Romney says he pays about 15 percent in income tax
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I don't have a problem with this.
The guy is a 64 years old, had a successful career which he left to pursue politics in the mid 90's. Yes he did well back when he was working in the private sector and built up some wealth. Now his %'s are comparable to other retiree's in that age group. If he gets preferential tax treatment for income generated from investments vs playing baseball or making movies...fuck it. I'm all for it. |
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I would be much more interested in the tax code loop holes afforded to Mitt, that made it possible to bank 150 mil in the first place. The offshore accounts he likely had back in the 80's, would be much more telling when it comes to his stance on what is "fair". JC |
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I do have a problem with this. In fact I would like to see the last few years worth of his tax returns, because my bet is that this year, when he is pressured to post his tax returns he will utilize a lot less loopholes and other ways of not paying taxes. The reason he is only going to pay15% and not 6% is because his people made a business decision as to how much taxes he should pay and not look bad, but also not go broke (ha!). The reason McCain released 2 years is that he did the same thing, thats all he planned for. Obama was able to release a number of years because he wasnt super rich and his tax deductions didn't make him look bad. Really what it comes down to, is that if you are gonna be accountable stop trying to hide stuff and actually be accountable |
Be accountable for what? I don't care if he used legal "loopholes" to lower his tax liability. In fact I would judge him as pretty damn stupid if he didn't use the options available to lower his liability under the law. At the same time I'm OK with limiting those "loopholes" and simplifying the tax code. The problem is that won't be happening any time soon. I would guess there are somewhere north of 1 million people in this country who depend on the complexity of the tax code for their careers. Very few politicians are willing to piss off a voting block that size.
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I wouldnt judge him for using any loopholes, I use as many loopholes as I can. The only people who he needs to be accountable to is the voting public, and if his statements are that this tax return is just like all the previous ones and thats not true then yeh I have a problem with that. I also deeply detest is that they try and present themselfs as something that they are not. |
Yeah, only agreeing to release 1 year raises questions.
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Ninja Mormon please. His Kung Fu is weak. Partly because Ninjas are Japanese and Kung Fu comes from China, but mostly because the idea that unfettered business is the key to prosperity for what used to be the "middle class'', is complete and utter bullshit. There are certainly things that still roll down hill. Shit, crumbs, fat girls, and blame. I like fat girls. Until they roll down a hill, covered in shit and crumbs, and then blame me for building the hill. That's Mitt,( in a slightly hard to sleep tonight due to disturbing metaphors kind of way) nutshell. JC |
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Nobody is forcing him to release anything. He is free to do as little as he needs in order to land the nomination.
Unfortunately that won't be much, considering people's solitary focus on nominating someone "who can beat Obama" rather than someone with real ideas. |
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I want to see his long form birth certificate.
.... and his dog's license. |
I want to see all of his marriage licenses.
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I want to see the tax returns of the people who prepared his birth certificate and marriage license.
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I want him to prove hes not a secret Mormon.
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I thought he WAS a Mormon.
I want him to prove he's not a FLDS though. |
Can't remember ever seeing him with any sister-wives. Just a dog on the car roof, which is why I want to see his license.
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There is also word on the street that if he releases his taxes it will show that he has only been reporting income off some of his estimated wealth, and that there is still much much more that is hidden in offshore tax havens. Then the year before last when he decided to run, he started to move his money back to less illegal places. Supposedly he did it when he ran in 2007 and it looks like he is doing it again this year.
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Republicans are fucking idiots to elect this moron
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I certainly hope people with offshore accounts are using them to invest in stock or real estate rather than just parking it in a savings account, because the weak-ass returns wouldn't be worth it the risk.
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What is the top tax braket, 38% or something? So a 2% CD here in America would net you about 1.2% instead of 2%. Not something worth crying about, unless you are talking about several million dollars in that CD. And parking that much in a CD is dumb, IMO. It should be in stocks, bonds, or real estate. Hell, you could easily average 2-5% a year in tax-free municipal bond funds here in the US. |
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If the offshore account earns 2%, he's earning 2% instead of the 2% - (2% * 0.38) he'd earn in the US. Which means 2% instead of 1.2%. |
Whats with all this fucking math bullshit?
