Posted on 09/21/2012 9:57:50 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
After being criticized for months over a lack of transparency when it came to his taxes, Mitt Romney has revealed his 2011 returns, which show the candidate paid $1.9 million in taxes on $13.7 million in income, an effective rate of 14.1 percent.
That figure falls in line with Romney's estimate in August that he paid "13.6 [percent] or something like that."
But Romney only reached the 14.1 percent mark by limiting deductions taken from his considerable charitable giving. Had the Romneys taken all of the deductions made available by their $4.02 million in 2011 donations, his effective tax rate could have been as low as 10.4 percent.
By not using all the available deductions, he paid an additional $500,000 to the federal government....
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
By the way, weren’t you convinced me and Ansell were the same person? From your perspective, I never actually left.
Well, since he belonged to Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s United Church of Christ congregation, he’s a “real Christian” and Gov. Mitt Romney is a Mormon cultist, so of course Mr. Obama is the favorite among that crowd.
“Well, since he belonged to Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s United Church of Christ congregation, he’s a “real Christian” and Gov. Mitt Romney is a Mormon cultist, so of course Mr. Obama is the favorite among that crowd.”
I’m pretty sure that’s nobody’s actual opinion. The real opinion is a cold, hard look at our situation. Here’s the truth: We have two, depraved, confirmed liars. We all saw the primaries. We all saw their records. We see them lie all the bloody time.
I totally get the whole “Well, at least Romney won’t ram the ship INTO the iceberg, he might just accidentally hit it.” But it’s a different animal than basically lying for the guy and pretending he is something he isn’t. And THEN you even take the time to defend Mormonism with a weird relativistic argument and accuse everybody of supporting Obama.
I say, death to the GOPe cult of personality. Better you are mad as hell than just a slave to the party machine with their party and clueless leaders. Especially when most of you guys tell us you’re going to hold Saint Romney’s feet to the fire, which you don’t actually tolerate when it is done.
How do people say “Go the f*** away up there in Chicago?”
“It was mostly capital gains taxes.”
So Romney paid 14% on an income of 13.5 million bucks. Somehow that doesn’t seem right. During my peak earning years in the 80’s and 90’s I was paying about one third of my income to Uncle Sam, and I wasn’t making near what Romney is raking in.
And I keep hearing that we need to eliminate taxes on capital gains entirely, which would reduce Romney’s tax rate down to near zero.
I remember when it was a radical idea to have a flat tax so that the rich did not pay a higher tax rate than the middle class. Now that seems they deserve to be taxed less.
Do you think obama pays more tax than the law requires him to pay?
Would you be more likely to vote for Romney for President if he overpaid his income tax because he was too stupid to hire competent tax accountants? Are you going to vote for obama because he pays a higher tax rate? Are you sure he does? If so, is he really as stupid as you are?
Not to change the subject, but I remember then Senator Obama telling a Interviewer that he wanted Capital Gains Taxes Raised to 25%. When he was informed by the Interviewer that Tax Revenue to the United States Treasury would decrease if that was done, Obama replied “it's all about fairness”.
Kind of reminds me of the Will Smith Interview in France earlier this year. After Will Smith told the French Journalist that he thought the American “Rich” should be Taxed at a much higher Rate, the Journalist told him that the “Rich” in France will be taxed at a 75% Rate.
Good old Will looked shocked and said “God Bless America”. A real principled Liberal we got there.
Got links?
The Romneya DID donate to Planned Parenthood Shhh the liberal RINO dont want to acknowledge that. The 30% to charities was 1 year only. The year he knew he would have to release.
Let's use a simple example of a flat tax rate of 20% on all income with no deductions. If I earn $1M I pay $200,000 in taxes on that income. If you earn $50,000 you pay $5,000 in taxes on your income. Now let's suppose I live next door to you, have a similar house, have a similar family in terms of household size, and use public amenities such as streets and parks to the same extent that you do. What rationale is there for me to be carrying a tax burden that is forty times your tax burden?
For a true "flat tax" the Federal government would simply take its budget, divide it by the number of people in the country, and send everyone a bill. If it spends $3T and there are 300 million people in this country, then everyone gets a bill for $10,000. Case closed. It's that simple.
Do the Obamas actually donate to charity?
“Are you advocating that there should be no difference in Taxation for Capital Gains and Earned Income?
I think Ronald Reagan got it about right in his Tax Reform Act of 1986 when he set the capital gains rate at 28%.
“Capital Gains Income comes from risk based Investments using Capital that has already been Taxed. Earned Income is not a Risk based investment.”
