Romney pays 15% taxes

ParticleGrl

So then Romney benefits much more than I do from the government's enforcement of contract law, and therefore pays to support it. My point being- Romney clearly owns more of America than the median taxpayer. He therefore pays much more to keep his assets safe.

And its not just more in the bank- Romney has stakes in properties all over the country (and probably world). Much of what the military does is defend US interests- which in turn means US assets.

Given that neither one of us WAS in the trade center, which one of us lost more wealth from the destruction of the trade center? I'm willing to bet Romney, by a mile.

russ_watters

Interpretation:

The previous reference appeared to add-up all the tax revenue and income in each bracket to come up with an average tax rate for the bracket. So the average tax rate for a 1%er is 19%.

Newt, on the other hand, is not an "average" 1%, he's on the low end of the 1% and makes most of his money as ordinary income, taxed at the top marginal rate. So his rate is quite high (comparitavely), at 31.6%.

So what separates a low-end 1%er like Newt (in terms of taxes paid, not income) from an "aveage" one like Romney is how much of their income is "normal" vs capital gains and how much they contribute to charity. For those who derive little from capital gains and don't contribute much to charity - like Newt - their effective income tax rates are among the highest of any Americans. I suspect that category also includes most professional athletes, actors, experienced doctors and lawyers and very successful small business owners.

mheslep

Yes that sounds right to me.

ThomasT

Whatever justifications might be given for Romney's tax payment(s), I have to agree with the polemicists who think that his disclosure will hurt his chances. But he had to do it. And now we know why he didn't want to.

So now Romney isn't just the sleazy political opportunist, or the adherent to a religious cult in the minds of some, he's also an extremely rich guy who pays a smaller percentage of his income in taxes than a huge number of Americans who are stuggling to make ends meet.

russ_watters

Er, didn't we just see a stat that showed Romney paid a higher rate than 80% of Americans?

ThomasT

I missed that. So, 80% of Americans pay less than 14% tax on their incomes?

russ_watters

Yup, roughly: looking back, the stat was 80% paid less than 15% and Romney paid 14.5%. But that shouldn't be surprising since 47% pay 0% or less, right?

Evo

And why do they pay no taxes? Below the poverty level?

Here's the answer, they're dirt poor.

http://news.yahoo.com/numbers-47-per...170500327.html

Char. Limit

I've got two jobs, but dad tells me that apparently I pay negative tax. Since I let him do my taxes, I trust him on that. Just sayin', not everyone who doesn't pay taxes is a worthless freeloader.

mheslep

It's not that legally paying no fed. income tax means anyone is worthless. It is simply the law, wrongly in my view. Everybody making enough to eat ought to pay something, half of 1% maybe, but something.

ThomasT

Yeah, I think it would be very difficult living, in America, on an income of, say, less than $25k, much less $10k per year.

lisab

Where I live (Washington State), there is a sales tax. So here, and in all places where there is a sales tax, they do pay something.

Not to mention gas tax, car registration tax, utility taxes, etc.

Char. Limit

Hey, I live in the same place!

*acts like he just found this out*

But yeah, there's sales tax, and I'm sure other taxes as well. Gas tax I think is going up.

mheslep

Everybody pays a local sales or local income tax somewhere, but I referred to federal taxes. Almost everybody should pay a little something to the federal govt. in my view, to encourage people to pay attention to federal elections if nothing else.

mheslep

That's hard for a family with kids, not so much for a single person. I lived on less than $25k (today's dollars) for a couple years, though I had no school debt burden. Took a trip to Europe for about $1200 (today's $) including air. I worked hard, played hard, and I was not 'poor'.

ThomasT

But wasn't Romney's income around $20m?

Imho, the tax code needs to be seriously revised ... basically eliminating all loopholes and deductions. Then somebody with an income like Romney's pays a much higher percentage in taxes than the average salary or wage earner.

The point being that when you get into the millions of dollars of yearly income, it's likely that much of that income is not the result of any sort of productive or creative work that benefits the general economy, but rather due to ridiculously inflated incomes/bonuses and investments.

There are people who pay less than 0% tax?

Anyway, isn't anybody who's working, and on the grid, subject to social security and medicare/medicaid taxes -- so that nobody who's filing a tax return, even if they get a refund wrt federal income tax, is untaxed?

ThomasT

Anyway, to return to my point, I think that this disclosure will hurt Romney. It simply adds to the list of things that average Americans might be expected to not like about him, imo.