This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Does Mitt Romney Work?

As far as the GoP and Romney's are concerned those "inalienable rights" of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", that was just a suggestion, and only for truly wealthy, not you lazy 47%'ers.

I wanted to answer one simple question, does Mitt Romney work? Reviewing his tax return the answer became clear: Mr. Romney cannot “work” as he claims his reported income as passive income, meaning from sources in which he himself does not “materially participate”. If Mr. Romney did materially participate, the income would be “earned income” and therefore taxable under both state and Federal payroll tax codes. So much for the “they deserve it, they work so hard” argument I keep hearing on why the super-rich should be taxed less.

But is Mr. Romney’s income really all dividends & interest, with some rent income on the side? I find it hard to believe that Mr. Romney is not still involved with Bain Capital. I mean, this self-proclaimed awesome businessperson has lots of disclosures regarding Bain holdings, and we are supposed to believe that with all his experience and success, he just sits backs and “hopes” other people are making the best decision for his hundreds of millions of dollars in investments?

I mean, this is the guy who claimed to “save” the 2002 Olympics but forgets to mention that it was the billions from the Federal government that really was the hero. According to people who were working with Mr. Romney on the Olympic Games, he was insufferable, taking credit for work that was done before he arrived. This is from an earlier essay I wrote, you can read the full essay at http://lisalongo.me/2012/07/25/romney/:

Find out what's happening in Phoenixvillewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Many accounts of the transition to Romney management of the 2002 games include numerous quotes from those involved who were disgusted by the heavy-handed egomaniacal management style Mr. Romney displayed. One example of such are the buttons Mr. Romney approved, one showing his image and sporting slogans such as, “Hey Mitt, we love you.”

As one former Salt Lake City council member was quoted as saying, “Mitt could have been a hero if he had just come in and been polite. What turned me sour was his demand to get all the credit and ignore everybody who had put in thousands of hours before he arrived.”

Find out what's happening in Phoenixvillewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

 

Not really a statement of high regard or praising Mr. Romney. So what does his tax return, and his history, tell us? Well, it’s a fairly convoluted tale.

First, you have to realize that Mitt & Ann Romney, as well as their sons, all have trust funds, several of them are “blind trusts”. And, the Romney’s have several private foundations, which they “donate” to and from which they can claim even more entitlements, i.e. tax deductions. Of course, Mr. Romney and his wife and family have all their trusts at Goldman Sachs, yes, those self-same “market-makers” who said they had no fiduciary duty to their clients. I have to wonder why such an astute business person would trust a firm which claims to have no regard for risk on behalf of their clients?

And then there is the issue of how much taxes the Romney’s paid, and what they might have paid. This is the real issue of importance, did Mr. Romney “earn” this money or not?

If it was “earned” income, then Mitt owes the government quite a bit of back taxes. Just the Medicare Mr. Romney would owe on the estimated income of $20,908,880 at 2.9% would have been $606,131. Of course on the final return, the Romney’s were suddenly only reporting $13,696,951, a difference of $7,204,124, so what happened to that $7,204,124? Of course the Medicare tax due on the lower reported income would have been $397,212, still more than most US citizens make in a year. I guess we can see why Mr. Romney doesn’t want his income to be considered “earned”.

I mean really, I’m an accountant and help clients with tax strategy, and I know how hard it is to find ways to “defer” income for tax purposes, getting rid of over $7 million dollars? That’s more than just good tax strategy.

Let’s look at the details, first taxable interest earned decreased by over $1 million dollars. The estimated taxable interest was $4,099,156, but on the final return was only $3,012,775. Now, we all make mistakes, but either the Romney’s have the worst accountants ever or they are not reporting earned interest, which is it? One of the biggest decreases to income was from the decrease in rental income, which on the estimated return was reported as $2,830,078, but on the final return was suddenly only $120,375, I mean really, that’s a bit beyond bad estimating, a difference of almost $3 million dollars in a line item like that, what happened, did they suddenly realize they never got paid those rents?

And then there is the $1,006,337 decrease in itemized deductions. Now that is one hell of an entitlement the Romney’s are helping themselves to right there. The estimated return claimed $5,688,179 in entitled deductions, while the final return only claimed $4,681,842 in tax entitlements. Not like the horrible 47% that pays no federal income tax and may not make that much money in their lifetime. No, the Romney’s paid a generous 9.8% of their total income in income tax before adding in the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), adding that in, the rate jumps to 14.7%. Of course, on the estimated return the total expected tax rate was 15.4%, and even without the AMT would have been 14.3%, if not for all those entitlements the Romney’s only hate when they are going to the working poor, disabled Veteran’s and those collecting social security.

And surely, you can understand why people who have admitted to over $18 million in foreign income might be rather reticent about revealing the fact they in 2005 they paid approximately $333,000 in foreign taxes, in 2006 approximately $276,000, 2007 $275,000 and in 2008 an estimated $636,440 in foreign taxes (if I am reading the supplemental reports correctly, it was hard to tell if that number was actual foreign taxes paid).

I mean, most US workers don’t even EARN as much as the Romney’s are paying to foreign governments, so you can see why Romney wants to lower his US tax by shipping his money overseas. I mean really, how else is a patriot to protest the rampant socialism that is the US tax code?

It’s not like our Founding Fathers thought we should invest in our common good, or stated their commitment to the betterment of the people of this country. As far as the GoP and Romney’s are concerned those “inalienable rights” of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, that was just a suggestion, and only for truly wealthy, not you lazy 47%’ers.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?