The Old Romney is back!

[bannination]

"I think throughout this campaign as well, we talked about my record in Massachusetts, don't forget - I got everybody in my state insured," Romney said. "One hundred percent of the kids in our state had health insurance. I don't think there's anything that shows more empathy and care about the people of this country than that kind of record."

Link

Geez he's so wishy washy.

[Wneglia]

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said he thinks it is "fair" that he pays a lower tax rate on his investment income of $20 million last year than someone who made $50,000 annually...

I don't think it is fair at all. That money has already been taxed once. The U.S. capital gains rate is significantly higher than the international average.

[bannination]

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said he thinks it is "fair" that he pays a lower tax rate on his investment income of $20 million last year than someone who made $50,000 annually...

I don't think it is fair at all. That money has already been taxed once. The U.S. capital gains rate is significantly higher than the international average.

I'm mixed on that. I think there should be a limit.... obviously for Romney that's his main source of income and should in my opinion be taxed as ordinary income.

Limits on the amount of money, etc... I don't know, but I feel that it's not right. Someone that's doing hard manual labor scraping by should not be taxed more than someone sitting on their ass doing nothing but waiting on the money to come to him.

[k9nanny]

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said he thinks it is "fair" that he pays a lower tax rate on his investment income of $20 million last year than someone who made $50,000 annually...

I don't think it is fair at all. That money has already been taxed once. The U.S. capital gains rate is significantly higher than the international average.

I don't understand. If I make $500,000, I pay taxes on it.
If I invest it, then cash it in for $750,000, am I not paying taxes only on the profit?
How is that taxing it twice?
Is the profit taxed as regular income PLUS capital gains?

OK- I may know about dogs and some other stuff, but I'm an idiot about finances.

[Wneglia]

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said he thinks it is "fair" that he pays a lower tax rate on his investment income of $20 million last year than someone who made $50,000 annually...

I don't think it is fair at all. That money has already been taxed once. The U.S. capital gains rate is significantly higher than the international average.

I don't understand. If I make $500,000, I pay taxes on it.
If I invest it, then cash it in for $750,000, am I not paying taxes only on the profit?
How is that taxing it twice?
Is the profit taxed as regular income PLUS capital gains?

OK- I may know about dogs and some other stuff, but I'm an idiot about finances.

The money has already been taxed once at the corporate level. The double-taxation is not INVESTOR'S INCOME TAXES + INVESTOR'S CAP GAINS TAXES. The double-taxation is COMPANY'S CORPORATE INCOME TAXES + INVESTOR'S CAP GAINS TAXES.

Here's one way to put it: the value of your Exxon stock reflects Exxon's future post-tax earnings. So as a shareholder, you're already paying Exxon's corporate income tax, and the cost of that tax drives down the value of your stock. Any gains you make when you sell already have a chunk taken out of them by corporate income tax.

Why is it that all capital gains are taxed, but losses are limited to $3000? I know that losses are passed through to subsequent years, but some of us have accumulated so many losses, that there may not be enough future gains to use them.

Anyone who can own a successful kennel is not an idiot about finances.

[k9nanny]

Yes, Doc, I'm an idiot about them high finances.
As we speak, I'm doing my 2011 taxes, which involves doing a whole year's accounting in two weeks. Procrastination is one thing, but this is lunacy.

Thanks for the explanation. Makes a bit more sense. Sort of. The shareholder is still making a profit, so I don't have a whole lot of sympathy.

[Wneglia]

Yes, Doc, I'm an idiot about them high finances.
As we speak, I'm doing my 2011 taxes, which involves doing a whole year's accounting in two weeks. Procrastination is one thing, but this is lunacy.

Thanks for the explanation. Makes a bit more sense. Sort of. The shareholder is still making a profit, so I don't have a whole lot of sympathy.

I've been using Turbotax for 5 years, and before that did things manually. I know what you are suffering through.

