Do the American People care about Romney's tax returns?

[hombre]

What's Strasburg's effective tax rate?

I think it would be less taxing (on his arm) to put him in the bullpen

[Fresno Bob]

This will be about the 7th time in this thread that I've posed this question: but why in the world would we expect anything otherwise?

We've already established Mitt makes 100% of his money from capital gains/dividends- ie. appreciation of his (mostly) stock portfolios. So in a year like 2008, where the stock market took a huge tumble- OF COURSE he will have paid zero taxes- he will have enormous capital losses. Probably in the tens of millions, if he's really worth $200MM.

Check your 401(k)statement- I'm 99% sure you had capital losses that year as well. And 2001, for that matter. If you didn't, please PM me the name of your investment adviser, pronto

because it is frakking obscene for someone making hundreds of millions a year to pay ZERO in federal taxes. His capital gains and losses are just paper, he'll still have an income of 50-200M in those years, offset with paper losses from assets that were granted to him.....

oh, and by the way, I had zero capital losses in 2008 and 2009 because I didn't sell anything, funny, but by not selling, my 401k is currently 20% higher than it was in 2009.

[heyelander]

I think everyone here understands.... I still think a large portion of the country doesn't understand this at all.

[Lucky]

Well, again, not really...

few, noun, pronoun,
adjective
1.
not many but more than one: Few artists live luxuriously.

My English teacher tells me the rule is that if there are two, say two. If you don't know how many there are, you can say a few. For example, you wouldn't say "I stuck my hand into my pajama pants this morning and found a few testicles". Or you might. I'm not sure. I know that when you tell the officer how many beers you had, it's better to say "a couple" than "a few".

But this is all the time I want to spend discussing the proper use of the word "few". Few times have I ever given it a thought.

[Lucky]

For lower income earners ($50K or less), there are various taxes which create a significant burden, but do not factor into the tax picture of the ultra wealthy. Social Security taxes are significant. For any portion of the income which is not salary or wages, the percentage is even higher. Medicaid taxes bite a little. That's before you get to federal and state income tax. Plus in some states, there are sales taxes on groceries. Between all of these, a family of four making $50K gets hit pretty hard...not necessarily from federal income tax, but from some taxes that disproportionately impact the lower income earners.

[Hornsby]

My English teacher tells me the rule is that if there are two, say two. If you don't know how many there are, you can say a few. For example, you wouldn't say "I stuck my hand into my pajama pants this morning and found a few testicles". Or you might. I'm not sure. I know that when you tell the officer how many beers you had, it's better to say "a couple" than "a few".

But this is all the time I want to spend discussing the proper use of the word "few". Few times have I ever given it a thought.

All right sir, you take your colorful analogies and your English teachers advise, and I'll take Websters Unabridged and the Washington Post. We'll shake hands, call it a day, and agree to disagree...

[hombre]

Fair enough. I think Romney's clearly getting by without paying taxes like a normal mortal, but that's just opinion of course.


You're now delving into another area of taxation with which I have more than a passing familiarity (I've done my research) --- the notion that capital gains taxes are "double taxed". Here is a pretty clear discussion about that subject, if you'd like to learn more: http://www.tax.com/taxcom/taxblog.ns...F?OpenDocument

Thanks for the link- will check it out