Why Won't Romney Release His Tax Returns?

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

[quote]ZEB wrote:

“Anything deemed to increase your wealth” is NOT even close to the definition of a write off. Otherwise, when my son opened his lemon-aide stand and started making money you could call that a write off as it increased his wealth. And it certainly was NOT a write off!

[/quote]

the profit is not a write off , the machines to squeeze the lemons , and so are the trucks , freezers ,office furniture, that trip to Hawaii to see Sun Kist does it , That racing boat is good advertisement, The hookers for the President of Chick Fillet is also but we will have to tweek the invoice.[/quote]

Wining and dining actually can be written off.

At least in Austria.

And dont worry, you get a receipt that does not raise eyebrows.

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

[quote]ZEB wrote:

“Anything deemed to increase your wealth” is NOT even close to the definition of a write off. Otherwise, when my son opened his lemon-aide stand and started making money you could call that a write off as it increased his wealth. And it certainly was NOT a write off!

[/quote]

the profit is not a write off , the machines to squeeze the lemons , and so are the trucks , freezers ,office furniture, that trip to Hawaii to see Sun Kist does it , That racing boat is good advertisement, The hookers for the President of Chick Fillet is also but we will have to tweek the invoice.[/quote]

First of all accusing the President of Chick Fillet of associating with hookers is despicable. That is the type of comment that scum bags like Harry Reid say. They spread rumors to damage another persons reputation for political gain.

Secondly, what you posted above is a far cry from your original statement:

I’m glad you googled “business write offs.”

Basically, in the example above money spent on purchasing machinery and visiting a place that can further your knowledge of your industry are all legitimate write offs.

Now that you know what a write off is you know that most of these things (well over 90%) are legitimate business expenses. So stop using that term “write off” as something shady it is not!

[quote]ZEB wrote:

Now that you know what a write off is you know that most of these things (well over 90%) are legitimate business expenses. So stop using that term “write off” as something shady it is not!

[/quote]

Of course it is.

The very fact that you owe someone if you make any kind of money is shady.

Its enough to make one sing gospels, just to remain in the tradition.

But, ooohhhh, they let you write off some things.

The natural reaction is not “ooooh, thank you Massah”, its more like, fuck you heres my gun.

So, shady it is, you just wont get shot for it, I guess the official term is: legal.

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:

[quote]ZEB wrote:

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:

This man said that the atheletes didn’t get to the Olympics on their own[/quote]

Sounds like you are voting for Obama.

Good for you!

I’ll continue to make money regardless of who wins.

Simple.[/quote]

My point is that you’re taking his speech way out of context. I thought both that speech by Romney and the one made by Obama were pretty good when not taken out of context. I know you’re bright. Do you really think that Obama was trying to completely discredit business owners and that he didn’t acknowledge their hard work? If you do, I suggest you read or listen to it more closely through a fresh lens.

[/quote]

You honestly can’t see the difference between those two speeches?

I reiterate,

Better questions:

-Why didn’t Obama deliver on his “hope and change” promise?

-Why are we now at 46 straight months of unemployment over 8%? The highest since the great depression!

Why do we have a national debt of almost 16 trillion dollars? 5 trillion dollars higher since Obama took office.

-Why did government just take over 1/6th of the US economy with the national health care bill? When a free market solution was never even tried.

-Why did Obama just pass the largest tax increase in the history of the US in order to pay for health care?

-Why does Obama hate small business people taxing them into oblivion and telling them that they are not responsible for their own success?

-Why is Obama threatening to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire which would raise taxes an additional 5% on every working American. And no doubt send the economy into another recession.

There are far better questions than Romney not releasing his last 1000 years of tax returns. He released the same number of years as every other candidate who ever ran for office. Matters not if he’s worth 300 billion dollars and keeps it in the bank of China. Obama is trying to make this an issue because he has failed as President and has no record to run on! Everything that is not related to the economy and the long-term success of the US economically is a sideshow and meant to take the voters attention off the real topic.

We need to get rid of Obama he’s a complete and total FAILURE!

As expected, evern liberals are turning on Reid’s post-modern McCarthyism - Rochard Cohen lays into Reid (and his obvious White House enablers) for gutter politics and Peter Beinart has penned an article noting that Romney’s tax returns are irrelevant.

On a related note, did you know the President has not taken a questions from the press in two months? The economy is sputtering, the labor report(s) continue to disappoint, and we are staring down a “fiscal cliff” in the near term - but the “most transparent administration” can’t be bothered to answer questions from the press corps…they have more important business to attend to, like unleashing ethics-free Senate majority leaders to slander Romney with evidence-free accusations of tax avoidance.

Forget left, right or middle, forget ideology - this is irreponsible sleaze, and it is regardless of your party affiliation.

