing you do is get the government out of your wallet, out of your business, out of your life and terminate the governments right to tax you or your business on your earnings. When you spend on new goods and services at your own choosing, you are paying tax when you choose to spend. With the FairTax, there's a Rebate that more than covers the essentials of life that exempts the tax on this portion of your spending, all you have to do is sign up for it with your name and a valid social security number, it's available to everyone who is a legal resident, rich and poor alike. The Rebate is not available to illegal aliens.

I realize a lot of people have been raised under the income tax system and believe for some reason that submission to it makes one a better person, a "good citizen". All it does in reality is makes you a good tax slave, and to me is no different than the government asking you to strip down and show your privates so they can measure them and then tell you how much you owe them for your "Privileges". It's that much of an invasion into the private lives and businesses of our people. It's just wrong on all levels. And yes we all have to comply, the difference is some like it and some don't. I'm in the group that doesn't and this group is the group that wants to eliminate the income tax and replace it with the FairTax or something similar to it. If anyone thinks you're "getting the rich" through the income tax system, then they need a better education on the topic. All you're doing is running up debt that you or your offspring or descendants will have to pay while bankrupting our nation and impoverishing our citizens.

And yes of course, the income tax was a Democrat invention, passed by a Democratic Congress, Republicans vehemently opposed it, and pushed and signed into law by a Democratic President who called a Special Session of the Congress, only the second in US history, in 1913. Why any Republican would support such a violation of our people and businesses is mind-boggling.