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Mitt Romney’s tax policy, corporate taxes, and (almost) everybody else’s

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Mitt Romney’s tax policy, corporate taxes, and (almost) everybody else’s

Following up on the last post, this time focusing on corporate rather than individual tax provisions–

As stated earlier ‘loophole’ is an elastic term, defined as well as anywhere by the free dictionary: “A way of escaping a difficulty, especially an omission or ambiguity in the wording of a contract or law that provides a means of evading compliance.” Broadly defined, tax loopholes are legal ways to escape paying taxes.

Simple question: What tax loopholes do large corporations benefit from most?

The answer is less quick than with the earlier post on loopholes for wealthy individuals and for individual tax returns. More tax loopholes and related tax devices are available to corporations than are available even to individuals of wealth. Corporations, after all, can bring more pressure to bear on legislatures and can push back more on regulatory agencies than even wealthy individuals can.

However, one quick answer up top is almost blinding in its simplicity: large corporations are allowed to declare ‘losses’ for tax purposes when they are over-all not suffering losses. Writing off costs is one thing. Cost, as we learned in high school economics, is the difference between gross (income/earnings) and net. Subtract your costs from your gross receipts, and you’ve got your profit. But writing off paper losses on bucketsful of money, on an over-all net gain for the company, is just avoiding taxes multiple times.

Shuffling income into and out of Ireland, and onto lovely islands, also helps large companies avoid taxes. In one of numerous examples, Bloomberg News reported in 2010 that Google cut its U.S. taxes by $3.1 billion over three years by moving money to Bermuda via Ireland and the Netherlands. Citing regulatory filings in six countries, the Bloomberg report estimates Google’s effective overseas tax rate at 2.4 percent. Google beat all its competitors at the game, a complicated but legal system of funneling money into and out of Irish subsidiaries and thence into known island tax havens. The maneuvers are so well known to tax accountants that they have their own comic-book gangster-style names–the ‘Double Irish’ and the ‘Dutch sandwich’.

It would be good to find out which corporate tax loopholes Mitt Romney would favor closing. Candidate Romney is fond of justifying lower taxes on capital gains by saying that that income has already been taxed, presumably meaning at the company level. It might be more accurate to say that the money being parked offshore, taxed at the lower capital gains rate, or otherwise tax-sheltered by wealthy individuals–company employees or former employees like Romney–is money that has already avoided taxation. (Romney has supported eliminating the capital gains tax altogether.)

In any case, Bloomberg cites an estimate that the United States Treasury loses $60 billion a year through these maneuvers. The key tactic here is known as “transfer pricing”, ” paper transactions among corporate subsidiaries that allow for allocating income to tax havens while attributing expenses to higher-tax countries.” Again, it would be good to know whether Romney favors eliminating transfer pricing for the purpose of allowing U.S. corporations to avoid U.S. taxes. Many of our candidates for office are fond of calling for simplifying and clarifying the tax code. Surely a more rational, more straightforward and clearer tax law would simply shut down the offshore tax havens–that is, simply disallow the claim of a post-office box and a brass plaque in the Caymans as a ‘subsidiary’, ‘branch’, ‘shell’ or any other (legal) division of a company for tax purposes.

Moving from Google to one of its chief competitors–

Reuters reported in 2011 that Microsoft reported only $445 million in taxes–U.S. and foreign–on $6.3 billion in profit, for fiscal fourth quarter. The way Microsoft worked this tax magic? Simple: “It is increasingly channeling earnings from sales to customers throughout the world through the low-tax havens of Ireland, Puerto Rico and Singapore.”

The tactic is deliberate; Microsoft increasingly has declared its earnings abroad, more and more, and in the U.S. less and less, over a period of years.

“The change is fueling its shrinking tax bills. According to its 2010 annual report, by keeping a good chunk of foreign earnings away from the U.S., Microsoft has accumulated $29.5 billion overseas–and that is before the impact of its last financial year.”

The non-profit USPIRG issued a report on tax havens this year. Keeping its recommendations short and sweet, the report urges, “Close corporate tax loopholes.”

Executive summary:

“Some U.S.-based multinational firms or individuals avoid paying U.S. taxes by transferring their earnings to tax haven countries with minimal or no taxes. These tax haven users benefit from their access to America’s markets, workforce, infrastructure and security; but they pay little or nothing for it—violating the basic fairness of the tax system and forcing other taxpayers to pick up the tab.

Even when tax haven abusers act perfectly legally, they force other Americans to shoulder the burden in a variety of ways. The taxes they don’t pay must be balanced by other Americans paying higher taxes, coping with cuts to public spending priorities, or increasing the federal debt.