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:<<< this is irresponsible sleaze, >>>[/quote]But typical of totalitarian states who perceive no responsibility on their part to explain themselves to the people over whom they exercise power beyond their own tightly scripted propaganda. This isn’t exactly THAT of course. It is just as much the Obamanoids wise recognition that he will be a disaster in a live press conference right now, under these circumstances this close to a national election. Can’t go on forever though. They can’t just let Romney and his campaign saturate the airwaves unchallenged indefinitely. And no word from Obama himself will begin to look weak any time now. Even to the untutored intuition of the general voting public.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid again deflected questions Monday about releasing his tax returns, even as he continued to pound the demand for Mitt Romney to make more of his own public…?I?m a member of Congress now, I don?t make too much money,? said Reid, whose net worth was estimated at $10 million in 2010.


Reid didn’t make his money in the private sector creating jobs by the way. And Obama made his money from two, strange ghostwritten autobiographies.

lol eventually the republicans will lose…

Anybody can be bought, especially old people

[quote]pittbulll wrote:
JPW what you are doing is releasing the part of the argument that benefits your point. Throw in the equation that the ultra wealthy tax dollar even after huge write offs for things like horses , vacations , cars , anything could be written off with a good enough accountant. the ultra wealthy dollar is worth $.85 and the working class id worth $.70 you must admit even with out the write offs there is a huge disparity. Why would the wealthy want to change anything ?[/quote]
The disparity is inconsequential. It is irrelevant. I do support a flat 15% tax with NO writeoffs. Dividends should not be double taxed.

The left and the class warfare folks are tiresome. The rich currently do pay not only more in absolute dollars, but also pay more in tax rate. Somehow, having more pie at the end of the parasite feedings, if they have more, they are supposed to just give more away? There is no solid argument for this.

Fair is a word that is getting distorted. Want to know what fair is? For all able body people, the total amount of dollars that the government “needs” is totaled, and then everyone gets a bill for the same dollar amount. That would be fair.

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

[quote]ZEB wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:
JPW what you are doing is releasing the part of the argument that benefits your point. Throw in the equation that the ultra wealthy tax dollar even after huge write offs for things like horses , vacations , cars , anything could be written off with a good enough accountant. the ultra wealthy dollar is worth $.85 and the working class id worth $.70 you must admit even with out the write offs there is a huge disparity. Why would the wealthy want to change anything ?[/quote]

I really doubt you even understand what the term “write off” means.[/quote]

I know you think it is rocket science Zeb but it is quite simple anything that can be deemed to increase your wealth is considered a write off. There are also medical right offs . Not sure but Gym member ships can be written off .[/quote]

Um, no.

[/quote]

get a prescription

[quote]jp_dubya wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:
JPW what you are doing is releasing the part of the argument that benefits your point. Throw in the equation that the ultra wealthy tax dollar even after huge write offs for things like horses , vacations , cars , anything could be written off with a good enough accountant. the ultra wealthy dollar is worth $.85 and the working class id worth $.70 you must admit even with out the write offs there is a huge disparity. Why would the wealthy want to change anything ?[/quote]
The disparity is inconsequential. It is irrelevant. I do support a flat 15% tax with NO writeoffs. Dividends should not be double taxed.

The left and the class warfare folks are tiresome. The rich currently do pay not only more in absolute dollars, but also pay more in tax rate. Somehow, having more pie at the end of the parasite feedings, if they have more, they are supposed to just give more away? There is no solid argument for this.

Fair is a word that is getting distorted. Want to know what fair is? For all able body people, the total amount of dollars that the government “needs” is totaled, and then everyone gets a bill for the same dollar amount. That would be fair.[/quote]

I used to think the tiered system was designed to help the poor but I am realizing the true recipients of the tiered system are Wealthy, I would agree a flat tax is looking more equitable

[quote]ZEB wrote:
I reiterate,

Better questions:

-Why didn’t Obama deliver on his “hope and change” promise?

-Why are we now at 46 straight months of unemployment over 8%? The highest since the great depression!

Why do we have a national debt of almost 16 trillion dollars? 5 trillion dollars higher since Obama took office.

-Why did government just take over 1/6th of the US economy with the national health care bill? When a free market solution was never even tried.

-Why did Obama just pass the largest tax increase in the history of the US in order to pay for health care?

-Why does Obama hate small business people taxing them into oblivion and telling them that they are not responsible for their own success?

-Why is Obama threatening to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire which would raise taxes an additional 5% on every working American. And no doubt send the economy into another recession.

There are far better questions than Romney not releasing his last 1000 years of tax returns. He released the same number of years as every other candidate who ever ran for office. Matters not if he’s worth 300 billion dollars and keeps it in the bank of China. Obama is trying to make this an issue because he has failed as President and has no record to run on! Everything that is not related to the economy and the long-term success of the US economically is a sideshow and meant to take the voters attention off the real topic.