I can’t think of anything you can do with your money that doesn’t have an element of risk. I may be missing something, but it seems to me that the main incentive to invest one’s money in stocks or real estate is not the tax treatment, it’s the potential gains. You don’t get to be rich like Donald Trump or Mitt Romney by putting your money in the bank. Earning millions of dollars is the incentive that drives the tycoons. Do you think Trump didn’t do any real estate deals or Warren Buffett got out of the stock market while the capital gains rate was 28%?
Besides, this preferential treatment for capital gains sometimes makes no sense at all. Why should the US government give a highly preferential tax treatment to me if instead of earning a living by working, I invest money in Chinese stocks or Brazilian real estate and make a fortune? How does that help America? Is that more worthy than making a living being a welder on a Texas drilling rig?
I’m starting to think that Warren Buffett had it right when he said that there is a class war going on, and the rich are winning. I mean, think about it, how much of Romney’s and Obama’s campaign funds come from ordinary Americans? Politicians pay attention to who gets them elected. You can see the results in our tax laws. The 400 highest earning families in America are paying taxes at the lowest rate now (about 18%) than at any time since the IRS started keeping track 20 years ago. If we eliminate taxes on capital gains that will go down even more.
“No offense, but your entire post illustrates exactly what is wrong with even many conservatives when it comes to tax policy. This fixation on how much someone paid in taxes as a percentage of their income is large-scale, institutional envy at its root. Even a “flat tax” as it is popularly known today is unjust at its core.
Let’s use a simple example of a flat tax rate of 20% on all income with no deductions. If I earn $1M I pay $200,000 in taxes on that income. If you earn $50,000 you pay $5,000 in taxes on your income. Now let’s suppose I live next door to you, have a similar house, have a similar family in terms of household size, and use public amenities such as streets and parks to the same extent that you do. What rationale is there for me to be carrying a tax burden that is forty times your tax burden?”
I quote you at length because I thought your example was a good one. Why should a million dollar earner pay more in taxes than the guy next door who earns $50,000? Both of you have three kids, and a mortgage (okay, maybe the rich guy doesn’t have a mortgage). Why should the rich guy pay more? I should think it couldn’t be more clear—the neighbor earning $50,000 with three kids is making about enough to get by. Hard for him to pay more than $5,000, Whereas the rich guy has $800,000 left over after he pays $200,000 in taxes. Not exactly tough to get by on that. I think many if not most rich people reccognize this and realize the fairness of higher tax rates on higher incomes.
As far as envy being the root of my beliefs in what is fair, when I was a top 1% earner in the 80’s and 90’s, I paid my 35% or so in taxes each year and was happy to do it. I remembered I was making about four times as much as my employees, and they worked hard for me. I didn’t mind paying more in taxes. I felt very fortunate.
“BUT tell me HOW DID MR. & MRS. BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA AMASS AN $11MILLION + FORTUNE,and growing, ON A BUREAUCRATS SALARY???”
It is rumored that he wrote some books.
14% to the Government and 30% to others who also did not earn it means he taxed himself at 44% effectively.
1. A person who has a lot of money and decides to invest it in a business venture or some other enterprise in the hopes that there will be capital appreciation over time has a far better and more far-reaching positive impact on the U.S. economy than one who puts it under his mattress or saves it in an income-producing vehicle such as a government bond. These people should be encouraged to invest their money rather than save it. Your point about the Russian stock market and Brazilian real estate is a good one, though ... so for the sake of this discussion I'm only referring to U.S. capital gains tax rates on investments here in the U.S.
2. A capital gain by definition (and under U.S. law, for the preferential tax rate) involves a return on investment that is deferred over time -- maybe even decades. Since these capital gains are not indexed for inflation, taxing a capital gain that is built over time at the same rate as labor that is paid on a weekly or bi-weekly basis effectively penalizes the capital gain in the tax code.
3. Related to #2, we must also acknowledge that a capital gain is not a sure thing -- especially over a long period of time. The U.S. tax code only allows minimal deductions for capital losses, so there is an added risk associated with capital investments that isn't addressed in the tax code for anyone other than small investors.
Having said all that, there is one very good argument against having preferential tax treatment for capital gains -- and we've seen this unfold over the last few decades here in the U.S. The argument is that a large gap between the tax rate on income and the tax rate on capital gains effectively encourages rampant speculation, which I believe has driven much of the economic chaos we've seen in the U.S. when the stock market and real estate "bubbles" collapsed within a decade of each other between 2000 and 2008.
And if you multiply this effect by a few hundred million people who all want to be subsidized to some degree, and you can see how this nation ended up with $16T of Federal debt that grows by at least $1T every year. It really is that simple.
LOL. Warren Buffett is full of crap. Who are the casualties of this war? We have a permanent underclass in this country filled with people who enjoy a standard of living that would have been the envy of even the wealthiest people in the world as recently as a few decades ago.
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