On 08/21/2012 09:07 AM, Han wrote:
"HeyBub" wrote in
m:

Lew Hodgett wrote:
Can we stand back and pause a short minute to take in the spectacle
of a man who wants to be President of The United States, who wants
us to seriously regard him as a paragon of the American civic ideal,
declaiming proudly and in public that he has paid his taxes at a
third of
the rate normally associated with gentlemen of his economic benefit.


Certainly.

That Romney paid a lesser rate implies that he took advantage of tax
breaks, deductions, etc., built into the tax code.

Now these exemptions and so forth were placed in the tax code by our
betters to further various social goals such as contributions to
charity, home mortgage interest, and the like. To the degree that
Romney sought out and participated in those social goals, he should be
commended!

Ross Perot, as an exemplar, paid NO taxes on his millions in income
because his income was solely in the form of tax-exempt mutual bonds.

Because Romney evidently helped fund various social goals, cities are
improved, children don't go to bed hungry, the homeless find succor,
alcoholics have access to treatment programs, and, for all I know,
stray dogs and cats get three hots and a cot.

Yes, and I take "advantage" of the breaks too, specifically the huge
loophole that transfer of appreciated stock to charity offers (a total
charitable deduction for FMV, without regard to basis or cap gains).

Perhaps we should have an automatic sunset to those social goals.
Equally to depletion allowances and subsidies to green technologies.
(I have no idea what the law says on these at the moment, just that they
have supporters and detractors on the left and the right).


How about no deductions for anyone for any reason period?

How about a flat tax at time of *consumption* with a "prebate" to make
sure the first $XX,XXX dollars are effectively untaxed so as to not put
an undue burden on the poor?

This is called the "Fair Tax" and it would work swimmingly. But the left,
especially, hates this. Why? There's getting the money and there's spending the
money. Getting it should be simple. The problem is that not everyone agrees
on how to spend it. So the left, especially, has used all manner of tax
monkeybusiness to change how we get it, who pays, and who does. The right,
seeing what was going on, joined the party. Fair Tax would make the getting
part of it simple. Then the only argument would be the spending part which is
FAR more evident and transparent to the taxpaying public.

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Tim Daneliuk
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