The Romney Rule
Time to Repeal the Romney Rule
You’ve heard of the Buffett Rule proposed by President Obama — the simple idea that no millionaire should be able to use tax loopholes to cheat the system and pay a lower tax rate than hardworking middle class Americans. All President Obama is proposing is that millionaires and billionaires pay at least the same rate as middle class Americans.
The Romney Rule is the opposite — the fact that Mitt Romney thinks millionaires like him who make money off their wealth are entitled to pay a lower tax rate than middle class Americans who earn their money from wages.
Romney’s Response? A Fake Middle Class Tax Cut
In response to criticism he faced today over the Romney Rule, Romney’s Communications Director Gail Gitcho told Politico:
Mitt Romney has a tax plan that cuts taxes for the middle class.
The only problem with that? It’s just not really true.
ThinkProgress’ Pat Garofalo took a closer look at Romney’s so-called middle class tax cut and found that it just doesn’t add up:
Romney may think he focused his tax cut on the middle-class, but according to a ThinkProgress analysis of Tax Policy Center data, nearly three-fourths of households that make $200,000 or less annually would get literally nothing from Romney’s tax cut, due to the simple fact that most of those households have no capital gains income
To be exact, 73.9 percent of the households upon which Romney “focused” his tax cut will see zero benefit from it. The table below shows how few households in each income bracket would be affected by Romney’s cut:
For families making between $40,000 and $50,000 annually, Romney’s tax cut comes out to a whopping $216 per year.
Meanwhile, the payroll tax cut enacted by the Obama administration in 2011, which Romney derided as a “temporary little Band-Aid,” gave those same households a tax cut of $800 to $1,000.
Fast Facts About Mitt Romney & Taxes
- Mitt Romney is worth up to $250 million, according to Personal Financial Disclosure forms filed with the Federal Election Commission.
- Mitt Romney pays an effective tax rate of just 14 percent, according to a recent report in TIME magazine.
- A typical middle class taxpayer making $60,000 in wages would pay an effective tax rate of 29.9 percent in 2011, according to figures from Citizens for Tax Justice.
- Nearly 100,000 millionaires pay lower tax rates than middle class Americans, according to a recent report from the Congressional Research Service.
- Despite running for elective office for more than two decades, Mitt Romney has never released his tax returns.
- In 1994, when Mitt Romney was running against the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, Romney called on Kennedy to release his tax returns to prove he had “nothing to hide.”
- During his 2002 gubernatorial campaign, Mitt Romney called on his opponent’s husband to release his tax returns. Romney’s opponent released her tax returns, but Romney refused to release his own tax returns.
IN ONE PICTURE: Mitt Romney thinks he and his millionaire buddies should be able to use tax loopholes to cheat the system and pay a lower tax rate than hardworking middle class Americans.
Evening Brief: Important Stories That You May Have Missed
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