he is generous to his church

But that generosity is hardly voluntary. You can't be a church member in good standing without paying your 10%. I'm sure he does get the benefits of the business contacts and social network.

Anonymous wrote:My big criticism is that IF you want to be POTUS, you have to pay taxes.
I would have not flinched to hear the numbers if he planned to retire, but the man is balsy enough to try to run for prez AND not pay taxes. What's next?

This is completely incoherent. He paid taxes at the required rate. Are you really suggesting that he should have thought, "Hmm, I'm running for president, why don't we use the ordinary income rate rather than the capital gains rate." That's ridiculous. Try not to be as reflexively myopic as the tea party.

TheManWithAUsername wrote:I was struck by how little the Clintons had paid. Following a link, I noticed that they gave 13% of their income to charity, but the writer included that for the overall calculation. I haven't crunched the numbers, but I believe everyone is doing the same with Romney.

I understand that that's technically correct, but I think it's unfair. A charitable gift isn't usually a loophole exploitation. Romney's case is a little strange b/c it's almost all to his church, which gives him some return, but still. (I also have a problem with calling a church that does so much prosthelytizing a charity.)

Well the Clinton's income is easy enough to look up. Their gross income was only $268K. Their income after all adjustments AND charitable deductions was $179K. They paid $50,932 in taxes. So when someone says they paid 18.6% that is on gross income. But net of deductions their tax rate was 28.5%.

If you give Mitt Romney $8 million in deductions ($7M charitable, $1M "other") his comparable income was 34.5M and his taxes were 17.9%

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/11/us/the-1992-campaign-clintons-tax-return-shows-36-income-rise.html

I think that the most charitable review of his taxes is that he is generous to his church. I think that is a thing we should all respect. Regardless of whether he gets personal benefit, I doubt he gets $3.5M of benefit per year. Not a lot of people pay $70K per sermon. or 20 grand a hymn. And the church does good work. Although it is worth noting that the Clintons, not exactly rich in 1990, gave at about the same rate as Romney.

On the other hand this analysis is confirmation that even after TMWAUN's observations, Romney still got off with a way lower tax bill.

Wow
A lot of mormon fans here defending Romney

I was struck by how little the Clintons had paid. Following a link, I noticed that they gave 13% of their income to charity, but the writer included that for the overall calculation. I haven't crunched the numbers, but I believe everyone is doing the same with Romney.

I understand that that's technically correct, but I think it's unfair. A charitable gift isn't usually a loophole exploitation. Romney's case is a little strange b/c it's almost all to his church, which gives him some return, but still. (I also have a problem with calling a church that does so much prosthelytizing a charity.)

TheManWithAUsername wrote:

jsteele wrote:That data used here is simply wrong. Kerry's tax rate was not 13.1.

That chart apparently came from here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/tax-rates-of-presidential-candidates-in-one-chart/2012/01/24/gIQAOEEeNQ_blog.html

In the text it says that Kerry's and McCain's numbers included their spouses.

Exactly. The article also says, "On his own, Kerry paid 22.9 percent in federal taxes".

jsteele wrote:That data used here is simply wrong. Kerry's tax rate was not 13.1.

That chart apparently came from here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/tax-rates-of-presidential-candidates-in-one-chart/2012/01/24/gIQAOEEeNQ_blog.html

In the text it says that Kerry's and McCain's numbers included their spouses.

When the carried interest rule ( which allows the private equity and hedge fund industries to effectively disguise income as capital gains so as to only pay 15% income tax) was challenged a few years ago, those industries lobbied like crazy to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars and were successful in preventing the rules from being changed to tax their income as actual income.

Even if you believe that return on a capital investment has to be taxed at a lower rate because of double taxation, the money a private equity or hedge fund manager makes is compensation akin to a salary and bonus (usually a 2% management fee and 20% or more of returns on the investment) for managing other people's money. It's a salary and bonus scheme. It's income.

There is no reason for them not to be paying the same marginal income tax rates as everybody else.None, other than the fact that they successfully bribed your congressman and managed to instill a Pavlovian response in the same fucking idiots who start to mechanically drool and wag their tails when they hear the words "free market" and "freedom", making them think that an ultra-rich guy's ability to avoid taxation is somehow an intrinsic element of capitalism.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:kerry pays a lower rate than romney. On another note remember when everyone thought hillary was a sure bet for the nomination? I am seeing deja vu on the republican side. Exciting vs drab (Obama vs Hillary) (Newt vs Ronmey)

Kerry's wife pays a lower rate than Romney. Kerry and his wife file separately and Kerry pays a considerably higher rate. Common sense would tell you that Kerry has a salary and, as such, couldn't get away with a 15% rate. Regardless, Kerry was criticized for his wealth and portrayed as being out of touch. Plus, he lost.

In the immortal words of Barney Frank, I haven't lived a good enough life for Gingrich to be the Republican nominee.

And I would bet dollars to donuts that Romney paid a much lower rate in prior years. He closed down his shelters partway into 2010.

That data used here is simply wrong. Kerry's tax rate was not 13.1. As I said before, this would be obvious if you simply used common sense. He receives a Senate salary which is close to $200,000. That is ordinary income. Kerry's wife is more in the Romney camp in the sense that her income is mostly not wage income and, hence, taxed at a lower rate. To get to 13.1, people are averaging Kerry's rate with his wife's rate. But, they file separately, so that is misleading.

But, both Romney and Kerry are playing by the rules as they exist today. The problem is not that they play by the rules, the problem is with the rules. Romney wants to make the rules even worse. Kerry wants to make the rules more equitable. That is the issue.