I don't visit this forum for fucking math. |
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"Hey brah...do you support the right of the people to teabag?" |
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That's the point. If you put $1,000,000.00 in an offshore account, then it's immediately worth $380,000.00 more than a million dollars that you kept in the US. |
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Unless his employer paid him under the table, that $1,000,000 is after-tax money. It isn't going to be taxed again. Only the return he makes on it will be taxed. |
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What? You don't pay income tax on your wealth, you pay it on your income. Uninvested funds don't earn income, so you're not "making" 38% on anything.
Frankly, I'd be less inclined to vote for him if he was paying 40% on his investment portfolio, because it would show a lack of understanding of the tax system. |
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According to TWFix... Anybody making over $375k or worth over $1 million: Made their money without paying taxes. Hide their wealth in offshore accounts. Have been known to renounce citizenship to avoid taxation. They also rape babies and infected your Grandmother with AIDS. |
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Someone who is single, doesn't own property, and works a simple 9-to-5 office job, has access to virtually none of those techniques. So the whole idea that we should cry a river for wealthy people because they shoulder the majority of the tax burden is BS imo. Yeah, we get it, you paid most of the country's taxes......But you also have more access to creative tax-reducing tools than most people. Vacations to Tahoe written off as so-called "business expenses" simply because one of your clients happened to be there? Check. Your new F250 written off because you "need" it to "service" your rental properties? Check. Your speaking fees collected without being reported to the IRS? Check. (OK, I'm speculating there :lol: ) |
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If so you should probably stay away from Utah... |
I'm not wealthy, but I play a wealthy person on TV.
Now that I have proven myself as a credentialed source on the subject down with those things of the sort and all that business. |
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Um, that's "Mormon." |
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For many, there are no such thing as "vacations". You may be on a golf course or a ski resort, but 95% of your time is dedicated to working out a multi million\billion dollar deal. Screw all these assumptions about tax cheating. the bigger issue is spouses cheating since you are not dedicating as much time to your family as you should. Pauldun170 - Standing up for rich people when no one else will. |
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Um, that's "Hue-mon." |
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How Much the Rich Pay
Mitt Romney, the 1% and taxes. Mitt Romney's disclosure this week that his effective federal tax rate is "probably closer to the 15% rate than anything" has created the predictable political uproar. The White House and its media allies figure they've now got their stereotype of the Monopoly man, albeit without his cane and top hat, who they can crush in their planned class-warfare campaign. We're not sure if facts will matter in this cacophony, but someone should at least try to introduce a little reality into the debate, especially since Mr. Romney seems so unprepared to make the case. Start with the fact that, like Warren Buffett, Mr. Romney said he makes most of his money from investments, not wages or salary. Thus his income is really taxed twice: once at the corporate tax rate of 35%, then again at a 15% tax rate when it is passed through to him as dividends or via capital gains from the sale of stock. All income from businesses is eventually passed through to the owners, so to ignore business taxes creates a statistical illusion that makes it appear that the rich pay less than they really do. By this logic, if the corporate tax rate were raised to, say, 60% from today's 35% and the dividend and capital gains tax were cut to zero, it would appear that business owners were getting away with paying no federal tax at all. This all-too-conveniently confuses the incidence of a tax with the burden of a tax. The marginal tax rate on every additional dollar of capital gains and dividend income from corporate profits can reach as high as 44.75% at the federal level (assuming a company pays the 35% top corporate rate), not 15%. The Congressional Budget Office recently examined the distribution of federal taxes on various income groups. The report was ballyhooed by liberals as proof of rising income inequality, but that argument is for another day. What everyone has ignored is what CBO found about the relative taxes paid by different groups. And, lo, the rich pay more, which is probably why the press didn't report it. The nearby table from the CBO report shows that in 2007 the average income tax rate paid by the 1% was 18.8%, compared to 4.2% for Americans in a broadly