Tax records ineffective in long run, prof says

But Boston University students and professors said they did not expect the new information would alter the public’s perceptions about the candidates.

Warren, the presumptive Democratic challenger for Republican Brown’s seat, released four years’ worth of tax returns while Brown released six years’ worth on Friday after a request from The Boston Globe. Their incomes in the most recent tax year placed Brown in the top two percent and Warren in the top one percent of earners.

“The main effect of these releases is that it may make it harder for Sen. Brown to paint himself as a pickup truck-driving common man in contrast to the Harvard elite challenger,” said Boston University Political Science professor Douglas Kriner in an email interview.

The returns show Warren earning about $1 million combined over the past four years – most recently, $616,181 in 2011. Brown earned less by comparison — $510,856 for 2011, a dip after his income briefly skyrocketed after his election in 2010 due to an advance on his autobiography.

“I doubt that [the tax releases] will have much of an effect,” Kriner said. “Brown has been quick to note that while his campaign may paint Warren as an elitist – it has not criticized her personal wealth.”

Warren’s campaign hinges on the mantra that she’s a blue collar champion who came up the hard way, “out of a hard-working middle class family in an America that created opportunities for kids like me,” her campaign website states.

Kriner said the unveiling of Brown’s own wealth could lead him to back off from his focus on Warren’s elite status.

But Brown’s campaign has already said Warren’s tax returns contradict her claims about her closeness to the middle class.

“Professor Warren is extremely hypocritical for saying she isn’t wealthy and calling on others to pay higher taxes while routinely earning nearly $1 million a year and refusing to pay the optional higher tax rate available in Massachusetts,” campaign manager Jim Barnett said in a statement on Brown’s campagin website.

Brown’s campaign, however, has tried to emphasize his difficult upbringing as well.

Brown “didn’t have a lot of breaks growing up,” he states on his campaign website.

“I came from a broken home and moved around a lot as a kid,” the site reads. “Times were not easy.”

College of Communication freshman Andrea Young said she believes the candidates are at most risk if the tax returns make them appear to be hypocrites.

“One cannot claim to be one thing when they are really the opposite,” she said. “The American people are looking for truth and if they can’t get it from someone, they won’t vote for that person. Simple as that.”

But Kriner reiterated in his email that he doubts that most voters will scrutinize the returns.

“It might make a few people question whether Brown and the pickup are as authentic as they seemed in 2008 and 2009,” he said, “but I doubt it will have much of an impact.”