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Mitt Romney has proudly declared that he has never paid less than 13% in taxes.
Which begs the question;
13% of what?
I have waited in vain for anyone in either the MSM, or the Blogosphere to ask this question.
In our tax system, all marginal tax rates are meaningless numbers when you consider the deductions/loop-holes that exist to minimize the amount of income which is being taxed.
The average person can be excused for misunderstanding this issue because most of those loop-holes do not effect W-2 wages.
Most people will never see income from capital gains, just as most will never be effected by the inheritence tax.
Most people cannot avoid counting income made in other countries, or take deductions for the expenses related to moving businesses they happen to own to other countries.
Here’s a link to a graphic that represents the history of our country’s top marginal tax rates, it clearly represents the results of forty odd years of the successful efforts on the part of rich and powerful people to minimize their tax contributions to the cost of government.
Over that forty years or so, the very rich, investors, and corporations have paid less and less of the cost of the government which we all rely on, as the people in the middle, and at the bottom have paid more and more.
OTOH, most working people understand their tax bill as being some percentage of the wages they earn as reported on their W-2 form.
The important part of that reality is that there is very little that the average wage earner can do to drive their taxable income below a certain number, so when a wage earner says that they pay a particular percentage of their income in taxes, it means something that their neighbors can probably understand, and relate to.
When Mitt Romney loudly proclaims he has always paid at least 13%, it probably means nothing remotely like what he intends us to believe.
In fact, I’d say that when Mitt Romney says he has always paid at least 13%, it means less than nothing, unless he also tells us 13% of what.
12 Comments
Don’t forget about how the corporations have paid less and less and less of the total tax bill!!
This is a biggie! We’ve freed the average corporation from providing any support to our government, while they continue to take advantage of all that government infrastructure providing education for employees, roads, etc., you name it … its free to GE while a middle income earner pays for it.
Thank you. So have I. And I feared that that omission would forever go unmentioned. And, everyone quoted it as though it made sense.
Good point. Nice diary.
I recommend this and the chart link.
What jumped out at me is the 1%ers that provide material support for wars were taxed at or around 90% during the world wars for good reason.
Why not the 90% rate on the war profiteers this time ?
Thank you for asking the question, Watt4Bob.
It is an excellent and pertinent question, and it gives rise to a series of questions that should and MUST be asked, as well as answered.
About the taxes paid, or not paid, by the wealthy and by corporations.
How and why, for example, does Halliburton receive a tax “credit” of $1.026 BILLION?
And, I think we should ask President Barack Obama those questions … as these “things” are happening on HIS “watch”. At the very least he ought to be willing to look into what is going on, as he certainly owes that much to the rest of us.
Recommended to the entire FDL community … as everyone of us would benefit from answers and some meaningful “change” and I don’t mean “chump change” …
DW
You’re right, and the link displays the ever-decreasing portion that corporations pay in taxes.
I think we might as well think of Mitt as a corporation as far as that goes.
It’s so obvious, it just boggles the mind.
As far as we know, Harry Reid may be right, Mitt may have paid no taxes in some years, I’m sure he can come up with enough losses, loop-holes and shelters to drive his ‘income’ down to nothing, or next to nothing relative to his ‘worth’ in the same way that GE managed to pay no taxes in some years.
0 X 13% = 0
Excellent point. “Never less than 13 percent” may sound sort of reasonable at first blush but without the ‘of what’ part answered and backed, the claim is misleading. rec’d.
Exactly!
Now they’ve figured out how to run us into profitible wars without even the illusion of contributing to the ‘shared sacrifice’.
We have become a stupid and credulous people.
Thank you, and keep up the good work.
Thanks DW, I’m sure from the brazen way in which Romney is defending his privacy on this matter that his tax returns contain some really ‘interesting’ information about the ways that the 1% cheat the rest of us by side-stepping their responsibilities to contribute to the cost of the ‘freedoms’ we all wish to enjoy.
Gives new meaning to those bumper-stickers that the right is so fond of;
“Freedom Isn’t Free”
Except for the 1%, who are entitled to every conceivable and inconceivable break?
Yes, I think it would be very hard to pack more dishonesty into less words.