Thursday, July 26, 2012

The Mittsy Chronicles: The Taxman--And The American People--Waiteth


Joshua Green, of Bloomberg Businessweek, has a theory about Mittsy's refusals to release his tax returns, and, well, it sounds very plausible indeed; Green thinks Mittsy  didn't pay any federal income tax in 2009.
That's right, folks, the multi-millionaire, who says he's one of 'us,' who says he understands the problems of the middle-class, quite possibly didn't pay one thin dime in federal income taxes even though he's a millionaire many times over.
Green says it's plausible that Mittsy "suffered a large enough capital loss that, carried forward and coupled with his various offshore tax havens, he wound up paying no U.S. federal taxes at all in 2009."
Oh, so it's not just that he lost a bundle, but also because he's got so much loot tied up in the Cayman Islands and in Switzerland that there really is no need for him to pay taxes.
And Green continues: "Even assuming that his return was thoroughly clean and legal—a safe assumption, it seems to me—the fallout would dwarf the controversy that attended the news that Romney had paid a tax rate of only 14 percent in 2010 and estimated he’d pay a similar rate in 2011....In fact, Romney did carry forward a capital loss from 2009 into 2010, so we know he had no taxable capital gains in 2009. But big capital losses alone wouldn't be enough to save Romney from paying any tax."
See, Mittsy had about "$9 million in 2010 income other than capital gains: interest, dividends, speaking fees and the like. It's unlikely that things were radically different the year before. You can't offset these types of income with capital losses, so Romney would need some other strategy to avoid tax on these kinds of income....We do know that Romney has at least one source of negative ordinary income: a family trust that reported non-passive losses in 2010. It's possible that this trust also lost money in 2009, and that those losses went to offset Romney's income from interest and dividends."
It's all perfectly legal, I'm guessing, because it sounds like a load of gibberish to me, but, um, do you think just because it's legal, that it's right? Especially given that the multi-millionaire who quite possibly paid no taxes whatsoever in 2009 wants to be President?
Yeah, I didn't think it's right, either.
In addition, Green discusses the oh so large contributions Mittsy has made. In 2010, for instance, he gave away about $3 million dollars, so might it be safe to assume he gave a similar amount away in 2009? "[L}arge donations in a year when his income was beaten up due to capital losses would have meant very large writeoffs."
And then you have his state taxes: "[W]e have reason to believe that Romney paid a whole lot of state income taxes in 2009. That's because he took a state income refund of over $400,000 in 2010. Since Massachusetts has a flat, 5.3 percent state income tax, that suggests Romney made enough estimated payments to cover state tax on $8 million more in income than he was actually taxed on in 2009."
I find it odd that Mittsy can "give away" $3 million dollars and, again, possibly, plausibly, not pay a cent in taxes. I also find it odd that any middle-class American who pays a higher percentage in taxes than Mittsy and possibly, plausibly, faithfully pays taxes every single year would want a man like Mittsy in the White House.

4 comments:

  1. Bob,

    Did you see Mittsy's interview yesterday with Brian Williams. Brian asked Mittsy about his wife's dressage horse (which he took as a tax deduction) competition in the Olympics. First Mittsy wouldn't even say the world "dressage" (French you know and FOREIGN) and then he said he DIDN"T EVEN KNOW WHEN HER COMPETITION WAS. Talk about a congenital liar.

    Isn't it interesting that the one thing that Mittsy stays firm on is his refusal to release his tax returns for more than one year and even than one year wasn't complete?

    The question isn't going away Mittsy. Better release the tax returns and get the news out of the way that for some years you paid NO TAXES.

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  2. Let us also turn an eye upon the group that wrote the tax code. If everything he did was legal (and I'm betting it was) he was allowed to do so by the US Congress.
    (I also find it *funny* that we have commercials on tv offering to protect the taxpayer from their own government... but that is another story.)

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  3. He is just a pure mess. Why is he even running?

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  4. He is going on McCain's precedent of releasing only two years of returns (one of which is YET to come). How do we get away from "precedent' and force the issue?

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