I’m voting for Obama, but I simply don’t buy the argument that paying the lowest amount of taxes the law allows is immoral. I’ll bring up my mortgage deduction again. It’s a deduction I get because I own a house and others don’t get because they don’t. Millions of people take the deduction. If I make an investment, I’d only be taxed on the profits at 15%. Is there some moral line that’s crossed by simply following the tax code?
Yes, we need to reduce the available deductions and bring investment taxation in line with earned income taxation, but there’s nothing immoral about taking the available deductions. Look at Warren Buffet, who’s taking the deductions but using it as an example of how the system is broken. He’s also a very big philanthropist, so it’s not that he’s taking money from social programs to support his Faberge Egg habit or harm society.
IMO, it’s ploys like moving assets from one subsidiary to another or undervaluing assets (I’m not a tax professional; I’m sure this is wrong in one way or another) that is immoral. What they’re doing is legal, but wasn’t the intent of the law, rather they’re using loopholes of various degrees of legality to lower their tax burden.
If the Democratic Party can continue to focus the debate (such as it is) on plutocratic millionaire behavior instead of something more complex (like how do we actually deal with the deficit and the crumbling infrastructure), then the race will be won. The GOP has suffered greatly by embracing the least intelligent subset of its demographic, the ultraconservative religious fanatics.
Sometimes, I genuinely fear for the future of the republic.
Great. So, the problem is with those in congress that have crafted the tax code. I couldn’t agree more. And as far as we know (Reid’s sleaziness aside) Romney did nothing legally or ethically wrong concerning his taxes.
They craft the tax code that way because really rich people like Romney tell them to. They hire lobbyists and the lobbyists get the ear of congress. Ordinary people like me don’t have the same access or influence because we don’t have the Koch’s brother’s money. So I wind up paying a higher tax rate than he does. Then I get told by the Reps to STFU and stop whining about it. The ludicrous pretense that innocent rich people have no choice in how much taxes they pay nor any imput in how the tax code gets written is bullshit.
We don’t know what Romney did legally or morally. He won’t tell us. That’s the problem. Other candidates have told us. Romney has essentially said fuck you, Americans. He’s decided we have no right to know what he’s done with his money for most of his life. There’s the real sleaze. He could rebut Reid’s allegations in five seconds if he chose. He hasn’t.
I think Reid is this whole thing up and effectively daring Romney to prove him wrong.
They’re asking for ten right now and with good reason. His IRA balances are improbably high without some sort of shenanigans, his transfers to his children seem larger than could be justified under the Unified Gift and Estate Tax without some significant undervaluation, and politically speaking, it would cement the narrative that the Republicans are primarily interested in reducing the tax burden on the rich if Romney paid close to or below 15% effective tax rate over the last 10 years.
I wouldn’t be so quick to jump to this conclusion. We already know that corporations where he served on the board of directors engaged in very shady tax shelters. We see evidence of improbably high IRA values and very high welath transfers to his children. Many people suspect that he took advantage of the 2009 amnesty for a swiss bank account, which might be covering FBAR violations. There are legitimate concerns that rise above the level of birtherism.
I think you are suffering a failure of reading comprehension. They don’t want the rich to pay more THAN their fair share,they want the rich to pay more OF their fair share.
The problem with the taxes paid on investments in switzerland is that many people suspect that those swiss bank accounts didn’t appear on his tax returns until the 2009 amnesty program. IOW he had been hiding those assets that he was legally required to disclose under FBAR.
Yeah, cuz the IRS catches every tax cheat.
I think some people are saying the way thet ax code distributes the tax burden is immoral and that Romney is a good showcase for this inequity.
Of course others are doing the equivalent of condemning Romeny for driving at the speed limit because they think the speed limit is too high.
You mean like all those other nasty politicians who place those loopholes in the tax structure so they can take advantage of them, yet when the “other white meat” (rich folks) use the same loopholes it pisses them off?
I think rich people should pay more in tax, but that includes all rich and by rich I mean rich.
250k a year aint rich
Well, you may not feel rich, but that doesn’t mean that you aren’t rich. Yes, “rich” is a relative term, but it doesn’t depend only on who’s got the most and biggest toys within your personal circle of friends.
Well yeah, I didn’t imagine he was describing his own personal financial situation. (I figure EP is too cool for a Learjet; he’s a Piper or Beechcraft kind of guy.)