defined middle class from the 21st to 80th income percentiles. The poorest 20% on average paid a net negative income-tax rate of 5.6% because of the checks they receive for tax credits that are "refundable." These are essentially transfer payments redistributing income from the rich and middle class to the poor. As for all federal taxes, CBO found that in 2007 the top 1% paid an average rate of a little under 30%, compared to 15.1% for middle-income earners. In calculating this overall tax burden, CBO takes account of payroll taxes, which moves the rate of the lowest 20% of earners into positive territory at 4.7%. CBO also apportions to individuals who are shareholders the tax that corporations pay on corporate profits. The main point is that the average effective tax rate on the richest 1% is already twice as high as that of the middle class. No matter how many times Mr. Buffett asserts it, secretaries and plumbers do not on average pay a higher tax rate or less in taxes than do CEOs. Here is what the CBO concludes: "Taken as a whole, the federal tax system is progressive." In any event, raising tax rates has not over time succeeded in increasing tax shares from the rich. When the top income-tax rate was as high as 70% in the 1970s, the top 1% paid about 19% of all federal income taxes. At the current rate of 35% the top 1% pay just under 40% of all income taxes. Liberals say this is because the rich earn a larger share of income. But when tax rates are lower, the rich have less incentive to seek tax shelters and more incentive to put their money to work in income-earning, revenue-producing ventures. Mr. Romney said at Monday's Republican presidential debate that he would like to see a top income-tax rate of about 25%. Mr. Obama is seeking a rate closer to 42%, for starters. Mr. Romney's challenge is to persuade Americans that lower rates will mean more jobs and growth, and more revenues for the government. One certainty is that if he stays on his current path of playing defense, Mr. Romney won't deserve to be the GOP nominee because he's likely to lose the fall election. |
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in this thread, is bumming me out. If you look closely, or from far away, they sorta look like 96. 96 is the seriously fucked up version of 69. Anyway, here's how it works; Let's say you're a nice Mormon guy with a few bucks in his pocket, and you want to open a Dildo company. You set up shop in Maryland, where anybody be a corporation, and leave a very faint paper trail. You are now Dildos Inc. Since corporations are people, you're now also twins! Next, you open an office in the Caymans, for your new subsidiary company, Dildos International. They in turn, open Expanding Universe of Children, in Lichtenstein, who then opens Consolidated Douche-bag Industries, in Liberia. Ok, now what? Turns out, Mormons suck at making dildos. Who knew? So, Dildos Inc., "loans" it's funds to Dildos International, the Zen Dildo Masters (TM) These guys are good. Investors line up. They've come up with a dildo that looks just like toaster. Actually, it is a toaster, but the good folks at Dildos International, are not here to judge you. Expanding Universe of Children gets the contract for the new Dil-doasters, and subs the work out to China. Meanwhile, back at Consolidated Douche-bag Industries, a crack team of douchebags has created a 9,056 page quarterly report, for Dildos Inc. Apparently, we owe them money. JC |
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If you invest in a company you own, and then take out fees for your trouble, that money is taxed as capital gains, not income. JC |
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The point is that I paid taxes on the money when I earned it, I pay taxes on the interest if I save it, I pay taxes on the money that I spend and I pay taxes on the gain if I invest. Why is that okay with everyone and why do you think that Romney or anyone else should pay more?:idk: The stupid thing with Romney is that he "only" pays 15% because he's earning money solely from investments for the most part. He is not doing anything shady or illegal and it is evil and blatantly irresponsible for the media to portray it any other way. |
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Romney bought and sold companies that were vulnerable. High debt, over leveraged, etc. Let's say he invests a million in Dildos Inc., and then sells off all the Dildo making machines for two million. He pays 15% on the million he just made. Illegal? No. Shady? Kinda. Why? Because in addition to selling off all the Dildo machines, he also fired all the Dildo helpers. Romney claims he knows how to help the middle class. He wants to deregulate business to the point where people like him have less hoops to jump through, when it comes to firing people, moving jobs offshore, and paying benefits. That doesn't help anyone in the middle class. It only helps douchebags like Mitt Romney. JC |
But if Romney was just a partner of Bain Capital, then he wasn't using HIS money to invest in Dildos, he was using the collective's (Bain's) money. Same with the profits, they wouldn't go straight to him, they'd go through Bain first.