Congressional studies conclude tax haven abuse costs the United States approximately $100 billion in tax revenues every year. Multinational corporations account for $60 billion and individuals the rest.” [emphasis in original]

 

Federal tax subsidies for corporations

Many of our worst candidates are also fond of talking about ‘entitlements’, usually referring to the supposed presumptuousness of the poor. The same candidates never mention corporate entitlements. As the non-profit Citizens for Tax Justice reported in 2011, more than half of all U.S. government subsidies go to only four industries—financial, utilities, telecommunications, and oil/gas/pipelines. From 2008 to 2010, 56 percent of all tax subsidies went to these four industries.

The sheer size of the subsidies is staggering. Wells Fargo topped the list with $17.9 billion in tax subsidies in 2008-2010 (p. 6, numbers given in millions). AT&T came in second with $14.5 billion in tax subsidies for the same period. Verizon third, GE fourth, IBM fifth, ExxonMobil sixth. Over-all, Citizens for Tax Justice studied earnings and taxes for 280 top companies and reported, “Tax subsidies for the 280 companies over the three years totaled a staggering $222.7 billion ($61.4 billion in 2008, $76.2 billion in 2009 and $85.1 billion in 2010).”

One result is that 37 top companies paid no federal income tax in 2010 (p. 18). These companies, be it noted, include major federal contractors such as GE and Boeing. In 2009, 49 top corporations paid no income tax, including Halliburton, Wells Fargo, GE and Verizon (p. 19). In 2008, 22 top corporations paid no income tax, including GE, Eli Lilly and Goldman Sachs (p. 20). Goldman, of course, suffered huge losses in the mortgage-derivatives debacle, and 2008 was a bad year.

2008 was not a bad year for the oil companies, however. This little-emphasized fact makes the extensive federal subsidies for Big Oil particularly galling. In Q3 2008, when everything else was hitting the fan, or about to hit the fan, ExxonMobil reported receiving the highest quarterly profit ever recorded by a U.S.company. As CNN reported at the time, “Exxon Mobil, (XOM, Fortune 500), the leadingU.S. oil company, said its third-quarter net profit was $14.83 billion, or $2.86 per share, up from $9.41 billion, or $1.70, a year earlier. That profit included $1.45 billion in special items.”

The company’s previous record had been the previous quarter. The $14 billion quarterly net came despite losses from Hurricane Ike and the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

“The company’s earnings were buoyed by oil prices, which reached record highs in the quarter before declining. Oil prices were trading at $140.97 a barrel at the beginning of the third quarter, and had fallen to $100.64 at the end.

“Compare that to 2007, when prices traded at $71.09 a barrel at the beginning of the third quarter, and rose to $81.66 by the end.”

Predictably, ExxonMobil continues to report record profits to the present day. The other oil majors are following suit.

Federal help for oil companies is quite the anomaly, to put it nicely.

  • Astronomical profits for Big Oil do not typically pass along to the consumer. As company profits have risen, the price of gasoline at the pump has not declined proportionately. When ExxonMobil profits increased more than $5 BILLION in one year–an increase of 35 percent from one year to the next–gas prices did not decline 35 percent in the same year. The average price of gasoline, according to Department of Energy (DOE) statistics, went down about 22 cents in the same period, a price decline of less than 8 percent. Profit up by 35 percent, gasoline down 8 percent–and that’s without factoring in the cost to the nation of the then-decline in U.S. automobile sales, the consequent unemployment and decline in company benefits, and pressures on home mortgages from high fuel prices. The people who profit most from Big Oil’s relaxed tax burden, by the way, tend also to be the people who opposed the Obama administration’s rescuing the auto industry.
  • Numerous reports have indicated by now that one of the big factors affecting the price of gasoline at the pump is not supply of crude oil, but speculation. Again, the same individuals and entities who opposed helping Detroit also oppose reining in speculation in commodities including fuel.
  • Meanwhile, every statistical record also indicates thatU.S.consumers are reining in demand, as Americans curtail trip-taking and errand-running and turn to more fuel-efficient vehicles where they at all can do so. Thus, whatever the ‘law of supply and demand’ might seem to dictate, it has not dictated that a combination of record profits for the oil companies, falling demand by consumers, and lower price of crude oil bring about a concomitant decline in prices at the pump.
  • What is said here about gasoline prices also pertains to the price of home heating fuel.

Any time the price of filling up the tank goes down–generally as a function of market vagaries including speculation–the decline tends to blunt public outrage over high fuel prices, overpaid CEOs, and astronomical oil company profits. However, public support for better use of energy resources including conservation measures, and public support for a windfall-profits tax for the oil companies, have trended upward.

Max Cleland

Unfortunately, this is one place we need real political leadership, and that takes courage. Former Sen. Max Cleland (D) of Georgia tried to bring about public awareness of high petroleum profits. Cleland even held a hearing on manipulation of prices in the transportation sector–a rarity in the Bush years, in Washington. Cleland’s reward? The petroleum industry poured record donations into the coffers of challenger Saxby Chambliss (R), who used some of the money on campaign ads linking Cleland–a decorated disabled Vietnam War vet–to Osama bin Laden.