We need to get rid of Obama he’s a complete and total FAILURE! [/quote]

Zeb your post has a hint of truth but for the most part it is up there with FAUX news

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

I used to think the tiered system was designed to help the poor but I am realizing the true recipients of the tiered system are Wealthy, [/quote]

Not really. Like the vast majority of people, you just don’t get how taxes work.

This is good explaination honestly:

[quote]Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like thisâ?¦
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing
The fifth would pay $1
The sixth would pay $3
The seventh would pay $7
The eighth would pay $12
The ninth would pay $18
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59

So, thatâ??s what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve ball.

â??Since you are all such good customers,â?? he said, â??Iâ??m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20â?³. Drinks for the ten men would now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men ? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share?

The bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each manâ??s bill by a higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.
And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% saving).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings.

â??I only got a dollar out of the $20 saving,â?? declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,â??but he got $10!â??

â??Yeah, thatâ??s right,â?? exclaimed the fifth man. â??I only saved a dollar too. Itâ??s unfair that he got ten times more benefit than me!â??

â??Thatâ??s true!â?? shouted the seventh man. â??Why should he get $10 back, when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!â??

â??Wait a minute,â?? yelled the first four men in unison, â??we didnâ??t get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!â??

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didnâ??t show up for drinks so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didnâ??t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and government ministers, is how our tax system works. The people who already pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
[/quote]

[quote]I would agree a flat tax is looking more equitable
[/quote]

I shit you not, I hope they do this. Because a whole lot of people are going to see the changes to their tax returns and beg and beg to go back to the other way. I would say roughly 80% of the people calling for it are going to fuck themselves over.

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

[quote]ZEB wrote:
I reiterate,

Better questions:

-Why didn’t Obama deliver on his “hope and change” promise?

-Why are we now at 46 straight months of unemployment over 8%? The highest since the great depression!

Why do we have a national debt of almost 16 trillion dollars? 5 trillion dollars higher since Obama took office.

-Why did government just take over 1/6th of the US economy with the national health care bill? When a free market solution was never even tried.

-Why did Obama just pass the largest tax increase in the history of the US in order to pay for health care?

-Why does Obama hate small business people taxing them into oblivion and telling them that they are not responsible for their own success?

-Why is Obama threatening to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire which would raise taxes an additional 5% on every working American. And no doubt send the economy into another recession.

There are far better questions than Romney not releasing his last 1000 years of tax returns. He released the same number of years as every other candidate who ever ran for office. Matters not if he’s worth 300 billion dollars and keeps it in the bank of China. Obama is trying to make this an issue because he has failed as President and has no record to run on! Everything that is not related to the economy and the long-term success of the US economically is a sideshow and meant to take the voters attention off the real topic.

We need to get rid of Obama he’s a complete and total FAILURE! [/quote]

Zeb your post has a hint of truth but for the most part it is up there with FAUX news[/quote]

Okay, how about this:

-No more attack ads he said
-No individual mandate he said
-Bring back habeus corpus he said
-health care bill negotiations on Cspan he said
-End NFTA he said
-Lobby & bank interests won’t be part of my cabnet he said

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

[quote]ZEB wrote:
I reiterate,

Better questions:

-Why didn’t Obama deliver on his “hope and change” promise?

-Why are we now at 46 straight months of unemployment over 8%? The highest since the great depression!

Why do we have a national debt of almost 16 trillion dollars? 5 trillion dollars higher since Obama took office.

-Why did government just take over 1/6th of the US economy with the national health care bill? When a free market solution was never even tried.

-Why did Obama just pass the largest tax increase in the history of the US in order to pay for health care?

-Why does Obama hate small business people taxing them into oblivion and telling them that they are not responsible for their own success?

-Why is Obama threatening to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire which would raise taxes an additional 5% on every working American. And no doubt send the economy into another recession.

There are far better questions than Romney not releasing his last 1000 years of tax returns. He released the same number of years as every other candidate who ever ran for office. Matters not if he’s worth 300 billion dollars and keeps it in the bank of China. Obama is trying to make this an issue because he has failed as President and has no record to run on! Everything that is not related to the economy and the long-term success of the US economically is a sideshow and meant to take the voters attention off the real topic.

We need to get rid of Obama he’s a complete and total FAILURE! [/quote]

Zeb your post has a hint of truth but for the most part it is up there with FAUX news[/quote]

Okay, how about this:

-No more attack ads he said
-No individual mandate he said
-Bring back habeus corpus he said
-health care bill negotiations on Cspan he said
-End NFTA he said
-Lobby & bank interests won’t be part of my cabnet he said

[/quote]

I would say that is the truth ? not Rhetorical either

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

[quote]ZEB wrote:
I reiterate,

Better questions:

-Why didn’t Obama deliver on his “hope and change” promise?

