Interesting Links for 24-01-2012

[fearmeforiampink]

• Mitt Romney pays lower taxes than average American | guardian.co.uk
  'about 15% in tax on $45m income over past two years'
  (tags: posttofacebook po tax 2012 Presidential elections America politics Republicans fairness money interesting )
• Papers "gagged" by legal costs, MPs are told - mirror.co.uk
  Specifically the smaller local papers.
  (tags: culture law litigation journalism media news interesting )
• BBC News - Shoichi Yokoi, the Japanese soldier who held out in Guam
  (tags: military mil war culture World War II Japan history interesting )
• OK, we'll get jobs, say poor people | The Daily Mash
  'finally conceded defeat and vowed to find work first thing this morning.'
  (tags: poverty money posttofacebook The Daily Mash fairness parody amusing )
• Ofcom to borrow cup o' spectrum for Olympics • The Register
  Using less than a third the engineers Beijing had
  (tags: technology Olympics Oh gods its the Olympics interesting )

Comments

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Most of Romney's earnings aren't income at all, but capital gains and carried interest. The tax rate on capital gains and carried interest in the US is I believe 15%.

Mystery solved. Nothing to see here. Move along.


I don't expect The Guardian to understand this sort of thing, but I was watching Channel 4 news earlier and they were even more confused on this story. As well as making the same mistake regarding capital gains and income that the Guardian made, at one point the reporter said that Romney only paid tax on 15% of his "income". Later she said he only paid 15% tax on his income. Those statements don't mean the same! (And they're both wrong - I imagine he pays tax on his income at the normal income tax rate. People who don't tend to get arrested.)

It's also incorrect to say that Romney "pays lower taxes than average American". Apparently he paid tax of $6.2million last year. I doubt many Americans pay as much tax as that!

There are lots of reasons to criticise Mitt Romney that I can think of, but this isn't one of them.

[fearmeforiampink]

The article does mention that its from stuff that's taxed at a lower rate. I would question whether those things should be taxed at a lower rate.

He's making money, I would call it a form of income. He pays a lower rate of tax than the average American is the point they're making there.