Mitt Romney complains about taxes, and waxes
Nostalgic, and asks where America went—
Though singing aloud of its beauty, his duty
To fund it is capped off at thirteen percent.
Though tax under Reagan was higher, denyers
Say taxes today are a punitive fine—
Though shouting with all of the bluster they muster
The noise I am hearing sounds just like a whine.
So Mitt says he’s never paid less than 13% in taxes in each of the past 10 years. Our tax burden is remarkably low when compared to our historical levels (most of Reagan’s years saw a 50% top bracket, and war years saw rates of over 90%, back when we actually paid for our wars), but you wouldn’t know it to listen to the TP/GOP.
> “…never paid less than 13%…”
For the past umpteen years I’ve not paid less than 20%. Somehow his *horrible sacrifice* hasn’t made me feel better about him.
David Simon nails it.
Exactly, James.
I think he just handed the Democrats political gold, tax returns or not all they need is to compare that 13% to the average effective tax rate for working families which was 17.4% in 2009 (according to the Congressional Budget Office http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43373).
Assuming for the moment that’s true–a big assumption when dealing with Willard–he’s STILL not releasing his returns.
Which means either he IS lying…or he’s hiding something even worse. Some have suggested he took advantage of a tax amnesty to square his earlier dirty dealings. Or he doesn’t want some of the income sources to be exposed.
Show us the returns.
Even if Romney had no income whatsoever he would still, with the amounts he receives, be subject to AMT which covers dividends, interest & capital gains as well as income. AMT has a minimum rate of 15% so Romney should be paying somewhere between 15 & 35 percent, no? Perhaps this is one reason we are not allowed to see those tax returns?
Of course there is one way to settle the issue and that would be for the IRS to audit Romney’s tax returns for the last seven years. We still wouldn’t get to see them but if there’s anything untoward we’d get to hear about it.