-Why are we now at 46 straight months of unemployment over 8%? The highest since the great depression!

Why do we have a national debt of almost 16 trillion dollars? 5 trillion dollars higher since Obama took office.

-Why did government just take over 1/6th of the US economy with the national health care bill? When a free market solution was never even tried.

-Why did Obama just pass the largest tax increase in the history of the US in order to pay for health care?

-Why does Obama hate small business people taxing them into oblivion and telling them that they are not responsible for their own success?

-Why is Obama threatening to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire which would raise taxes an additional 5% on every working American. And no doubt send the economy into another recession.

There are far better questions than Romney not releasing his last 1000 years of tax returns. He released the same number of years as every other candidate who ever ran for office. Matters not if he’s worth 300 billion dollars and keeps it in the bank of China. Obama is trying to make this an issue because he has failed as President and has no record to run on! Everything that is not related to the economy and the long-term success of the US economically is a sideshow and meant to take the voters attention off the real topic.

We need to get rid of Obama he’s a complete and total FAILURE! [/quote]

Zeb your post has a hint of truth but for the most part it is up there with FAUX news[/quote]

Okay, how about this:

-No more attack ads he said
-No individual mandate he said
-Bring back habeus corpus he said
-health care bill negotiations on Cspan he said
-End NFTA he said
-Lobby & bank interests won’t be part of my cabnet he said

[/quote]

I can guarantee that absolutely NONE of these points will be brought up by anybody other than Limbaugh and FOX News.

None of them.

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

I used to think the tiered system was designed to help the poor but I am realizing the true recipients of the tiered system are Wealthy, [/quote]

Not really. Like the vast majority of people, you just don’t get how taxes work.

This is good explaination honestly:

[quote]Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this�¢?�¦
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing
The fifth would pay $1
The sixth would pay $3
The seventh would pay $7
The eighth would pay $12
The ninth would pay $18
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59

So, that�¢??s what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve ball.

�¢??Since you are all such good customers,�¢?? he said, �¢??I�¢??m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20�¢?�³. Drinks for the ten men would now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men ? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share?

The bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man�¢??s bill by a higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.
And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% saving).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings.

�¢??I only got a dollar out of the $20 saving,�¢?? declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,�¢??but he got $10!�¢??

�¢??Yeah, that�¢??s right,�¢?? exclaimed the fifth man. �¢??I only saved a dollar too. It�¢??s unfair that he got ten times more benefit than me!�¢??

�¢??That�¢??s true!�¢?? shouted the seventh man. �¢??Why should he get $10 back, when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!�¢??

�¢??Wait a minute,�¢?? yelled the first four men in unison, �¢??we didn�¢??t get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!�¢??

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn�¢??t show up for drinks so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn�¢??t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and government ministers, is how our tax system works. The people who already pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
[/quote]

[quote]I would agree a flat tax is looking more equitable
[/quote]

I shit you not, I hope they do this. Because a whole lot of people are going to see the changes to their tax returns and beg and beg to go back to the other way. I would say roughly 80% of the people calling for it are going to fuck themselves over.[/quote]

While a short fix in that direction would probably result in unequal shift of tax burden . IMO you would have to restructure the Corporation. Corporations should ALL be tax exempt. The only thing should be stripping all corporations of super people status. No sheltering money, all but necessary operating expenses would be forwarded to investors and or owners as income

[quote]pittbulll wrote:
The only thing should be stripping all corporations of super people status.[/quote]

I see this a lot. But my only question is who is then liable for torts of the corp?

Say Ford puts out a minivan that bursts into flames somewhere between mile 60,001 and 80,001 knowingly. These van kill 1,300 mothers and 3,500 innocent children, and the class action suit is sound and founded on truth.

Who is liable for the damages if the corp itself isn’t seen as an entity of itself?

[quote] No sheltering money, all but necessary operating expenses would be forwarded to investors and or owners as income
[/quote]

Well, expenses are the opposite of income and you wouldn’t want to shift those to shareholders and owners.

But what you’re talking about are called, S-Corps, Partnerships, Limited Partnerships & Limited Liablity Companies.

The first one files an 1120S and the other 3 a 1065.

[quote]UtahLama wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

Okay, how about this:

-No more attack ads he said
-No individual mandate he said
-Bring back habeus corpus he said
-health care bill negotiations on Cspan he said
-End NFTA he said
-Lobby & bank interests won’t be part of my cabnet he said

[/quote]

I can guarantee that absolutely NONE of these points will be brought up by anybody other than Limbaugh and FOX News.

None of them.[/quote]

Nope, because then they would have to take time away from hating on rich people, tryign to create class warefare, and calling venture capitalists murderers, and talk about Obama’s governance record.

If they talked about that, even 20% of the sheep would vote for Paul or Romney.

Who said “Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?” Just add, “4 years is a long enough time for improvement to happen”.