Did Mitt Pay His Taxes?

20120805-194247.jpg

There has been much bloviating this election season about poor Mitt Romney’s tax returns. (you don’t see poor and Mitt Romney in the same sentence too often) I don’t blame him for not wanting to share his tax returns with the public, I mean, who would. However, nobody made Mitt run for President of The United States and he ought to just put up so his opponents will shut up. When you run for that office people just want to know… they have a right to know too.

Harry Reid, the US Senate Majority Leader has flatly stated that Mitt has not been paying taxes for at least some of the last ten years. Never mind that good old Harry doesn’t have a shred of proof, the media will make it front page news and he knows it. Mission Accomplished!

Mitt and his backers say of course he has paid his taxes, every cent that was legally owed.

Here is the beauty of the United States tax system: they could both be telling the truth! It kind of depends on what you mean by taxes. Mitt, like every American pays plenty of taxes, he may not however owe income taxes each year, just like many, many Americans. I don’t personally know a single person that would willingly pay more than they had to so if Mitt found a loophole, good for him.

I pay a lot of taxes, every year, income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes and taxes I likely don’t even know about. Just like most Americans. To me, the mere fact that it could be true that a person of Mitt Romney’s wealth might not legally owe income taxes is a big problem. Whether Mitt owed and payed his taxes is not the point, the point is, he SHOULD owe taxes.

I wish Harry Reid and his fellow “leaders” in Congress would quit the screwing around, quit trying to mislead the American people, quit trying to cover their own rear ends and just fix the tax code.

You’ll notice that Harry isn’t saying that Mitt broke the law, he didn’t say Mitt owes back taxes. THAT is the problem Senator! If anyone that earns that kind of money even has a chance at paying no income taxes then Harry and the entire Congress, along with every President the last 100 years or so, ought to be ashamed of themselves.

A flat tax, a consumption tax, a national sales tax, almost anything would be better than the crummy system we have today. If Congress fixes the tax system then most of their petty bickering would be unnecessary – they might even get some work done like the rest of us.

Leave a Reply