[brandoncor]

Can you explain this a bit further? I'm not a fan of Mitt Romney, but I've never understood the outrage at his tax returns. It was my understanding that the low tax rate was due to 1) donations and 2) the fact that most of his income comes from capital gains. Do you think people considering running for president should go out of their way to pay more taxes?

[ditonal]

He kept several years of tax returns hidden, had shady offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland, and while I don't expect him to pay more taxes than legally required, it would be nice if he acknowledged or addressed as a policy issue that he made orders of magnitudes more money than a middle class person yet paid a quarter of their effective tax rate. Capital gains taxes are bad, but so are income taxes, and I don't think it's coincidence we keep the ones that is largely shouldered by the middle class high.

[logfromblammo]

There was also the issue of the balance in his retirement savings account. If I recall correctly, it was far beyond what the maximum amount expected from an "ordinary" person, contributing the maximum amounts allowable from even a 7-figure CEO salary for 50 continuous years--ten times as much, or more, in one third the time. The whole business simultaneously screamed "tax avoidance loophole" and "elite privilege".

[brandoncor]

This is a much better argument. Do you happen to have a source for his using Cayman Island and Switzerland offshore accounts?

Edit: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/08/investigating-mit...

[jgalt212]

Let's not forget his IRA stuffing where he put deliberately undervalued shares into his IRA to take advantage of no taxes on any capital gains inside an IRA (until the funds are removed).

And if anyone challenges the notion of whether or not Mitt took part in IRA stuffing, just look at the annual returns of his IRA versus the annual returns of any investment product offered by Bain.

http://open.salon.com/blog/steve_klingaman/2012/07/25/romney...

[JonnieCache]

The point is, the people who benefit from those tax laws and the people who made those tax laws are, to a first approximation, the same people.

[AsymetricCom]

It's really simple.

Most people pay a lot more taxes because they don't have entire tax firms to leverage against their yearly tax return. Most people make a lot less money than politicians. Politicians often say that we need to pay for our public services in taxes. Politicians are often to take advantage of the social services of a society without contributing back with taxes, and people see that as taking advantage of the good will of people. Then when such people run for public office, people are disinterested to vote for someone who demonstrates no care for the social system that allowed them to employ workers and build a business.

This isn't a question of what people should do to garner public support. That's a red herring. Asking such a question is pointless. It's pretty much saying "well if I fed a poor person while I was ripping off hard working everyday people, would you vote for me then?"

Well.. no most people wouldn't, but it does tell us a lot about you when you ask that question.