Regarding Mitt's taxes, it's worth noting that that is an arbitrary rate that he effectively chose, with the option to pay less in the future.
From the NYT coverage;Mr. Romney, who made millions by running Bain Capital, a private equity firm, paid an effective federal tax rate of 14.1 percent in taxes, primarily because most of his income was in the form of capital gains that are taxed at a lower rate than ordinary income. Mr. Romney has said that he has paid at least 13 percent in federal income taxes in each of the last 10 years.
In order for that claim to be true in 2011, Mr. Romney had to voluntarily take a smaller deduction than he was entitled to for his charitable deductions, his advisers said Friday.
Mr. Romney and his wife, Ann, donated about $4 million to charity in 2011, but claimed only $2.25 million as a deduction. The campaign said that Mr. Romney’s tax liability would have been far lower in 2011 had the Romneys claimed the full deduction for their charitable contributions.
“The Romneys thus limited their deduction of charitable contributions to conform to the governor’s statement in August, based upon the January estimate of income, that he paid at least 13 percent in income taxes in each of the last 10 years,” said R. Bradford Malt, Mr. Romney’s trustee.
It is possible, however, that Mr. Romney could still deduct the unclaimed amount of his charitable donations in future tax years, experts said.
So he has a $1.75M deduction he can put towards the first year he isn't running for anything.
Unrelated,
just saw this [.pdf] from one of Obama's campaign staff on twitter. The short version; is they are raising expectations for Romney to handle himself well in the debates while wanting to focus on specifics and issues.
Mitt Romney made up for a lackluster campaign by performing well in debates – he bragged that Time Magazine said he won 16 out of 20 primary debates, his campaign says he “dominated” them, and he says that he can “debate darn well and take it to the President.” With weeks of debate prep, including an entire week during the Democratic Convention, he’s obviously banking on flawless performances in October to achieve the turnaround his campaign has projected. But Americans won’t score this contest on style points alone. They want to know who has the better plan to create good-paying, sustainable jobs for the middle class in the future. Mitt Romney has yet to explain how returning to the same policies that resulted in the economic crisis will do anything but further erode the economic security of middle class families. And on issue after he has yet to provide details beyond the platitudes and attacks on exactly what he would do to move this country forward.
This kind of thing is mostly directed at the media and campaign proxies to help shape the narrative around the debates.
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Topic: American Election Megathread - It's Over (Read 771152 times)