Romney pays 15% taxes

Moonbear

Why specify rich? If someone isn't yet retirement age and derives income from capital gains, why should it matter how much of the rest of their income comes from other sources? I really do think it makes sense to tax all income the same, regardless of the source, but then let you apply previous losses as reductions in adjusted gross income without a cap on those either. Money changing hands is all the same to me.

As for Romney, I have no problem with him paying 15% in taxes. It's consistent with current tax law, and he's actually paying his taxes, so what more is there to expect? His 15% is still a heapload more money than probably most here even earn as gross income.

russ_watters

For clarity, that's eliminating the cap on pay-in without changing the cap on pay-out, right? Yeah, I get that: I asked if that's what you want and I asked how you see how that affects the logic upon which the program was created.

You didn't answer my question at all.

russ_watters

I may not have been clear, but I agree with you -- or I should say, I'm not 100% sold, but I do agree that logically, it really should be that way.

But let's also be clear about this: this issue is an issue because Romney is rich. It's in the first several posts of the thread and in every article I've seen on the issue. But the ideas we're discussing have implications much further down that people need to consider. So I'll give specific case studies similar to what I and a friend did when younger:

A 30-year old who lived cheap by living with his parents through his 20s built-up a nice stock portfolio during the roaring '90s and sold it at jus the right time in early 2000, which put him in the top 5% of wage earners for the year (lower limit $145k). He used the money as a downpayment on a house. This person is not rich by most peoples' definitions, but the difference between paying the capital gains rate and the top income tax rate on those capital gains is enormous for him - several tens of thousands of dollars that affect his ability to buy the house he wants. Should he have paid more taxes?

A young adult stretched a little to buy real estate in the mid-90s to early 2000s and moved from a condo to a townhouse to a house, with a nice profit in between each, as the housing bubble grew. Lotta potential taxes in there on not much real effort - a similar amount to the first guy. Should he have paid more?

Evo

This is not the place to discuss taxes in general. Please keep posts specific to how Romney has paid his taxes, his tax shelters, his offshore investments, etc...

Please feel free to start a separate tax thread to discuss examples of how average Americans pay taxes.

turbo

Thank you.

russ_watters

An awful lot of people believe that, but it just simply isn't true. I can't see any reasonable way to define "the bottom" that doesn't have them paying a lower rate than "the richest in society"*. First problem, of course, is just about all of "the bottom" up to about 47% pay a zero percent federal income tax rate. And second:http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/24/news....htm?hpt=hp_c1

*Caveat: things may look different when the payroll tax is included, but the Romney 14% and the above from CNN is about the federal income tax.

Moonbear

I agree, people are ready to complain when the rich get taxed at a low rate, but still want the lower taxes for themselves.
Because he made his money from investments instead of labor, why should he get a break? He should be lauded for scrimping and saving, but just because he got lucky on timing doesn't mean he deserved the house more than someone else who earned their money as wages. I don't begrudge him for going that route, just as I don't begrudge Romney for paying lower taxes if the law allowed it, it just highlights the discrepancy in source of income as a determining factor for taxation rate.

ParticleGrl

If you include state and local taxes,which tend to be regressive, its easier to do.

Also, the issue isn't Romney- the issue is that, in general, the top 0.1% pays a lower percentage of their income then the top 10%. Why does this make sense? Why should the tax burden turn around as you make more money?

Now, before capital gains were lowered, was America suffering from an investment problem? It seems to me that both the dot com and housing boom were caused by too much money chasing too little investment opportunity (in different markets). Would increasing the capital gains rate move some of the marginal speculative money out of a bubble market? Is that a good thing?

Right now, we encourage investment. BUT, do we need to? Is it worth the loss of government revenue?

mheslep

Better placed here ...

On the tax question I think Romney should say,

"I paid $3 million in taxes in 2010."

In answer to follow up questions about percentages, he should say,

"I paid $3 million in taxes in 2010. I gave away another $3 million in charitable donations in 2010"

Romney paid, I think, 200 times what the median tax payer pays in income taxes, and that doesn't include his property tax. But he doesn't get to vote 200 times on election day, he gets no bigger share of national defense than anyone else, he can't go to anymore than one national park at a time, can only ride in one car at a time on the government road, can only fly in one FAA controlled plane at a time.

Jasongreat

You may want to research what his church does in the way of charity. If one looks at what they do, I think you will see just how charitable his church and its members are. Iirc, his church beat the red cross and fema to help during katrina with over a hundred truckloads of supplies, had a huge presence in haiti as well as every disater there has been, the mormon church and its members are very charitable.

On top of that his church has a huge welfare system, available to all, not just for its members. They own their own farms, dairies, feedyards canning facilities etc;. I have seen them come out and pay peoples rent, or fill their pantries and cupboards with food.

The whole argument about taxes is ridiculous, imo, its as if society feels they have more right to ones money than the earner has and they will decide what he gets to keep. Imo, income should be exempt from direct taxation, profits should be where we tax, either through sales taxes or tariffs. In the system we have Romney has already paid taxes on his income once, then again after he invested as capital gains, and if he wouldnt have setup a legal trust it would of been taxed once again as his estate when he died. Seems to me he has paid his fair share, atleast his legal share. This whole storyline is irrelevent imo.

lisab

He only gets one vote?! Damn that Constitution!

Evo

I already did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finance...s#Use_of_funds

Evo

of which half actually went to the incredibly wealthy Mormon Church, not really a charity, IMO, but did lower his taxes.

http://nbcpolitics.msnbc.msn.com/_ne...eveal-and-omit

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/m...135129751.html[/

And he makes over $21 million a year, has $100 million is a tax free trust, and his investments in a Cayman Islands tax haven, and until 2010 had his money in Swiss bank accounts, possibly the reason he's not willing to disclose those tax returns?

KingNothing

Wow! What a pointless thing to say. What if I said "If you don't like the way the pyramids look, tear them down and rebuild them." When a person has to become a politician just to influence politics, that doesn't sound like much of a democracy.

mheslep

So what?

Evo

In response to you saying how much he paid in taxes. Well, it's because of how much money he made.

ParticleGrl

Not true. A fair chunk of it is carried interest. That means it was a commission fee that was only taxed one time, at the capital gains rate.

Because there is no such thing as diminishing marginal utility of money? Really?

Of course he does! The networth of the US is something like 55 trillion. Romney controls at least 250 million (about 10^-6) of that. His tax revenue is also about 10^-6 of the defense budget. If we aren't over-defended, he pays pretty much the cost to defend his chunk of America.

The median household in the US controls a few hundred thousand (maybe, does anyone have the number for median wealth?). So they control 10^-9 of the wealth, but pay 10^-8 of the defense budget. Under the same assumption, the median tax-payer pays 10x what it costs to defend his chunk of America. Romney gets a better deal.

If the country fell to communists tomorrow, and they confiscated all private property, I'd be out a few thousand and my rust-bucket car. Romney would be out millions.