Chambliss

It is useless to hope for improvement through, or from, the Republican Party. Republican candidates continue to campaign solemnly on promises to cut top tax rates, exhort their audiences to reduce the corporate tax rate, and talk about eliminating capital-gains and estate taxes. Herman Cain even wanted to substitute an across-the-board sales tax of 9 percent for progressive income tax rates. Their well-paid spokespersons in large media outlets—commentators like George Will and David Brooks—blamed the subprime mortgage debacle on poor people who bought bigger houses than they could afford. (Now they tend not to mention it.) The GOP heads in Congress, Boehner and McConnell, falsely characterize every regulation (safer mines, cleaner air) as ‘job-killing’. They also obstruct every effort to bring tax cheats to justice, or at least big-donor tax cheats, corporate as well as individual.

More potential questions for Mr. Romney as candidate. Perhaps tomorrow night’s televised debate will at least touch on some of these issues.

Romney’s taxes and (almost) everybody else’s

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Which tax loopholes would Romney want to cut?

‘Loophole’ is an elastic term, defined adequately for now by the free dictionary:

“A way of escaping a difficulty, especially an omission or ambiguity in the wording of a contract or law that provides a means of evading compliance.”

Broadly defined, tax loopholes are legal ways to escape paying taxes.

Easy question: What tax loopholes right now do wealthiest individuals benefit from most?

 

Mortgage interest deduction

Quick answer:

Wealthy individuals receiving income from capital gains, including hedge fund managers, get their income taxed at the capital gains rate, i.e. a top rate of 15 percent. For some reason, buying and selling assets for money is not income the way working for money is. From a public policy standpoint, this means that some of the powers that be consider buying and selling assets more difficult than, say, laying a railroad. Or else they consider the former more socially productive–even after the mortgage-derivatives meltdown.

 

Capital gains tax and wealth

Bringing this tax issue swiftly down to the current presidential race, President Obama has supported changing this policy. There is effectively zero chance that GOP nominee Mitt Romney will support such a change. As previously written, Romney has used the capital gains advantage to great benefit in his own tax returns, and makes no bones about it. Romney’s 14 percent tax rate for 2011–voluntarily higher than it had to be, at that, and maybe temporary–has been widely reported.

Candidate Romney has been vague, to put it nicely, on what tax loopholes he would close. But this helpful article by one of the rightists at The New Republic provides a list of convenient targets. In all probability, a President Romney would look here first. First, note that almost all of these provisions–nine out of ten–benefit individuals rather than corporations (which are “people, my friends”). Furthermore, almost all of them benefit the middle class, people of ordinary wealth, income and assets.

Drum roll, please. Here are some of the top tax ‘loopholes’ in descending order of effectiveness, i.e. in taxes from the middle class lost, so to speak, to the Treasury. Reading each of these knots in the rope for the middle class, ask yourself one key question: Is there any realistic possibility that a President Romney and a Republican Congress would not target it for elimination? Note: If not, why not?

  • Employer contributions for employee health insurance/health care are excluded. Can you see a Romney-Ryan administration not trying to tax these?
  • The home mortgage interest deduction. The GOP platform coming out of the Republican National Convention left this one wide open.
  • Step-up basis of capital gains at death. With all the Republican hue and cry about inheritance taxes as a ‘death tax’, this one may be safe. Currently, capital gains on assets held at the owner’s death are not subject to capital gains tax, regardless of your income. The assets are valued at market on the date of death, again regardless of your income. Here, look out for state or county ‘recording fees’, and bank administrative fees, etc., that regressively burden a small inheritance more than a large estate. Not that one should be over-confident. Reps like Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan are entirely capable of finding additional federal ways to limit the benefit of the step-up for middle-income heirs.
  • 401(k) plans. Really. Seriously. Can you imagine a Romney-Ryan administration boosting, leaving in place or in any way supporting private pension arrangements that might benefit a large number of middle-class workers or retirees?
  • Imputed rental income is excluded. Creates an advantage for owning over renting, thus creates an advantage for stability and greater economic security for middle-class voters. Is there a realistic chance that this one would not be a target?
  • State and local taxes are deducted. Romney himself benefited heftily from this deduction, according to his 2011 IRS filing.
  • Accelerated depreciation of machinery and equipment. Can benefit most the business persons who need it most. See the bull’s-eye?
  • Capital gains. Well, there’s one in every bunch.
  • Deduction for charitable contributions. They’ve already started going after this one, so they can hardly claim they won’t be trying further. Admittedly many wealthy individuals benefit from this deduction–but so do the causes to which they donate, including House of Ruth, Disabled Veterans of America, and countless food banks.
  • Exclusions for employer contributions to employee pension plans. See the first and fourth items, above.

