Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, the Vice Presidential nominee on the Mitt Romney Republican ticket, revealed yesterday that he paid about 16 percent income taxes in 2010 and 20 percent in 2011.
Mitt Romney paid only 13.9 percent on his 2010 income, and has not yet revealed his 2011 tax return, but claims he has always paid at least 13 percent on his income in the past ten years, but refusing to show those returns, and wanting us to trust him.
The question that arises is why should Paul Ryan pay a higher percentage of his income than Mitt Romney?
Paul Ryan WORKED for a living as a Congressman, while Mitt Romney lived off his investments since 2007!
Why should unearned income be taxed lower than earned income?
Why should those who work pay more than those who have leisure time to do what they wish?
Why should a person with an estimated fortune of $250 million be taxed lower than someone who is worth, probably, maybe one or two million dollars and works?
And why should the average person, who does not make what Paul Ryan earns, pay the same as Paul Ryan, or even a higher percentage?
These are questions that need to be dealt with in the next Presidential term, as fair taxation is essential, and it is time for the wealthy, those who work, and those who don’t work, to pay their fair share–meaning MORE!
CBO stated in late 2010: “In 2007, households in the bottom fifth, or quintile, of the income distribution paid about 4 percent of their income in federal taxes, while the middle quintile paid 14 percent, and the highest quintile paid 25 percent.â€
What’s more, the CBO is also clear that those who earn more have been paying an increasing share of the tax burden. “The share of taxes paid by the top fifth of the population,†it states, “grew sharply between 1979 and 2007.†Indeed, this group was paying almost 70 percent of federal taxes by 2007.
Rules should be made in accordance to statistics that measure the average, not based on the individual tax returns of one person, be it Warren Buffet or Mitt Romney. And I would add, when a corporation pays corporate taxes, who really is paying? The stockholders. They pay though the nose, they are taxed on average 3/4 times. The taxes paid by the corporation may not end up in the personal tax returns of the stockholder, but they pay it anway.
Many wealthy Americans, like Romney, Zuckerberg or Gates who have done well like Buffett receive dividends and capital gains — a form of investment income that is subject to multiple levels of tax. First, the investment income results from investment. This capital didn’t appear out of thin air. It was earned and taxed previously, often many times over at rates up to 35 percent.
Then, once invested, it generates income that is taxed at the corporate level at a 35 percent rate, and then it’s taxed again at the individual level at a 15 percent rate on dividends and capital gains. The combined rate on corporate earnings alone is over 45 percent, and this is all after the first layer of tax.
So when you see Romney’s, or any other wealthy person for the matter, who’s personal income tax shows a 14% rate, this only shows the last level of tax, the 14% portion, leaving out the rest. But I know in the end no matter what the evidence, the facts or data, it will all seem unfair and unjust.
You explain very well from a corporate perspective, and I commend you for that.
But the average working man or woman is going to feel that wealthy people have excess income that they just gain from exploiting workers and consumers, while the average person has to scrape to get by.
This is hard to justify, certainly in a political sense, beyond the ethics of it.
Well that’s the typical envious soul consuming feeling the left promotes which is based on a lie. Language is essential to dominating the debate and the left uses words like “exploitation” , “excess income”, “working americans” (as if high income earners don’t work) to frame the debate and install a false narrative. What I explain is not the “corporate” perspective, it’s reality. Even the humblest of an investor is taxed as explain. Mutual funds in which 50 milliion retired americans have their life savings are taxed that way when the funds invest in stock. The lefts war and hatred of the oil industry for example, does not take into account that over 90% of mutual funds have investments as stockholders in oil companies. So when the government attacks “big oil” for example, it is attacking over 50 million american retirees who have their savings invested there. Finally how is it ethically wrong if these people are in reality paying more taxes not only as a sum lump, but as a % , than the average “working” american.