Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks to supporters during a rally Friday, Sept. 21, 2012, in Las Vegas. Romney campaigned in Nevada as aides released a 2011 federal income tax return showing he and his wife, Ann, paid $1.94 million in federal taxes last year on income of $13.7 million. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)
Associated Press
In an incredible use of a double standard and by an artificial semantic contrivance, the Romney campaign screams that 47 percent of the population pay no income taxes, conveniently ignoring the fact that a very large percentage of them pay a greater proportion of their income in payroll taxes than Romney's total tax burden.
However, they do not use the same standard for measuring Mitt Romney's taxes paid. Romney did not pay 14 percent in income tax, as the biggest part of his income was from capital gains, therefore much of his taxes were no more "income tax" than the payroll tax paid by the working class whom he so neglects. Why should the GOP claim that capital gains taxes count as a legitimate substitute for income taxes if payroll taxes do not?
David Coppin
Logan
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The total percentage of taxes that Romney pays in federal, state, and local taxes combined is about the same percentage that is paid by the bottom 20% of the population. People in the middle income brackets pay more. Fix this problem and then we can More..
Note also that his income is new income and not previously taxed. It is passive income, not active income. His tax rate is taking advantage of the original idea to spur investment in productive economic activity, which he doesn't do. Romney is More..
Romney's latest tax return was "adjusted," he didn't claim over a million dollars in charitable deductions, thus making him pay more income taxes than was required. It would have looked really bad for Mitt's total federal tax More..