{"id":29879,"date":"2012-08-17T06:32:21","date_gmt":"2012-08-17T12:32:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/17\/the-whopping-13.html"},"modified":"2012-08-17T06:32:21","modified_gmt":"2012-08-17T12:32:21","slug":"the-whopping-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/17\/the-whopping-13.html","title":{"rendered":"The whopping 13%"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don't necessarily agree with the premise here — that Romney seems amazingly proud of the fact that he paid the lavish effective rate of 13% on his taxes. \u00a0True, it's half of what I paid, as a rate, but …<\/p>\n

1. We don't really know what that 13% actually represents, given Romney's vague statement. All income, or just salary income (vs capital gains income)? \u00a0Or, heck, some have suggested that he might be lumping in the taxes paid on real estate and the like in there.<\/p>\n

2. We don't know how Romney brought his effective tax rate (of whatever sort, on some level of his income) down so low. Maybe he was giving massive amounts of charity to starving baby whales. \u00a0Maybe he had fantastic tax lawyers who managed to get it all socked away into exotic offshore accounts. Maybe he used perfectly legitimate and lawful and\u00a0laudable\u00a0means.<\/p>\n

The capper on both 1 and 2 is that we simply don't know.<\/i> \u00a0But we don't know because Romney won't tell us. \u00a0He's willing to assert "I did go back and look at my taxes and over the past 10 years I never paid less than 13 percent. I think the most recent year is 13.6 or something like that. So I paid taxes every single year", but _he won't actually show us._\u00a0<\/p>\n

So I don't necessarily condemn Romney for paying 13% in taxes … because we don't know what that means, or how he managed to reach that number.<\/p>\n

That's<\/i> what I blame him for.<\/p>\n

Reshared post from +Les Jenkins<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

This.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

Embedded Link<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWire Creator: Are We Supposed To Congratulate Romney For Paying 13% In Taxes<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDavid Simon, creator of The Wire, is outraged that Mitt Romney bragged about paying just over 13% in taxes.
\nCan we stand back and pause a short minute to take in the spectacle of a man who wants to be President of The United States, who wants us to seriously regard him as a paragon of the American civic ideal, declaiming proudly and in public that he has paid his taxes at a third of the rate normally associated with gentlemen of his economic bene…\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Google+:<\/strong> View post on Google+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don't necessarily agree with the premise here — that Romney seems amazingly proud of the fact that he paid the lavish effective rate of 13% on his taxes. \u00a0True, it's half of what I paid, as a rate, but … 1. We don't really know what that 13% actually represents, given Romney's vague statement. … Continue reading “The whopping 13%”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":29860,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/16\/trust-me.html","url_meta":{"origin":29879,"position":0},"title":""Trust me!"","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 16-Aug-12 5:15pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Regardless of what one thinks of whether Romney should make public more tax records, how does his mere (re)assertion that he's paid more than zero in taxes over the past decade ... actually prove anything?I mean, there's Fox News headlining the story on its front page as \"ROMNEY ANSWERS THE\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":25776,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/28\/romney-tries-being-not-so-rich-and-tax-coddled.html","url_meta":{"origin":29879,"position":1},"title":"Romney tries being not so rich and tax-coddled","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 28-Jan-12 10:50am","format":false,"excerpt":"Or at least tries convincing us he's not, by incorrectly mauling numbers to make it seem like he's paying 50% income tax.Only in your worst dreams, Mitt.He must be getting really worried about Newt. #ddtbReshared post from +David McGirrMitt Romney attempting to backpedal. He is failing.He's saying that he pays\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":30669,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/17\/the-new-improved-romney-tax-plan.html","url_meta":{"origin":29879,"position":2},"title":"The New, Improved, Romney Tax Plan","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 17-Oct-12 10:17pm","format":false,"excerpt":"If you take what he said last night as canon -- cut income taxes 20%, cap deductions at $20K. \u00a0Result (avoiding any discussion of social or economic costs of deductions thus invalidated):\u00a0'Romney is $257 billion short, and the rest of his plan (eliminating the estate tax, eliminating investment taxes for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28910,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/13\/the-fiendishly-clever-romney-tax-plan.html","url_meta":{"origin":29879,"position":3},"title":"The Fiendishly Clever Romney Tax Plan","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 13-Aug-12 8:45am","format":false,"excerpt":"Is fiendishly clever because, aside from some platitudinous generalities, Romney refuses to discuss it. \u00a0\"Cut social programs,\" but not which ones. \"Close tax loopholes,\" but not which ones. \"Reduce taxes,\" but not which ones or by how much. So analysts are forced into guesswork -- and even there, the results\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":30196,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/09\/10\/romneys-tax-plan-trust-me.html","url_meta":{"origin":29879,"position":4},"title":"Romney's tax plan: "Trust me!"","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 10-Sep-12 8:47am","format":false,"excerpt":"Is it that he's just sure that, on principle, he can net-net cut taxes for everyone, or that he just doesn't know what sort of cuts and deduction changes he will propose, or that he's afraid if he gets specific then people will get angry with him?'Mr. Romney\u2019s tax proposal\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":25504,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/17\/mitt-thinks-362k-in-speaking-fees-is-not-very-much.html","url_meta":{"origin":29879,"position":5},"title":"Mitt thinks $362K in speaking fees is "not very much"","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 17-Jan-12 12:59pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Must be nice to live in Mitt's world and pay such a low tax rate. #ddtb Embedded Link Romney Admits His Tax Rate Is About 15 Percent, Lower Than Many Middle Class Families Citizens for Tax Justice a few months ago estimated that Mitt Romney, due to most of his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29879\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}