 

The TNR author has a valid point that many, many dollars in tax ‘loopholes’ benefit individuals in the big middle of the U.S. economy. Another way of looking at the same topic–rather than suggesting 90 percent of the population as a giant larder to be raided by the one-percenters–would see most of these exclusions and deductions as reasonable ways to shore up individuals throughout all ranks of society. Thus it would seem to be a key question for campaign 2012: Which tax loopholes, Governor Romney, would you close? Maybe that question will be asked in one of the debates. It has not been effectively posed by the national political press so far, at least not effectively enough to get a clear answer.

Meanwhile, along with the big-ticket items above that allow the middle class to survive, there are some intriguing smaller items benefiting a far smaller cohort.

See for example this piece from Andrew Sorkin, from 2011. As the author points out, an oddity of the tax code benefits day traders and speculators who buy and sell futures contracts–even in comparison with traders in stocks or mutual funds.

“For years, futures contracts, which are essentially bets on the price of commodities, stock indexes and the like, have received a more favorable tax treatment than stocks. A trader who buys and sells an oil contract in less than a year—even in a matter of minutes—pays no more than a 23 percent tax on the profits.

Compare that with the bill for flipping shares of Google, General Electric or even a diversified mutual fund in the same time period. Those short-term investment gains are treated like ordinary income, meaning the rate can run as high as 35 percent.”

The biggest beneficiaries, Sorkin continues, “seem to be day traders and speculators.  Long-term investors account for only 20 percent of the activity in the commodities future market, according to a report published last week by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the industry regulator.”

Incidentally, the fact that short-term gains can be taxed at a higher rate also means that a short-term (paper) loss can be a significant write-off. As previously written, Mitt Romney has taken full advantage of this one, too.

More in the Romney tax returns

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More on those tax returns

Following up on those Friday-release Romney tax returns, a few quick observations

Mitt and Ann Romney’s IRS tax return for 2011 is posted here.

For the record, what has not been revealed by Romney is more interesting than what has been. Still, there are some items of interest in the limited and partial two-year disclosure the Romney team has vouchsafed.

From the top:

The headliner, of course, is the large amount of money involved.

Total adjusted gross income reported:   $13,696,951.

Largest single income source is from capital gains:            $6,810,176.

Next largest income source is dividends:                               $3,649,567.

Next largest income source is interest, including as previously written U.S. government interest:              $3,012,775.

The next thing one notes is the meticulous craftsmanship of Romney’s tax preparers, PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers

The meticulousness is noticeable in regard to whatever reduces Romney’s tax liability. Pages to indicate losses, expenses and deductions are filled out copiously. Numerous tax credits are claimed, large and small. Two dollars ($2) in tax credits is claimed for example under Part III, General Business Credits or Eligible Small Business Credits, for “Increasing research activities (form 6765)”. Box checked: “General Business Credit From a Passive Activity.” Another twenty-five dollars ($25) for increasing research is claimed on another page, indicating a different pass-through entity.

Capital gains seem also to be meticulously included. For example, a $39 gain is declared for “Casualty or Theft of Property Held More Than One Year.” Cryptic.

Capital losses, on the other hand, apparently total $484,913.

Note:

‘Capital loss’ seems to wiggle up or down a little, depending on which page you’re on. This is probably the key on how Romney in person addresses questions, audiences, and fora on the campaign trail. Other people are thinking in terms of ‘flip-flopping’ or issues or the like. Romney is thinking in terms of long-term gain/loss.

Romney on air

Speaking of losses and write-offs, our tax code offers among numerous other deductions an Investment Interest Expense Deduction. This deduction might well have been intended to encourage investment in, say, factories and equipment. But evidently it can also be applied to capital-gains-type ‘investment’, such as in pass-through entities in the Caymans, Germany, and Ireland.

Romney’s net investment income reported:       $2,403,311.

Investment interest expense reported:                $640,876.

His deduction:   Ditto.

So just managing the investment income costs that? Or the part of the managing expenses that can be deducted?

On another matter, the Household Employment Tax and Social Security pages are left blank. Instead, a statement: “Beginning in 2011, the payroll tax returns and all applicable taxes for personal employees were remitted on a monthly basis and reported quarterly on Form 941.” Form 941 is not included in the releases. Protecting employees’ privacy is a good. The omissions leave PriceWaterhouseCoopers on the hook for seeing to it that there’s no funny business about employees’ Social Security.

Can, meet worms.

  • Chris Hayes on MSNBC has already pointed out that the trustee named on Romney’s blind trusts is also Romney’s own attorney. Here is the posted statement from Romney’s guy.
  • As stated, Romney actually chose to pay more taxes than he had to for 2011, by claiming less in charitable contributions than the handsome amount he gave. This filing decision was made, according to Romney’s guys, in order to make Romney’s taxes conform to his previous (July) statement on his usual tax rate.
  • Tax expert David Cay Johnston has also pointed out the careful wording in this statement, particularly re ‘owed’ versus ‘paid’. Nowhere does Romney’s statement on his taxes claim that Romney paid what he owed in the given tax year.
  • Numerous commentators have also noted that this year, for example, Romney can if he chooses go back and file an amended return, i.e. after the election, and claim the rest of his charitable deductions.