Hell, even if he was the sole proprieter at Bain, I doubt he could hide all those profits from the IRS. |
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Where you really seem to have an issue is with Dildos Inc. helpers being fired. I don't like people losing their jobs either, but the reality is Dildos Inc. is failing. Those employees are losing their jobs, its just a matter of whether it is through liquidation or bankruptcy. At least with liquidation those who Dildos Inc. owes money to don't get screwed as well. |
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Romney didn't have to worry about the IRS. Between all the lawyers and tax accounts on staff, and a convenient office in Luxembourg (a country with extremely secretive banking laws), all Bain had to do was bury the IRS in paperwork. Not even the mighty IRS has enough people to track down all the details of multiple shell companies in multiple countries. These guys essentially build giant moats of quicksand around themselves, and dare you to walk through. JC |
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Yes, I have a problem with the workers being fired, but not because I'm an anti-capitalist. Far from it. I have a problem with the way Mitt does things, because he's running on a platform of restoring the middle class, when he's gone out of his way to make that status unavailable for thousands of people. I don't need a President that wallows in corporate greed like fat girls at an all you can eat KFC buffet. I just want to show up, and find a couple of pieces of chicken left. Maybe some corn and a roll too. I ain't asking for much. JC |
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Why do all conversations about Romney evolve into conversations about plastic dicks?
Oh...wait Nevermind |
Speaking of offshore accounts...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/busine...TEQ_story.html Quote:
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Oh lord, no wonder we are 15+ trillion in the hole. Romney has 32 million in offshore investments....:lol:
Romney didn't write the damn tax code. I guess that none of the rich democrats in the world have ever taken advantage of tax loop holes. Of course not. You are all being lead astray of the real issues here. Where anyone chooses to invest their money is not what's fundamentally wrong with this country. Quite frankly, I'm more concerned with all of the welfare rats that pull EIC credits every year when they don't pay ANYTHING in taxes in the first place. How about the fact that half the country doesn't even pay federal income tax? What do you expect people to do? Do you pay taxes on your 401k? Don't you take every deduction that you can? Oh don't tell me, you guys pay in more than you have to to the federal govt just to be nice, right? Class envy, entitlement mentality, etc is what is fundamentally wrong with this country. Most have nots are also work nots in my experience. I don't fault rich guys trying to hold on to their money, that's what I do as well. Shit, all the feds are going to do is give it to some welfare rat, a foreign country or blow it on some bullshit project/study.... I may as well take 30% of my pay and light it on fire.:panic: |
I didn't understand half of that article.
But then, the tax code was written by wealthy people (Congress) trying to create more advantages for themselves. |
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So lets talk about stocks/bonds. Same situation. If someone holds onto them for years upon years, they've greatly appreciated in value. When they're left to someone in an estate, the new owner gets the basis on date of death. So those stocks could have dramatically appreciated, but that gain is never taxed since they were left in an estate, if there's no inheritance tax. This is where an inheritance tax makes SOME sense. However, the inheritance tax RATE is what is insane. Also, if someone simply had boatloads of cash/liquid securities where the interest has been taxed over the years, then I don't think that money should be taxed upon death either. |
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Things like real estate shouldn't be taxed at all, unless the receiver divests himself of it. If it stays in the family, then it should be inviolate. If it gets sold, then it's treated the same way that a monetary asset would be. If it's rented out, then the rental income is just that; income. This would be fair right across the board, from people scratching to get by right up through billionaires with major holdings. Tax gains and at time of divestiture not upon receipt, for stocks, capital funds, etc.. |
The inheritance tax doesn't begin until a certain level, around 3 million I think.
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His taxes are low because he pays taxes mostly on capital gains and dividends.
Raising those significantly will never fly because it will screw everyone that's living on retirement savings. |
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My biggest tax problem is tax on savings/interest. I don't think there should be one, period. |
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"Yeah, let's discourage the poor & middle class from saving anything" Stocks are for somoene who already has a 6-12 month emergency savings stashed away into an FDIC-insured account. If you don't have that, you shouldn't be buying stocks. And since most people DON'T, their money is in regular bank accounts, and the interest is taxed as regular income. What kind of sense does that make? Either tax all interest/dividends/gains at 15%, or nothing. |
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If someone like Romney is getting around that by using a Cayman or Swiss account to buy those shares, then that's BS imo. |
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Can an ordinary citizen with under a million bucks to invest obtain the same priviledges in the Caymans that Romney has? Somehow I doubt they'll even bother talking to you for that kind of chump change. If it was so easy, everyone would be doing it, including you, goof.
