G
Guns Guns Guns
Guest
GOP frontrunner Mittzie paid a tax rate approaching 15 percent on his millions of dollars in annual income but said he would not make public his full return until April.
Romney said at a campaign stop in South Carolina, noting that most of his considerable income over the last decade has come from investments rather than from earned income like salary.
He also characterized as “not very much” the $374,327 he reported earning in speaking fees last year, though that sum would, by itself, very nearly catapult most American families into the top 1 percent of the country’s earners.
He is among the small percentage of very wealthy Americans who have benefited enormously from shifts in federal tax policy that have pushed federal tax rates on investment income well below the top 35 percent rate for wages and salaries, which constitute most earnings for the vast majority of people.
Romney’s admission left unclear — and his campaign declined to clarify — whether the 15 percent he was referring to represented his overall tax burden or simply his federal income taxes.
That makes it hard to compare the figure with the tax burdens of a typical middle-class American — or of Romney’s opponents.
President Obama reported paying an effective federal tax rate of 26 percent on his 2010 family income.
http://www.mercurynews.com/presidentelect/ci_19762407