Worms, meet can.

One last sub-topic, in this dry matter of tax returns.

Many, many pages of the Romney tax returns: “Information Return by a Shareholder of a Passive Foreign Investment Company or Qualified Electing Fund” (Form 8621). Romney’s filing is particularly sensitive to the possible impression made by the category of foreign holdings, it would seem. Passive Foreign Investment Company (PFIC) holdings  in the Grand Caymans, etc., are repeatedly said to be held indirectly through Goldman Sachs (hint hint). The number of shares is always “unknown.” The dollar amounts appear to be minuscule. The large number of Form 8621’s included, demonstrating small amounts in holdings overseas, contrasts to the omission of that form about employee Social Security.

Interestingly, PFIC shares or amounts held in the Netherlands or in the Grand Caymans, etc., are UP in 2011 from 2010. Looks as if Romney was convinced in 2010 that he wouldn’t face much of a problem about them in the 2012 race. Could that have been an impression left by the 2010 elections?

Some shares in PFICs were purchased in (late) November 2010, in fact, and in December of the same year.

Narrowing down further to specifics, page after page of the tax returns indicate date acquired for PFICs as “12/14/2010.” Here, just for fun, is a Wall Street Journal article headline for that exact date: “Dems Sweat ObamaCare Ruling.”

An earlier bunch of Romney’s PFIC holdings had been acquired 9/16/2010. Sample headline for that date: “Poll: Climate grows rockier for Dems, Obama.”

Moving on–

Although the vastest sums in Romney’s wealth are capital gains, dividends and interest–unearned income–there is also a (relatively) small category of earned income. For author/speaking fees, American Talent Group LLC paid Romney $178,500. For director’s fees, Marriott International paid him $260,390.

Still, those amounts–which would be substantial for almost anyone else–are dwarfed by the capital gains category.

Short-term capital losses:             $2,292,120. Hefty write-off.

Long-term capital gain:  $9,033,933.

This over-all is the dominant pattern characterizing Romney’s tax posture: some short-term loss, far more than compensated by long-germ gain. A more precise way to interpret the facts might be, some short-term loss as a means to long-term gain. Some short-term loss paving the way to long-term gain.

It’s like buying a company, assuming costly debt/leverage, then treating the loss as another receivable–from the U.S. Treasury, in the form of tax adjustments–when subsequently selling the company.

Dade Behring is one illustration. As the New York Times reported in November 2011,

“Bain settled on a common tactic in private equity: In April 1999, it pushed Dade to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars to buy half of Bain’s shares in the company—and half of those of its investment partners.

Bain pocketed the $242 million. Goldman received $121 million. Top Dade executives got $55 million, records show. The total payout to shareholders reached $420 million—nearly as much as the purchase price for Dade.”

Dade declared bankruptcy and was later bought by a German company.

Romney trusts receive more from govt for 2011 than Romney is paying in income tax

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Romney trusts receive more from govt for 2011 than Romney is paying in income tax

What was that about receiving money from the government, again?

Re-posting from Saturday, responding to a couple of quick questions and further clarifying the earlier post–

Friday p.m., Sept. 21, Mitt Romney finally released his completed tax return for 2011. Finished Monday, released Friday afternoon, in one of those document drops traditionally timed for the start of the weekend rather than for the top of the news cycle.

The filing is dated Sept. 17, 2012, right after–first business day after–public release by Mother Jones magazine of Romney’s videotaped remarks. The three blind trust filings, however, were signed Sept. 12. Safe to say the Romney team waited until after the conventions to finish the tax papers, but the timing of the release may well have been planned before the Mother Jones videotape.

Mitt Romney

For now, a quick note on the Romney trusts.

First, the W. Mitt Romney Blind Trust return for 2011 shows income for Romney’s blind trust of $664,045 from the U.S. government. Top line, after you get through the pages for extensions, etc., is income from

U.S. GOVERNMENT INTEREST: $652,018.

Shortly after that comes U.S. GOVERNMENT INTEREST REPORTED AS DIVIDENDS: $12,027.

Total for 2011: as stated $664,045.

This is interest income alone in 2011, for Romney’s blind trust, from the United States government.

U.S. savings bonds

The same story holds for the other Romney trusts.

The 2011 return for the Romney Family Trust shows

U.S. government interest income:           $662,115.

U.S. government interest in dividend form:         $90,461.

Total U.S. government interest income for the Romney family trust:       $752,576.

 

The 2011 return for the Ann Romney Trust shows

U.S. government interest income:           $362,701.

U.S. government  interest reported as dividends:             $156,157.

Total:     $518,858.

So total moneys received as interest, from our U.S. government in 2011, by the Romney trusts, came to $1,935,479.

 

A snarky person might call that the exact amount–in this category, for 2011–added by Romney trusts to the ‘national debt’ our GOPers gripe about so much.

