What would Romney be spending money on? How about running for president, for one thing. I suspect that Romney has spent more of his own money this time around, if only because he has gone further and been more successful in his quest. Opinion: Obama, Romney and your pay. Here is another turn of the screw. Running for president is legally considered a personal expense, nondeductible under the income tax.
Such expenses, however, are in essence deductible from another American tax, and the largest single one facing the Romneys: the gift and estate tax.
That so-called death tax applies to what is left over on one's deathbed. The simplest way to avoid it is to spend all that you have and die broke. In sum, the government is pitching in, in the form of foregone estate tax revenue, for Romney's and other rich people's presidential runs.
It is ironic that the real problem with Romney's personal financial situation is his spending, not his work or savings, and that no one is paying attention to that. Excessive spending at all levels is our national problem, and it is what soon might make us another Greece. No one is paying much attention to that, either. Meantime, we have a tax system set up to encourage spending and borrowing, especially by the rich. The only way to raise taxes under today's income tax is to increase the burdens on working and saving -- just about the last things we should be doing.
If we taxed spending, in contrast, the Romneys and other really rich families would see their taxes increase in absolute and percent terms.
Yet we oppose consumption or spending taxes because we perceive them as regressive. It's all nearly perfectly perverse, and not a peep on point. But the former Massachusetts governor has said he is following Republican White House candidate John McCain's example of releasing two years of taxes. Mr Obama's tax return showed he paid an effective rate of As he released his return in January this year, Mr Romney said he had paid "all the taxes that are legally required and not a dollar more".
The campaign has stressed that the blind trust run by Mr Malt means that the candidate is making no decisions on how his money is invested. The Romney campaign had previously estimated his taxes at Related: Romney vs. Obama on tax policy. The reason Romney's rate is so low -- despite having one of the highest incomes in the country -- is because his income was derived almost entirely from capital gains and dividends from his extensive portfolio of investments.
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