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1. Knowing someone who knows how to get the money to the right people or personally doing the research to even discover the loophole and locating the "best" investments. 2. Most likely there is some insane minimum investment amount for those funds even if you DO find them. There are a LOT of funds that have minimum investments for the simple reason that brokers don't want to be bothered with the paperwork for "small" amounts. Even if the minimum is as low as 25 or 50k (which I'd be surprised if it's anywhere near that low), most people can't make even that size of investment because then they'd have too much of their money tied up in just one investment that likely has huge swings the average joe can't stomach. But yes, I agree that the government has more than overstepped it's bounds in our country. We should be able to spend our money how we see fit, rather than handing a large chunk of it over to the government to spend for us. |
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With a record like that, what would make you think he's had a sudden change of feeling where his heart used to be, and now wants to do right by the little guy? Quote:
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How many do you have? Quote:
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JC |
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2...y-tax-returns/
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Investment is what built this country and yours for that matter. People invested their life savings, their time, their sweat, their blood and even their lives to make a better life for themselves. They drilled for oil, they dug for gold, they worked the land, they put in the work, they made the sacrifices, they had the ideas, they took the risks and now they have to be demonized when they become rich. It's ridiculous. AGAIN Romney has committed absolutely no crimes and isn't doing anything that any American citizen with the means can do. If you do not have the means, it is YOUR fault, not Romney's. SOUR GRAPES!!!!:lol: |
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Why do you feel it's fair that they pay LESS? *EDIT* Oh, and by the way, both of our countries were built when such people were paying orders of magnitude higher taxes ;) |
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What I am saying is that the millions of welfare rats that get EICs is a hell of a lot more than the taxes we are "losing" because Romney has some money stashed away overseas. Direct question, do you think that it's "right" for people that already pay nothing in federal taxes and that sponge off the system already, to receive thousands of dollars every year from the federal govt? |
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Oh and please with the "less" crap, the average american pays under 10% in federal taxes. I would like to know who comes up with this bullshit.... June 2010 The accompanying tables update annual estimates by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) of average tax rates—that is, households’ tax liability divided by their income— and compare those estimates for 2007 with estimates from 2006. This report’s tables show average tax rates for various income categories for the four largest sources of federal revenue—individual income taxes, social insurance (payroll) taxes, corporate income taxes, and excise taxes—and for the four taxes combined. The tables also present average before-tax and after-tax household income; the number of households in each income category; and shares of taxes, income, and households for each fifth (quintile) of the income distribution and for the top 10 percent, 5 percent, and 1 percent of households. A page on CBO’s Web site, “Federal Taxes by Income Group,” includes publications on this topic, CBO’s estimates of average federal tax rates for the years 1979 to 2007, and other information on household income and taxes. Estimates for 2007 In 2007, the overall average federal tax rate was 20.4 percent (see Table 1). Individual income taxes, the largest component, were 9.3 percent of household income. Social insurance taxes (also called payroll taxes) were the next-largest source, with an average rate of 7.4 percent. Corporate income taxes and excise taxes were smaller, with average tax rates of 3.0 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively. The federal tax system is progressive—that is, average tax rates generally rise with income. Households in the bottom fifth of the income distribution paid 4.0 percent of their income in federal taxes, the middle quintile paid 14.3 percent, and the highest quintile paid 25.1 percent. Average rates continued to rise within the top quintile: The top 1 percent faced an average rate of 29.5 percent. Higher-income groups earn a disproportionate share of pretax income and pay a disproportionate share of federal taxes. In 2007, the highest quintile earned 55.9 percent of pretax income and paid 68.9 percent of federal taxes; the top 1 percent of households earned 19.4 percent of income and paid 28.1 percent of taxes. The share of taxes paid by high-income groups exceeded their share of income because average tax rates rise with income. In all other quintiles, the share of federal taxes was less than the income share. The bottom quintile earned 4.0 percent of income and paid 0.8 percent of taxes, and the middle quintile earned 13.1 percent of income and paid 9.2 percent of taxes. |
No comment on the tax rates, when the country was being built? Kinda blows a hole in the whole extreme right wing premise.
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