I don’t feel that way, of course. I favor buying U.S. savings bonds. A few qualifiers, here:

One, as written previously I support buying U.S. Treasury notes, bills, and savings bonds. With interest rates low, it is a particularly patriotic thing to do, and that so many people and business entities around the globe are doing so is further evidence of the solidity of the U.S. government. Low-yielding savings bonds are a fiscally conservative form of investment and a safe place to park money.

Romney’s tax returns do not indicate when Romney or his trusts purchased the Treasury products producing this trust interest income.

Two, this interest income, handsome as it is, is dwarfed by the myriad tax write-offs allowed by our government to entities like Romney’s trusts, by the pages of paper losses and deductions Romney can legally use to reduce his taxes, and above all by the lower federal tax rate applied to income gotten by capital gains rather than by working.

But wait, there’s more. The next Q is how the blind trust returns relate to Romney’s tax return.

The Romneys’ tax return shows total adjusted gross income:      $13,696,951.

Largest single income source: capital gains:          $6,810,176.

Next largest income source: dividends:                 $3,649,567.

Next largest income source: interest:     $3,012,775.

One answer is that the Romneys’ federal interest income comes to one-seventh, or 14 percent, of the adjusted gross income declared on Romney’s IRS return for 2011. Much has been made of that percentage in the 2012 election campaign, as we recall. Saturday’s Washington Post headline on this topic said that Romney paid a 14 percent tax rate in 2011. The WP did not mention that Romney’s income tax burden was almost exactly offset by interest income the Romney trusts received from the U.S. Treasury.

Looking at the same thing another way, without the interest income from Treasury, the Romneys’ adjusted gross comes down to $11,239,472. Admittedly that total would still be enough for their simple needs.

It might also be noted, though, that the income reported is just the interest on those U.S. government products. The face value of the Treasury bonds, notes or bills does not have to be reported, and isn’t. Nor is the purchase date or the type of Treasury product purchased. It’s just money coming back into Romney accounts–the full maturity value of the EE-Series bonds or whatever, which would be a multiple of the reported interest income.

Moving from percentages to dollar amounts, Romney reports owing $1,935,708.00 in federal income tax for 2011. He reports paying $3,434,441. That’s an overpayment with refund due to Romney, according to his return, of $1,498,740. (Box checked applying it to estimated tax for 2012.)

Thus,

to the government:        $1,935,708.00

from the government:  $1,935,479.00

Difference:         $229.00

In short, by some uncanny coincidence Romney’s combined trusts received in interest FROM Uncle Sam, for 2011, almost exactly what citizen Romney is paying in income tax TO Uncle Sam for 2011.

And as stated that’s before factoring in all the offsets, credits, deductions and other means of reducing reportable or taxable income on the family IRS returns.

 

Romney’s releases re finance are posted here.

 

Romney trusts receive more from govt for 2011 than Romney is paying in income tax

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Romney trusts receive more from govt for 2011 than Romney is paying in income tax

What was that about receiving money from the government, again?

Mitt Romney

Friday p.m., September 21, Mitt Romney finally released his completed tax return for 2011.

The date on the filing is 9-17-2012. Thus it was finished right after–first business day after–public release by Mother Jones magazine of Romney’s videotaped remarks about people who don’t pay taxes and want government handouts.

Finished Monday, released Friday afternoon, in one of those document drops traditionally timed for the start of the weekend rather than for the start of the news cycle.

More on the Romneys’ return itself later. The short story is that, for all the complaining Romney’s wealthy supporters do about how much government helps the poor, our government helps the rich more, far more. But as said, later for that.

For now, just a quick note on the Romney trusts.

First, the W. Mitt Romney Blind Trust return for 2011 shows income for Romney’s blind trust of $664,045 from the U.S. government. Top line, after you get through the pages for extensions, etc., is

income from U.S. GOVERNMENT INTEREST: $652,018.

Shortly after that comes U.S. GOVERNMENT INTEREST REPORTED AS DIVIDENDS: $12,027.

Total as stated $664,045, in interest income alone in 2011, for Romney’s blind trust from our gummint.

The same story holds for the other Romney trusts.

The 2011 return for the Romney Family Trust shows

U.S. government interest income at $662,115;

U.S. government interest in dividend form at $90,461.

Total U.S. government interest income for the Romney family trust: $752,576.

The 2011 return for the Ann Romney Trust shows usgov interest income of $362,701. U.S. government  interest reported as dividends: $156,157. Total $518,858.

So total moneys received just as interest, from our U.S. government in 2011, by the Romney trusts, came to $1,935,479.

A snarky person might call that the exact amount contributed by Romney trusts to the ‘national debt’ our GOPers gripe about so much. Or anyway the exact amount so far as we know, for 2011.

 

A few qualifiers, here:

One, as written previously I support buying U.S. Treasury notes, bills, and savings bonds. With interest rates so low right now, it is a particularly patriotic thing to do, and that so many people and business entities around the globe are doing so is further evidence of the solidity of U.S. government reserves. Low-yielding savings bonds are a fiscally conservative form of investment and a safe place to park money.

