Romney - I paid at least 13% taxes

......every year for the last 10 years , and we also give 10% of our income to charity (a question about that - would that be tithing to the Mormon church?? )

you have to wonder who is advising him on this - if he did pay his full dues, then releasing his returns would, of course, take the wind right out of the sails of the attacks on him.

And the privacy issue? Well we've all seen how much privacy you get as a piolitician in the USA - so forgive me if I think that pleading privacy for himself sounds more than a little hyporcritical!!

But perhaps he's jsut biding his time? Perhaps he's thinking (or his advisers are thinking) that releasing the returns showing he is squeaky clean jsut 2-3 weeks before the vote would get him a better result??

I traveled to the moon last night on a magical unicorn!

The problem is that I'm not backing that statement up any more than Mitt seems to be backing his stories up. Easy fix... compromise and release 5 or 6 years just to stop the criticism. It's very telling that he won't just solve the problem in the most efficient way possible...

I mean isn't "efficiency" kind of the guys platform to begin with?

~Heff

If he follows suit with the current president on releasing important documents, he has well into his first term to do so.

Double post, argh.

reply to post by Zarniwoop


Blame the magical unicorns!

That's about right considering most of his income is capital gains based. I paid about 17% last year, IIRC, as I have little to no capital gains, which are taxed at a lower rate than ordinary income. Even so, Romney paid millions of dollars in taxes per year and I paid a few thousand. How many millions of dolars did you pay in taxes?

It's obvious that Mitt is both rich and smart, so he's going to pay the lowest possible tax rate allowed by the code.

Releasing his returns will just give the Obama campaign more fuel to vilify him for being really rich and really smart, which is against everything they stand for.

Queue Joe the Plumber.

Mitt filed as a citizen of Massachusetts when he was running for governor. Right after the IRS allowed him to change the state he declared himself a citizen of.

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


Der.. most of his income is Capital Gains. If you want to jack Capital Gains you risk decimating the investment banking sector (ie, top performing sector of the economy). It's not like the good ol days where you can tax high performing industries and get away with it. Wall Street could pack up shop and hop to Singapore and do the same damn thing paying a fraction of the taxes.

reply to post by Rockpuck


Singapore has limited ability to buy our government than Wall Street. So let them go to Singapore and see how long they would last.

Tax is a broad term.
property tax
state tax
sales tax
gas tax
Why can't Mittens say " I payed 13.6 % IN FEDERAL TAXES " ?

Sales tax, gas tax, etc.... Yeah, most of us pay more than 30% of our income in taxes...

How much is your Federal Income Tax, Mr. Mittens? Prove it.

At this stage in your game, your words do not mean much. Not that they would mean much anyway. After all, you are a politician.

AM

reply to post by Rockpuck


And your point is what exactly??

Lots of places in the world have a single "income tax" with no differentiation as to where you got your income - you add it all up, and pay tax at het appropriate rate on the total.

Giving capital gains a discounted tax rate is jsut helping the rich at the expense of the poor!

and banking does not actually create wealth of prosperity - except for the bankers.....have you missed the last 5 years of crap going on due to the banking sector??

How some people can not tell the difference between salary taxation and capital gains taxation based off stocks that can and have lost their value of the so called "financial crisis" proved is beyond me.

The fact remains two different animals no matter how much some people want it to be the same.

hell even if Romney paid 13% percent on 200 million he still paid more than the people who decry him as not paying.

Deal with it doesn't make a bit of difference if Mittens gave aways all his income the fact is he is a "Right winger" and the only good rich people are Buffet the tax dodger and the Kerry multimillionaire's or

Rich Democrats the oxymoron are AOK!.

Originally posted by neo96
How some people can not tell the difference between salary taxation and capital gains taxation based off stocks that can and have lost their value of the so called "financial crisis" proved is beyond me.

And since you dont' know that this was the case for Mitt what are you trying to say??

hell even if Romney paid 13% percent on 200 million he still paid more than the people who decry him as not paying.

200 million is is worth, as I understand it, not his INCOME.....so perhaps you could take a leaf from your own book & play "spot the difference"...???

His INCOME has been reported as about $20-21 million

Now your point about how much tax he pays does stand despite your error - heck even 1% of his income is still a great deal more than I earn in total!

But one of the points obout income tax is that those who earn more get to pay more....how much more is always arguable.....bleating as if there's something strange or wrong about Mitt paying lots and me paying (relatively) little does Mitt no favours.

Oh...and since some people seem to ahve missed it.....

THE OP IS NOT ABOUT HOW MUCH TAX HE PAID!!!!!!! Or whether 13% is "fair" or any similar judgement.

the OP is why doesn't he make his returns public.

Originally posted by Hefficide

I traveled to the moon last night on a magical unicorn!

Thank God! I thought the tequilla was making me see things.

Here's what I don't get. God only asks for 10%. Why does the Government need more than that?

Maybe we can save a little money by nuking the Middle East. That way, we don't have to spend trillions of dollars invading each country one at a time.

You can bet that no tax was paid on any OFFSHORE investments stahed away n the Canaries.......just like every other multi....millionair

Originally posted by stirling
You can bet that no tax was paid on any OFFSHORE investments stahed away n the Canaries.......just like every other multi....millionair

So you're saying Obama has money stashed in the Canaries? Why hasn't this been all over the news?