New York Times: Can People as Rich as Romney Escape Taxes? They Can

[Fumesucker]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/11/business/in-the-superrich-clues-to-romneys-tax-returns-common-sense.html?_r=1&hp

On the face of it, Senator Harry Reid’s explosive but flimsily sourced claim that Mitt Romney paid no income tax seems preposterous. Mr. Romney has denied it, and without his returns no one can say for sure. But for someone who makes millions of dollars a year, would it even be possible?

Evidently it is.

It so happens that this summer the Internal Revenue Service released data from the 400 individual income tax returns reporting the highest adjusted gross income. This elite ultrarich group earned on average $202 million in 2009, the latest year available. And buried in the data is the startling disclosure that six of the 400 paid no federal income tax.

The I.R.S. has never before disclosed that last fact.

Read the rest of the article at the link..

[1StrongBlackMan]

1. Roh Roo ...

And buried in the data is the startling disclosure that six of the 400 paid no federal income tax.

This is gonna hurt!

The I.R.S. has never before disclosed that last fact.

Next Democratic ad:

"He says he paid all the taxes he was required to pay. The IRS says that in his income grouping ... that's $200 million ... 400 people paid zero, nada, not a single cent in federal income taxes ... or do you think I should say 399 others didn't pay federal income taxes."

[unblock]

2. it's not all that hard, either. stick it all in munis and live off triple-tax free dividends.

what's hard is figuring out how to earn ginormous returns while still avoiding taxes.

but if you loathe taxes and are content to earn a rather low interst rate, then munis will do it.

alternatively, you can donate to charity and/or realize capital losses enough to completely offset your taxable income.

ordinary people need to spend enough to live on, and it's very hard to do that without generating taxable income; but for very rich people, it's not at all impossible. and i'm not even talking about hiding accounts overseas.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

3. I'd personally like to take this moment to thank Mitt Romney.

Thank you for refusing to show your taxes. Without that move on your part we wouldn't be making such rapid headway toward real tax reform on the rich.

[klook]

4. "Since Mr. Romney seems to have had relatively little ordinary income since leaving Bain Capital,

...he may have been able to get to a very low rate in 2009 using tax loss carry-forwards from 2008..."

So even if Rmoney didn't pay $0 in income tax every year for the past ten years, it's a good bet he didn't pay any in 2009 -- the year the "smart money" in the U.S. heavily offset gains with losses from the Bush Depression.

So c'mon, Willard, if you paid $0 in income tax in just one of those ten years, Harry Reid will have to eat his words with honey on top, so why not release the returns and end all this damaging speculation? Then we can focus on something positive, like your and Paul Ryan's plans to destroy Medicare.