(Romney’s tax returns do not indicate, so far as I can tell, when Romney or his trusts purchased the Treasury products producing this U.S. government interest income.)

Two, this interest income, handsome as it is, is dwarfed by the myriad tax write-offs allowed by our government to entities like Romney’s trusts, by the pages of paper losses and deductions Romney can legally use to reduce his taxes, and above all by the lower federal tax rate applied to income gotten by capital gains rather than by working.

But wait, there’s more.

Romney reports owing $1,935,708.00 in federal income tax for 2011. He reports paying $3,434,441. That’s an overpayment with refund due to Romney, according to his return, of $1,498,740. (He checked the box applying it to estimated tax for 2012.)

Thus,

to the government: $1,935,708.00

from the government: $1,935,479.00

Difference: $229.00

In short, by some uncanny coincidence Romney’s combined trusts received just very slightly less FROM Uncle Sam, for 2011, than citizen Romney is paying in income tax TO Uncle Sam.

 

Romney: “These are people who pay no income tax”

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Romney: “These are people who pay no income tax”

Where did this Mitt Romney come from?

Let’s be clear, up top. Romney’s remarks at a Boca Raton fundraiser did not just link unworthy people, Obama voters, and the number ’47 percent’. Romney linked unworthy people, Obama voters, ’47 percent’, and “people who pay no income tax.”

 

Romney anti-tax button

Who spoke those words?

Why, Mitt Romney, the GOP nominee for the White House:

“There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47% who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement … And they will vote for this president no matter what … These are people who pay no income tax … My job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

Did Romney miss his entire campaign over the past two years? Since when did he of all people equate paying federal income tax with personal responsibility?

(Note: I do, to some extent. Not he.)

Watching the tape, I found the casual they-pay-no-income-tax comment more jaw-dropping than the rest. (Had Romney just learned that he had to write a check to the IRS for 2011?) The candidate’s unbecoming dismissal of half the population is hardly news–aside from its exposure–nor is his dismissal of peace in the Middle East. This is basically the corporate GOP mindset. These are the same people, after all, who have abortions in their own families if they so choose but who are perfectly willing to subscribe to party platforms illegalizing the procedure if it will help them consolidate policy on matters dearer to them. That those policies do not benefit the overwhelming majority of the population is a point about which most GOP officeholders, or future lobbyists, have repeatedly shown themselves to be indifferent.

But elevating paying your income tax to a moral standard?

Who is this man?

Bob Hope must be spinning in his grave.

Retreating to common sense–it is a truism that no one likes to pay taxes. That’s one reason why this country, with its ideal of widespread literacy, still relies so heavily on ‘hidden’ taxes that are destructively recessive, such as sales taxes and ‘user fees’, etc. No one likes to pay income tax, although some people are patriotically proud of how much they contribute. Anti-IRS jokes have been a staple of a certain kind of humor at least since Bob Hope. Hope’s delivery and diction tended to be mild-mannered, not Tabasco, but could not have been confused with pro-tax. Like Romney’s candidacy early on, they went over well with the white-shoes-white-belt crowd that are Romney’s traditional base.

 

bleahh

Romney himself has acknowledged a lack of fondness for taxes. To do him justice, Romney has said openly–even on the campaign trail–that he himself uses every available mechanism to reduce his taxes:

“ROMNEY: Let me also say categorically, I have paid taxes every year, and a lot of taxes.

My view is I have paid all the taxes required by law. I don’t pay more than are legally due.”

More broadly, the notion that paying taxes is bad is hardly a subtext in this year’s Republican campaign.

The evidence on this point, in fact, gives new meaning to the old phrase ’embarrassment of riches’. See among numerous examples romney’s public remarks on Aug 24:

“In calling for a broader, simplified tax code, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Friday that bigger businesses, in knowing how to utilize loopholes in the tax code, are “doing fine in many places” compared to small businesses.

“We’ve got to make it easier for small businesses,” Romney told a crowd of about 300 people at a high-dollar fundraiser in Minnesota. “Big business is doing fine in many place- -they get the loans they need, they can deal with all the regulation. They know how to find ways to get through the tax code, save money by putting various things in the places where there are low tax havens around the world for their businesses. But small business is getting crushed.””

One looks in vain for criticism in Romney’s comments about big businesses not pulling their weight, feeling entitled, etc., in connection with paying no income tax. It’s no wonder the biggest guns in the GOP, especially some rightwing media personalities, are jumping all over Romney for all of a sudden getting religion about paying your income tax. I don’t remember the last time George Will, Charles Krauthammer or Bill Kristol stepped forward to support same.

Then we have Romney’s choice of a running mate, Paul Ryan (who is also running for Congress in Wisconsin, and has a strong challenger, Rob Zerban).

