Posted on 01/17/2012 12:37:34 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
After weeks of stalling, Mitt Romney did an about-face on Tuesday and said he will release his tax returns in April and that they will show he pays close to 15 percent of his income in taxes.
Romney, a multimillionaire, has been under pressure from his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination and others to release the information. He'd previously said he wouldn't release it. He suggested Tuesday that he would make public only one year's worth of information, for 2011.
Speaking to reporters after a campaign stop in South Carolina, Romney said most of his income comes from investments, not regular wages and salary. The tax rate on investment income is 15 percent, much lower than the 35 percent rate applied to wages for those in the highest tax bracket.
"What's the effective rate I've been paying? It's probably closer to the 15 percent rate than anything," Romney said. "Because my last 10 years, I've ... my income comes overwhelmingly from investments made in the past, rather than ordinary income or rather than earned annual. I got a little bit of income from my book, but I gave that all away. And then I get speaker's fees from time to time, but not very much."
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Mitt is worse than our old Robber Barons
The Robber Barons created and ran entire new industries like steel, coal, oil, railroads. They were brutal but they were innovators and creators and perhaps were needed at that stage of America's development. Mitt Romney did not create anything except for minor investments in Staples, Dominoes and Sports Authority. Mitts forte was financial paper shenanigans that enabled him and his partners to mine companies and extract millions from them
Yep, but I’m just the little guy. :)
My biggest expense is rent, closely followed by Obama. It’s like I have a kid and I’m raising Obama...
I’d rather we both paid zero income tax. That would really make a difference on my bottom line.
Stop crushing the little guy, please.
The watchdogs are calling Mittster the “Buyout Baron.” Sounds pretty catchy to me.
Amen!
“You think that people who make less than Mitt should pay more in taxes???
What I’m saying is there is NO REASON IN THE WORLD that a middle class tax payer should have to pay a higher tax than Mitt Romney. What is wrong with that???
He did loot the company from the top. This is why he was hiding his tax return. I can’t believe you have any faith in man who has as much loyalty to a company or an issue as to who pays him the most money.... Just like a Prostitute.
You KNOW that’s the truth!”
I know your feelings about the matter are heartfelt and in a good place.In the economic arena, your notions would be characterized what one would denote as a economic populist not a conservative. The economic issues are much more complex than the “hiding,looting, prostitute” labels you broadbrush in your post.It would take a lengthy discussion about the economy to discuss all the issues you raise and it is not suitable for a thread. Let’s just leave it at that we disagree as to the complexity of the issues particularly the concept “that there is NO REASON IN THE WORLD that a middle class tax payer should have to pay a higher tax” than a rich person.That would entail a wide discussion of capital gains tax rates vs income tax rates, etc.
Outstanding post and well said!
“Your salary income is taxed at the state, federal and sometimes city level. Then you pay a sales tax on what you have left everytime you purchase something”
Those are state issues, and bringing them in muddies the argument as much as Buffet’s comparing the apples and oranges of income and capital gains taxes.
“If you save that money or invest it, you’re taxed on the capital gains, and when you die, your descendants pay a death tax on what remains.”
That’s true, and I should point out that the corporate tax in particular—nevermind for now the death tax—affects people who aren’t paid mostly in dividends and capital gains, too. The less profit a corporation makes, all things being equal, the less people they employ. Also, the less profit they make, the less money 99% put in their 401K or invest on their own.
It just so happens that the corporate tax affects people like Romney and Buffet more directly, since that’s how they take their income. For Buffet to compare himself to his secretary—again, forgetting that his secretary is paid more than basically any other secretary on Earth—he should add the coporate tax rate to the capital gains and whatever other applicable rates and compare that to the income tax rate. Not to is dishonest.
“I understand the reason for keeping the taxes on investment capital low”
I do, too. I only wish in all these conversations about the balance between savings and consumption, the supply and demand of investment, and the best tradeoff between marginal rate and GDP growth, the VAT tax would come up more often. No matter where you pinpoint capital gains rates, the government gobbles it profit before it ever gets to Buffet/Romney’s pockets. And that’s not just the way it is, that’s by design. The feds are only willing to toy with the marginal rates because they know there’s plenty other ways, less noticable ways, to get the goose’s eggs.
