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Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Mitt Romney Paid A Higher Tax Percentage Than Me

A new "scary" Obama ad vilifies Romney for only paying 14% of his income as income tax to the federal government. My thought, so what? But I thought, what the heck, I will check my own numbers. Turns out I paid about 12% of my adjusted gross income (AGI) in taxes. Further, if you factor in that my 401(k) like retirement plan and my flexible spending plan (for medical) contributions aren't taxable, I paid closer to 10% of my income as federal taxes.

I feel like Romney might need better tax advice, but in my experience his tax percentage is a lot bigger than mine.

More to the point, his tax rate means that he contributed millions in taxes to the federal government. Why the vilification?

So I am asking my readers what percent of your AGI did you pay in federal income taxes?

3 comments:

  1. We paid more than that, but far, far less than the progressives would like.

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  2. I paid about the same after mortgage interest deductions and the like.

    Another important fact is that Romney's Charitable donations are 10%-15% per year:

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/edwindurgy/2012/05/17/an-inside-look-at-the-millions-mitt-romney-has-given-away/

    "In just the past two years, Romney has given the church $1.525 million and $2.6 million, respectively, according to his tax returns."

    "The couple have contributed approximately $13.6 million, including an initial gift of more than $3.6 million, to their Tyler Charitable Foundation, based in Boston, MA, in the past 13 years."

    "All told, we have accounted for nearly $18 million of charitable giving by Mitt Romney to date,roughly 8% of what we currently estimate his net worth to be and three times Obama’s net worth. Yet it is very likely that we are undercounting Romney’s total lifetime giving by many millions, as any exhaustive log of Romney’s pre-2010 out of pocket donations is locked away in the presidential candidate’s historical tax returns."

    Barack Obama Gave 1% to charity: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/obamas-gifts-to-charity-just-1-percent/2012/02/14/gIQAXuMDER_blog.html
    "2005: $77,315 to charity out of income of $1.66 million (4.6 percent)
    2004: $2,500 out of $207,647 (1.2 percent)
    2003: $3,400 out of $238,327 (1.4 percent)
    2002: $1,050 out of $259,394 (0.4 percent)"

    "2005 and 2006 after the Illinois senator published a bestselling book. The $137,622 they gave over those two years amounted to more than 5 percent of their $2.6 million income." http://nation.foxnews.com/mitt-romney/2012/01/24/whos-greedy-obama-gave-1-charity-romney-gave-15#ixzz24IADz7pT

    President Obama's Charitable giving has increased since running for President in 2008. Much of that percentage was due to a windfall donation of the money from the Nobel Prize for Peace.

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