Romney releases tax returns

Post Reply New Topic

Who gives a crap?? I read the article, or one similar to it.

Neither one of them would recognize the way their consituencies live if it bit them on the butt (and, oh, I hope it does).

Each one tries to paint the other as being out of touch with the lives and values of the American people.

Well! Finally! Politicians tell the truth!

I particularly liked this part:

http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/21/pf/taxe ... ?hpt=po_c1

Romney lied about how much he had owed, so he changed his taxes to overpay (knowing he could get the money back later) rather have to admit that he had just made a mistake.

The best part of all is that a few months ago he spoke on this subject:


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/22/us/po ... emityn.www


So there you have it, Mitt Romney no longer considers himself qualified for the presidency!


Presumably he will endorse Obama shortly

I overheard (on a television that was on in the main lobby) on Meet the Press, former President Bill Clinton stated that the Romneys only released a few years' worth of taxes, while the current President released over a decade's worth. Interesting (if true, you can't always believe what you hear). I just want to cut the crap and vote:

I'm hoping for Cthulhu to pick Wilbur Whately as his running mate, so as to get the pre-ecludian god/human hybrid vote.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Is someone who made $50,000 a year made all of their income through capital gains, then they would pay a similar tax rate. Frankly, I think that capital gains should have a 0% tax rate. Romney already paid taxes on the money once through either income tax or inheritance tax, primarily the former.

I don't see how that's true. If I buy shares in a company for $1000 and a few years later sell them for $2000 I would pay tax on the $1000 difference. Sure, I paid taxes on however I got the original $1000 investment, but I don't pay tax on the difference unless I sell the stock.

Problem is in the case of investments, the returns on investments are taxed twice.

The first time is the taxes that have to be shelled out either sales, corporate taxes etc, then it gets taxed again in the form of Capital Gains taxes.

You can't be that stupid.

Yes, investments are purchased with after tax income. But capital gains taxes are just that: taxes on capital gains. The adjusted cost base is not taxed, only the difference in price between sale and purchase.

Furthermore, capital losses can be used to offset gains; and interest carrying charges on the purchase price can be deducted from income. Under no circumstances are the capital returns on investment double taxed.

The more interesting question is the tax treatment of dividends. Since they are paid out from the after tax profits of corporations, there is a sound argument that there should be a corresponding offset to the corporation for profits paid out in the form of dividends, so that the coporation's tax liability is limited to its addition to retained earnings.

That's stupid. Pure vapid linguistic gimmick. You could say a sales tax is a double tax because you're using income that's already been taxed once. Let's get rid of all sales taxes! The same money is taxed hundreds of times as it changes hands and circulates through the economy. So what. That's just how taxes works. If I make $50,000 sitting on my ass short-selling stock options all day it should be taxed at least as much as income. That people like Romney should be trust-fund babies for life, not contributing a single dime in income taxes, while someone making $50,000 has to shell over 20% of their income to the federal government is just downright offensive. Stop listening to the plutocrat right-wing media that's jamming your head full of this silly self-serving clap-trap. These people have already admitted on tape that they are paying your man Mittens to lower their own taxes while calling nearly half the country a bunch of lazy hand-out seeking parasites.

Actually, I wouldn't mind the sales tax being abolished, and the idiotic mess of a tax code replaced with a simple 10% income tax.

Does that mean ten percent of all income? If so, someone whose income just barely keeps them from starving will be killed dead by a ten percent tax or even a five percent tax.

There has to be a lower cutoff somewhere of the flat tax will be lethal to our poorest citizens.

ruveyn

Thank you for having a heart.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

What does sense and reason have to do with "having a heart".

ruveyn

Okay, have it your way. But I suspect deep down, there beats a heart of gold in your chest.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

It is safe to assume that if many of the other taxes were all replaced by that simple 10% income tax, that it wouldn't affect lower income individuals all that much, especially if the extremely regressive sales tax was done away with.

That means payroll taxes are gone, sales taxes, estate taxes, taxes one has to pay at the gas pump, etc.

If you see the price at the pump dramatically decrease, while holding existing fuel efficiency standards as is:
1. The cost of goods would substancially decrease as transportation costs have decreased.
2. Production costs would also decrease.
3. Cost of living would substancially decrease and standard of living would increase.

Gasoline Prices affect a lot of other aspects of the economy.

When I say a flat 10% income tax, I mean a lot of other taxes are done away with in the process, I don't mean add this tax on top of the existing tax code. If someone is living in poverty and has a job, there are already plenty of hidden taxes that they are getting hit with. They are also getting hit with several very regressive taxes that are hidden (people don't know they are paying them and often blame the business when it is the tax they are getting hit with).

The 10% income tax, that they are consciously aware of paying, makes it so that they are accutely aware that they are paying for whatever the government is doing. That means when the government starts to make drunken sailors look frugal, then they are likely to be just as outraged as someone in the middle class.

And when is that 10% supposed to be withdrawn? On tax day, in one lump sum? Being as frugal as possible doesn't negate the fact that being deprived of that ten percent in one felled swoop would be financially devastating to the poor. That's why payroll taxes are taken out of a person's paycheck incrementally.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer