This is not the news you will hear on FOX News, but there are more than 7000 millionaires that did not pay taxes in 2011, according to the IRS.
Derek Thompson of the Atlantic writes:
“As Roberton Williams of the Tax Policy Center explains to me, there are three buckets of factors that can bring taxable income down from $1 million to zero. One is tax tricks. The IRS should crack down more. Two is relying heavily on investments. The administration can try to level taxes for earned income and investment income. Third is great misfortunes. When investments lose significant income, a house or business is destroyed (i.e. a casualty loss), or a family member gets sick and incurs high medical costs for the self-insured, all these things chop away at taxable income and eventually bring a millionaire’s income taxes to zero.”
“You can attribute some of those 7,000 non-tax payers to investment choices they made, like tax exempt bonds,” Williams told me, “but a lot of this might be unfortunate happenstance. A tornado tore through your home, you got a very expensive form of cancer, you lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in an investment. Those aren’t choices people made, they’re just legal deductions under the law.”
As stated above, there are a few basic reasons why more than 7000 people didn’t pay taxes. One is, of course, tax tricks which make them appear to not have any tax liability.
Another is personal misfortune, like medical bills for expensive treatments, or personal devastation of a large caliber like a tornado wiping out your home, which can be listed as credible deductions. In terms of well-to-do people not having health insurance or home insurance, I cannot see that happening, they would hopefully have paid more in tips than it would cost them to buy health and home insurance each year.
If there are large investment losses, you might gain a tax deduction. In that vein, it behooves me to point out that investors who lost large amounts of money due to the Republican-caused recession are still pumping millions into Romney’s campaign to get him elected…while he boasts of intending to use the same stupid Bush policies if he gets elected.
Of course, yet another way would be to hide your money in secret foreign Swiss and Cayman Islands bank accounts, just as we see Mitt Romney doing.
I renew the call to have Mitt Romney release his taxes! The voters must see what tax tricks and deceptive lies Mitt is claiming on his taxes, while looking down on poor and middle class people who are having a really tough time getting through in this terrible recession (and world-wide depression, in my opinion). When Greece, Spain and other countries are being propped up by others, in my opinion they have reached a depression status.
I would hastily add, dear Mitt, that the 47% that you are so quick to step on and demean are mostly in Red States, something you, Rush, Hannity and FOX News seem to have conveniently forgotten.
Free download, 80% of “Shock and Awe on America” in different E-book formats at Smashwords.com get sale price of $2.99 with code GQ44M.
SAD FACT: Corporate America are self-money makers…like Romney have no experience in people – which is why they are half0baked when it comes to choosing a people person for a candidate to save their TAX EXEMPTION. Too bad. The word is out and facts are known. PAY YOUR SHARE. And you’re thinking that half of the people do not matter? WHERE IN THE HECK DO YOU THINK YOUR MONEY COMES FROM? THE PEOPLE. YOU HAVE A DISEASE CALLED ‘GREED’!