Makes a good point. You’ve got to believe that if Romney hadn’t paid his taxes for 10 years as the creepy little bastard has alleged, don’t you think the IRS would have been all over Romney like stink on a cowpie by now? Dingy Harry Reid is a liar.
Athough highly technical, the tax laws allow companies and big investors (who are, after all, corporations) to carry losses back three years and forward seven years. 7+3=10.
All Mitt needs to have done is to have suffered very heavy losses in 2007/2008, and he could well have carried enough loss backwards to wipe out his tax obligations for 2005, 2006 and 2007, and then for 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and the current year 2012 (for which he'd be paying quarterly taxes).
This is all legal, but it's complex, and probably not all his losses are recoverable so it's possible we'd see this as just a dimunition of his total tax burden, and a reduction in his rates of taxation in any given year.
Private individuals can also carry back a certain amount of investment/business losses, and carry some forward.
In most cases most wage earners with small personal but taxable investments would likely find those loses to be less than their total income so they'd end up paying rates fairly representative of their ordinary tax bracket.
So, how does Harry lie in this? Well, if we grant that he's got the 10 years correct ~ which involves dealing with some very substantial losses ~ he's wrong in saying Mitt paid no taxes. I've spent a bit of time going over the parts of that element of tax law and it doesn't seem to me that Mitt could entirely escape taxation ~ after all, he does have a life separate and apart from his business ~ ...............??????????????????
Bet Michelle Bachmann knows. Will she be his VP candidate? Only the Tax Code knows.