Dick Tuck
Board Troll
- Aug 29, 2009
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Considering the son of Boss schemes, deemed abusive by the IRS, that Romney set up, I find it very plausible that Mittens avoided paying taxes for 10 years.
Could Romney’s Effective Tax Rate Really Be Zero? | TPMDC
Could Romney’s Effective Tax Rate Really Be Zero? | TPMDC
By alleging that Mitt Romney effectively paid no federal taxes for 10 years, Harry Reids welcomed conservative scorn and managed to keep a story thats unflattering to the GOP presidential candidate in the news.
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Other experts largely agree.
t struck me as plausible, said NYU tax expert Daniel Shaviro, whos been a leading analyst of Romneys public financial information. The reason people have been saying he must have paid something is that theyve figured he must have (as in 2010) had some dividend and interest income plus other ordinary (rather than capital gains) stuff such as speaker fees. Zeroing all that out, if he had such income every year, would have required tax shelter losses that would very likely be deemed (by the IRS and many legal experts) as abusive.
Shaviro also notes that if, using his IRA, Romney had avoided realizing capital gains on Bain shares, it would have helped him accomplish whats known as loss harvesting. Thats when investors sell off financial losers to cancel out capital gains theyve realized elsewhere in their portfolio. The lower ones capital gains in any given year, the easier it is to harvest that loss.
We know Romney harvested losses because he carried forward a substantial capital loss in 2010. [H]aving less capital gains to begin with via the Bain strategy from the TPM blog post would obviously make it easier to get to zero RE the capital gains, Shaviro adds.