The Zerbans, Wisconsin

The same day that Romney made his “big businesses are doing fine” comment, Ryan said much the same thing:

“By plugging loopholes, which are uniquely enjoyed by higher income individuals, you’re reducing their ability to shelter their income from taxation . . .”

Needless to say, the Romney-Ryan campaign has not included specifics on what ‘loopholes’ would be cut MORTGAGE INTEREST DEDUCTION.  The Romney-Ryan insistence on extending all Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest, eliminating even the remaining U.S. inheritance tax, and lowering the income tax for corporations does not suggest that the loopholes would be only those enjoyed by the wealthiest among us MORTGAGE INTEREST DEDUCTION.

 

To return to that “they pay no income tax” line–

The problem with Romney’s comments is not only that they were impolitic, inaccurate and mean-spirited. They were also confused. You cannot at one and the same time campaign against taxes, and elevate paying your fair share of taxes as a moral standard. You cannot openly acknowledge that the tax code already favors the wealthy and big businesses–as both Romney and Ryan have done–and then successfully claim that it’s the poorer citizens who are getting away with something.

Except when you’re talking privately to a cluster of wealthy individuals who already tell themselves that.

Orwell lives.

Speaking of impolitic remarks, there was a slideslip into accuracy in Romney’s “big businesses are doing fine” comments, which is one reason they were so widely quoted. Analyses, including this one by CNBC, have corroborated the finding that, indeed, the one percenters are doing fine using available tax breaks. The New York Times summarized some of the ways Aug. 10, the Journal Tribune Aug. 25. Plenty of further information is available.

Not that the one percenters are the only ones, of course. The question of who is not liable for federal income tax under the current tax code is now getting some clarification it has long deserved, thanks to Romney. Here among others is a good run-down by the Christian Science Monitor.

In fact, on why Romney’s conflating non-income-tax payers with 1) Obama voters and 2) unworthy people is as inaccurate as it is ugly, let’s take a leaf from Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and count the ways.

Non- federal income tax payers, by state percentages

Factor Number One: Region or State

The nonpartisan Tax Foundation published a report in 2010 showing that paying federal income tax varies widely by state. The ten states with the largest percentage of non-payers? They include nine states–Idaho, Texas, and southeastern states including Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia–likely to go for Romney. Of the ten, all but one–Florida–is conventionally designated a ‘red state’, and Florida has a Republican governor and legislature.

Factor Number Two: Age

Florida also has a sizable retired population. As this fuller breakdown by the Tax Policy Center reminds us, one cohort paying less federal income tax is the elderly. Senior citizens on Social Security benefit from tax expenditures that Romney and Ryan have claimed, on the campaign trail, to support. The oldest voters, be it noted, are the only age group of voters among whom Romney bests President Obama.

Factor Number Three: Low Income

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that the main reason people don’t pay federal income tax, when they don’t, is that their incomes are too low for them to be tax liable. Here Romney is on firmer ground, so to speak. True enough, many of the poorest households do not support him–except when they are also seniors, or Southern whites. A number of them, including households with elderly members or Southern whites, also receive Social Security Supplemental Security Income (SSI), disability aid, Medicaid, WIC, unemployment benefits or some other form of public assistance. So presumably a Romney-Ryan tax plan will try to catch more of the nation’s poorest households in a higher tax bracket. Those are the indications so far, both from Ryan himself and from the 2012 GOP platform.

Factor Number Four: Military Service

Federal income tax on compensation for serving in the military is offset in several ways. Compensation received for service in a combat zone, for example, is not subject to federal income tax. There are also state income-tax exclusions for military pay in various states. By the way, the states with the best exclusions are not necessarily red states. Cash-strapped red states are at least as likely as any other states to limit the income tax exclusions.

Factor Number Five: High-Net-Worth Individuals and Corporations

On not paying taxes at the upper end, you can find copious information in various glossy sources. A quick hint here, but really Romney and Ryan’s own comments–and the scant information so far released in Romney’s own tax returns–give the picture. If you want to have more fun, and enjoy scenic views of golden beaches and sun, you can read up on off-shore tax havens. And of course numerous top corporations make tax avoidance part of their ongoing strategy. They generally poor-mouth while doing it, too. Where are Romney and Ryan on these entities, perennially ready to portray themselves as victims?

Sad to say, some of the households and individuals characterized by Governor Romney as takers will vote for him anyway. Their local newspapers and television news channels may fail to clarify his remarks or to correct the tax arithmetic. Their willingness to believe it’s different when you accept government aid while simultaneously being white will undoubtedly be catered to by the campaign. That these are some of the same households hurt worst by Romney-Ryan policy won’t change their votes.

But the fact remains that the real one-way-streeters comprise those responsible for the mortgage-derivatives debacle, those who benefit financially from it, and those who oppose any process that would lead to retribution or reimbursement. Only racial politics could make the GOP imagine that any large proportion of the country can be made to forget who was responsible for our biggest crash since the Great Depression.