Quote:
Originally Posted by taxwonk
I disaree. This may be about that for some people. I am disgusted by the overwhelming arrogance of the asshole. Almost half the country and he says "Fuck 'em, they aren't even in the club." I am also criticizing him because he and his business associates have benefited so much in the last few years from government largesse that I keep waiting for God's Iron Fist to strike him down every time he calls someone else a parasite or moocher.
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I'm with you on carried interest. That loophole is logically unjustifiable.
But Romney was not painting with as broad a brush as his critics disingenuously argue. You and I are both smart enough to recognize the weakness of this argument: "The GOP lies when it says half of America pays no taxes! They pay all sorts of other taxes."
That's true. But examine that talking point a bit...
1. The other half also pays all those "other taxes." In addition to the income tax you and I pay, we also pay property taxes, sales taxes, school taxes, payroll taxes (or self employment). In other words, all the taxes the half who do not pay income tax pay.*
2. The payroll taxes fund SS and Medicare, from which most of the 47% who pay no income tax will receive benefits at some point - in many instances (certainly in regard to Medicare) multiples of what they put in, even inflation-adjusting present day dollars to those of years down the road in which use occurs.** The income tax funds government operations. In this regard, you and I are funding the infrastructure, and all other activities of govt, while the 47% are not. (Granted, to the extent we've borrowed from SS to fund other stuff, one can argue the 47% indirectly fund govt operations. But it's not much of an argument, because the other 53% do so as well, in addition to providing direct funding via income taxes.)
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* The state taxes the half who pay no income tax pay are deductible on a 1040 EZ, no?
** I'm no expert on the Earned Income Tax Credit, but don't a fair number of the 47% who pay no income tax also receive a refund of a portion of the payroll tax they pay via the EITC? Or does the EITC only refund/offset taxes above SS/Medicare taxes?
NOTE: Please do not argue that 47% is inaccurate. I don't know the exact percentage of Americans who pay no income tax, but stats tend to show it's around that number, and for purposes of an exercise like this, I'm assuming it's within a 5% margin of error. (And unless it had a 25% margin of error, the point we're discussing is unchanged. That anything over 25% of the country pays no income tax is an issue we should address.)
NOTE 2: I am assuming the 47% includes wealthy individuals employing tax structures to avoid all income tax. I don't know where Romney got his number from, but those I've seen citing similar percentages do so based on blind review of tax revenues, including both those who earn too little to pay, and those who earn enough to hire accountants and lawyers to avoid paying.
