Like Dish readers, Josh Barro notes that Romney can recoup his tax overpayment at a later date. And no one will know:
An IRS employee who disclosed the existence of the amended return would be committing a felony. If Romney is President, he will face political pressure to make continued tax disclosures. But if he’s a private citizen, he won’t have to heed calls for more tax transparency — he can amend his 2011 taxes and nobody will ever know.
So in a sense, overpaying his taxes is the best kind of campaign spending: Romney coughed up an extra few hundred thousand dollars in an effort to avoid some bad press, but he has the option to get all the money back if he loses. It’s exactly the kind of smart investment you would expect from the founder of Bain Capital.
The Dish 