[Wneglia]

That just doesn't make sense, Wneglia. By your reasoning no corporate employee should ever have to pay income tax on wages, either, since the money was already taxed as CORPORATE INCOME.

1. We earn income.

2. We then pay tax on that income.

3. We then either consume our after-tax income, or we save and invest it.

4. If we consume our after-tax income, the government largely leaves us alone.

5. If we save and invest our after-tax income, the government penalizes us with as many as four layers of taxation.

You don’t have to be a supply-side economist to conclude that this heavy bias against saving and investment is not a good idea for America’s long-run prosperity.

Perhaps we should adapt the tax structure of Hong Kong

[Wneglia]

Whether we should be encouraging saving and investment while discouraging consumer spending right now is a different discussion and is beyond my economics prowess.

But, you have still not explained why it's double taxation if it's done to corporate investment income but it's not double taxation if it's done to corporate wages income. Nor have you explained why it's okay to tax the income of a manual laborer or cancer doc at a higher rate than the investment income of a non-producer like Mitten.

Corporate profits are the residual after expenses. Labor is an expense, so it is deducted prior to corporate taxation.

Capital gains tax, in addition to double taxation is not adjusted for inflation, so any appreciation of assets is taxed at the nominal instead of the real value. This means investors must pay tax not only on the real return but also on the inflation created by the Federal Reserve.

Finally, a capital gains tax, like nearly all of the federal tax code, is a tax on future consumption. Future personal consumption, in the form of savings, is taxed, while present consumption is not. By favoring present over future consumption, savings are discouraged, which decreases future available capital and lowers long term growth.

Not only has a low capital gains tax rate worked to encourage savings and increase economic growth, a low capital gains rate has historically raised more in tax revenue

(at least those are the arguments eCONomists give.)

[k9nanny]

Y'all have made my head spin 'til I'm downright dizzy.
Perhaps I'm being naive, but the consumer ultimately pays the corporate tax, just as my customers pay my taxes.

Quite a few years ago, my MIL bought a chunk of land for $70k. Within a few years, she was offered double that, and she balked at the capital gains tax and held onto the land. Made no sense to me. Take 30% (at that time) of $70k, and that left her $49k more than she started with, minus four or five years of property tax, mostly at the agricultural rate.

That's not corporate, of course, but she's been paying taxes on the land all these years, which will cut her profit should she decide to sell. Boo hoo.

[Stinger]

The money has already been taxed once at the corporate level.

Romney's not taking corporate profits. Romney dealt with private equity. You buy a company, leverage it to the hilt, take your profit, and leave the company to pay off the debt you just ran up.

If it makes it, fine. If it goes bankrupt -- too bad. You already got your money. And it doesn't get taxed as income, according to U.S. tax code. You get to bank it and take it out as capital gains at half the rate of income. Without that bit of favoritism in the tax code, people wouldn't be so crazy about private equity deals.

Romney took his horde of money and ran. Too bad the big Wall Street supporter and enabler didn't have it all in Bear Stearns.

The U.S. tax codes encourage and reward this type of activity, unlike any other country in the world. That's why the U.S. has had the explosion of private equity firms, firms which leech off of the economy and do the country no good . . . except for construction companies that install car elevators in garages and for yacht manufacturers, etc.

[Bungalow Bill]

"I think throughout this campaign as well, we talked about my record in Massachusetts, don't forget - I got everybody in my state insured," Romney said. "One hundred percent of the kids in our state had health insurance. I don't think there's anything that shows more empathy and care about the people of this country than that kind of record."


I guess the only thing that would show more care would be to do it nationwide, right?

[Stinger]

Romney’s garbage man stars in new attack ad (3 video series)

Oh look, Mitten didn't "build that" all by himself.

[O Really]

I've said from the first that if "Governor Romney of Massachusetts" was running, he'd be trouble. Mitt the right wing ho, on the other hand, would self-destruct. I sincerely hope the Romney that showed up for the debate will be beaten down quicker than a Norquist-owned Republican proposing a tax increase.