TurboTax Romney
Two things I don't get about Romney's self-defense of his tax situation: 1) A rate of 14% is "fair" because the funds being taxed — capital gains — have already been taxed on the corporate level. Huh? Capital gains are on realized profits from the sale of real property. If I buy a share of stock for $10, and I sell it for $15, my capital gain is $5. And if I held that share for more than a year, I am taxed at a rate of 15% on that $5, not an whatever rate my earned income is subject to. But, who paid a tax on the any of this before I did? Or, looked at in reverse: Every dollar is taxed by the person or entity which owned it at one time. My employer pays taxes on the money his company earns, then pays me from what's left over. I pay tax on that, and spend some at the supermarket. The supermarket pays tax, and its employees ... and so on. The fact that someone pays tax on that dollar upstream is as irrelevant as the fact that someone will pay tax on that dol...