Newsgroup: it.politica
Titolo: ROMNEY: fiscal problem!

Romney's 15% Problem: He Pays the Same Tax Rate as a Family Making
$50,000
By Derek Thompson
 
 
The GOP frontrunner pays the same rate as many members of the middle-
class. Here's why that matters.
 
Screen Shot 2012-01-17 at 6.10.52 PM.pngIn graph, X-axis is in dollars
and numbers on the top of bars represent effective federal tax rates.
Click to enlarge. Data from Tax Policy Center analysis of Mitt
Romney's tax plan, which returns most rates to the Bush years.
 
Mitt Romney's private equity problem is taking a backseat today to
Mitt Romney's tax problem. The GOP frontrunner acknowledged that his
effective tax rate is around 15%, thanks to the tax code's
preferential treatment of income from investments and private equity
firms.
 
As Pat Garofalo explained for The Atlantic, a considerable portion of
Romney's income comes from a retirement deal with Bain Capital that
continues to pay him a small share of the firm's profits. The wonky
term for this cool stream of money is "carried interest" -- the share
of investor gains "carried" by the private equity or hedge fund
manager.*
 
You might expect that Mitt's millions would be treated as earned
income, because it represents gains from a service rendered by a
private equity manager. Normally, that sort of money would be taxed at
the top 35% marginal rate. Instead, the tax code treats Romney's
retirement payout as carried interest -- investment income from a
private equity firm shared among its managers. As a result, Romney
pays Uncle Sam only 15% of his Bain Capital income.
 
In 2009, 15% was the average effective tax rate for households making
between $75,000 and $100,000, in the middle quintile of U.S. families.
That means Mitt Romney, a mega-millionaire, pays the tax rate as if
his were a firmly middle class family, which would seem to pose a
considerable political problem to a candidate fighting for middle
class votes. To be clear, I don't think it's a moral problem. It's not
like it's his fault, or anything. It's just the natural outcome of a
tax system designed to give special treatment to investors -- and
private equity managers, in particular.
 
Whether investment taxes should be preferential is a matter for
debate. You can think of investment income from, say, a company's
stock, as being taxed twice: first by the corporate income tax and
second by the investment tax. That's a reason for capital gains taxes
to be lower, and lower investment taxes theoretically means more
savings and investment. On the other hand, the rich are more likely to
invest, and if we want to protect a progressive tax code and raise
enough money to fulfill our promises, taxing wealthy people's
investment income as ordinary income in the 35% bracket would raise
money we would otherwise have to borrow or cut.
 
Either way, private equity's "carried interest" loophole is not
capital gains. Capital gains are income from your own investments.
Carried interest is income from other people's investments. "If you
manage money for a mutual fund or a public company, you pay regular
income taxes," James Surowiecki explained in the New Yorker. "Do it
for a private fund, and you pay capital gains." That's backward.
 
But don't expect Romney to hear much about carried interest from his
fellow GOP presidential hopefuls. Under chief rival Newt Gingrich's
tax plan, all investment income would be tax free and Romney's overall
rate would fall quite near to zero.
 
___________

By Derek Thompson
 
Same old dirty bullshit that does't give the rest of the story as Paul
Harvey uses to say, tu non sai chi era ma tu non sai tante cose, sei
solo un credente che crede di sapere, you old piece of shit.
 

comunista.
 
Infatti ho concluso con " you old piece of shit" che e' la stessa cosa
che hai detto tu.

Testa di ClaPos ha fatto la solita puzzetta il 03/09/2012.
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