“the only way is to kill the spending beast and reduce the rates for everyone - including salary earners.”
The only ultimate way, yes. Which is not to say that some forms of taxation are better than others. But as a prominent economist once said, what matters most is how much we’re taxed, not how we’re taxed. And how much we’re taxed is a function of how much we spend.
And they had financiers behind them. Nothing wrong with it. It's how America has been run since the get-go.
“They were brutal”
People throw such accusations around rather freely, as obviously reflected by the term “robber baron” itself. No, they weren’t Robber Barons. They didn’t rob anyone, any more than businesses rob people nowadays. Does anyone honestly think they broke more laws or were somehow less scrupulous than in today’s economy? If possibly so, only because of certain cultural things beyond their control: for example, today’s relative ease of communication and far more overbearing court system (and if the courts make for less corrupt businesses, bear in mind they also make for more corrupt plaintiffs).
Otherwise, it was then as it is now. Easy to attack the whole age or the whole system as corrupt than to demonstrate it in fact beyond the particular. The ethical sitting alongside the unethical. No accounting for brutality, but the market and the rule of law as the best protectors against it. Various perfectly legitimate practices—such as lower rates for larger freight—painted as evil by ingoramouses. As always, corruption following government intervention more reliably than anything else. See, for instance, the difference between the railroads and Standard Oil.
Ah, here we hit the heart of the matter. The problem is plutocracy, which people blame on Big Business. The only reliable means of stealing is to have the law behing you. And actually, the orignial robber barons, from whom the Rober Barons got their appelation, were the government. Plutocracy is more government corrupting business than business corrupting government, despite the popular imagination. Insofar as business sticks its head government’s business to win for itself further concessions, I am in with socialists and Marxists.
Except they get the solution all wrong. By growing government to crush capitalists, you only invite more intervention, more people getting rich off government, and more corruption of government by Big Business. The real solution is laissez faire. There’s nothing wrong with trusts, the transcontinental railroad could’ve been built on its own (and was, by James J. Hill), and the only robber barons are the ones who actually robbed people, i.e. the ones with the legal robbers in government behind them.
Sprite, you gotta add in the piece where Mitt and Bain would take out huge loans in the name of the companies they acquire and immediately “pay” that money to themselves as dividends and fees. That would accelerate Bain’s profits and accelerate the decline of the companies they bought. Then when those companies went bankrupt, that borrowed money had already been paid out and could not be claimed by the creditors. That’s how Bain made net profits on most of the companies they acquired even when those companies went bankrupt. Plus government pension insurance was used to bail out some of those companies’ pensions even though Bain had already collected the companies’ assets and pocketed them.
Well, I’m not sure we disagree then.
It just means that taxes for everyone else is too high.
Thanks it’s really sick to see this happen. Everyone knows deep down inside that is wrong. If Mitt did this to a company, then what do you think he will do as President? Scary to think about.
I just hope the Tea Party can organize because technically the voters really have no choice in the Presidential election as it currently stands.
Thanks again for the great post!
You’re right. All the more reason to take a weed whacker to the budget. We don’t need any more deficit spending.
Ah, I see you follow the OWS/Marxist guide book on taxation.
“Since 1992, the I.R.S. has compiled data from the returns of the 400 Americans reporting the largest income. In 1992, the top 400 had aggregate taxable income of $16.9 billion and paid federal taxes of 29.2 percent on that sum. In 2008, the aggregate income of the highest 400 had soared to $90.9 billion — a staggering $227.4 million on average — but the rate paid had fallen to 21.5 percent.”
According to Mr. Buffett, lowering the tax rate increases the federal revenue from taxes. He does not state that, but presents clear data showing that!
It seems obvious its fixed since they do only one small state at a time instead of all 50 states on one day like we do for the Presidents.
Just think after South Carolina... Three states will tell the other 47 what are our choices? How fair is that?
Plus it also drags out the process.
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