Romney, Taxpayer And Tither
Mitt Romney released his tax records this morning and they reveal that he pays an obscene amount of taxes and at a rate higher than 60% of Americans. He uses H&R Block to calculate his tax burden, which comes in at an effective rate of 13.9% of his income. Here's how Reuters reports:
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney released tax records on Tuesday indicating he will pay $6.2 million in taxes on a total of $42.5 million in income over the years 2010 and 2011.
Bowing to increasing political pressure to provide more detail about his vast wealth, the former private equity executive released tax returns indicating he and his wife, Ann, paid an effective tax rate of 13.9 percent in 2010. They expect to pay a 15.4 percent rate when they file their returns for 2011.
Romney's tax rate is below that of most wage-earning Americans because most of his income, as outlined in more than 500 pages of tax documents, flows from capital gains on investments.
Actually, that's not quite accurate, is it? As John Hood writes at National Review:
A competent campaign, and candidate, would explain that Romney’s real federal tax rate on his investment income was more than 40 percent (being conservative, after deductions and such), since the revenue stream was subject to both a personal tax rate and the corporate tax rate. A competent campaign would then point out that state taxes would bring the effective income tax rate on Romney’s investment income to 50 percent or higher. Every time a reporter or opposing candidate tried to say Romney’s tax rate was 15 percent, a competent campaign would call them out for misleading the American people.
A competent campaign would then point out that this effective income tax rate of 50 percent is much, much higher than what the average worker pays in federal and state taxes on wage income. Such a campaign would then say that by taxing investment so punitively and then redistributing the revenue to failed giveway programs and government boondoggles, America is eating its seed corn and deterring investors from creating new jobs.
I am clearly a radical right-winger because I'm offended -- not proud -- that Mitt Romney has to pay more money to the federal government than to his Mormon church. That's unconscionable to me.
Also, I'm clearly a radical right-winger because I don't view contributions to one's religious group as nefarious, unlike so many in the media.
Do voters typically get upset at candidates for paying the taxes they owe and being ridiculously generous?
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Comments:
Apr '11
Re: Romney, Taxpayer And Tither
Nyadnar17
The fixation is because Warren Buffet started this lie that he has a lower tax rate than his secretary and that is not "fair". Our side has done a piss poor job of explaining that because of the way capital gains work a rich person could have a real tax rate of 50% or more even though their income tax is only 10 or 12 percent.
Speaking of which, is there a site out there where they actually run the numbers and demonstrate what Romney's real tax rate is? · 34 minutes ago
Buffet has a ton of money in Munis and other tax free investments, although less than, eg., Kerry. He does still pay a lot of corporate taxes, but less than most of his peers. As such, a separate problem with Buffet's argument is that his "selflessly" advocated solutions wouldn't impact his tax bill much at all, and would help him by making some of his investments, such as his life insurance companies, more valuable.
Mar '11
Re: Romney, Taxpayer And Tither
Pseudodionysius: He certainly is a case in point of the fact that conservatives tend to be more generous than liberals.
And what are the chances that he himself will make that point during the campaign Richard? Normally I'd say Ann Coulter would do it, but I believe she'll be sedated shortly. · 43 minutes ago
I doubt he will because he views it less as generosity and more as duty.
Jun '10
Re: Romney, Taxpayer And Tither
I don't buy this argument, either. If we slashed the corporate rate, why would we assume every corporation would pay out the extra profits as dividends? They could just as easily pay their employees higher wages, or hire more employees (reducing unemployment), or reduce prices and pass the savings on to their customers. Most likely they would do some of each.
So why do we say the burden of corporate taxes falls solely on the shareholders? I could just as easily claim my real tax rate is the "earned" income rate on my salary + the corporate tax rate payed by my employer.
Dec '11
Re: Romney, Taxpayer And Tither
I'm over it as is former Crist supporter, Jeb Bush.
Apr '11
Re: Romney, Taxpayer And Tither
Joseph Stanko
I don't buy this argument, either. If we slashed the corporate rate, why would we assume every corporation would pay out the extra profits as dividends? They could just as easily pay their employees higher wages, or hire more employees (reducing unemployment), or reduce prices and pass the savings on to their customers. Most likely they would do some of each.
So why do we say the burden of corporate taxes falls solely on the shareholders? I could just as easily claim my real tax rate is the "earned" income rate on my salary + the corporate tax rate payed by my employer. · 3 hours ago
I agree that the incidence may not be 100% on the investor. There's a lot of disagreement amongst economists on this subject. I do think, though, that there's a lot of agreement that much or most of the incidence falls there. Would you claim a figure of less than 50%?