The River Wanders...

Our Common Good: It turns out Harry Reid was right - - Mitt Romney paid zero taxes for 15 years...thanks to a 1996 loophole which let him...

stfuconservatives:

foldysox:

theuppitynegras:

communism-kills:

Bloomberg News reports:

“The (strategy) allows individuals to defer capital gains taxes on any profit from the sale of the assets, and receive a small upfront charitable deduction and a stream of…

10/30/12

(via foulmouthedliberty)

10/27/12

think4yourself: Mitt Romney, we have a few questions about your tax returns:

think-progress:

Read six more questions for Mitt at ThinkProgress

1. After the election, when the subject of your tax returns is outside of the public glare, will you file an amended tax return to claim your full deduction of charitable contributions? Was the tax rate you reported…

09/23/12

(via recall-all-republicans)

08/23/12

Alvin Brown, Tax Attorney, Identifies Section 6103(f) of the Internal Revenue Code, as the Authority Allowing Senator Reid to See His Tax Returns

reprinted in its entirey:

Whether Senator Reid has a Bain contact or not, Governor Romney’s tax returns are likely in the possession of Senator Reid under the authority of Section 6103(f) of the IRS code

Washington, D.C. (PRWEB) August 10, 2012

According to the Huffington Post in article posted on July 31, 2012, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/31/harry-reid-romney-taxes_n_1724027lhtml, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has what he says is an informed explanation for why Mitt Romney refuses to release additional tax returns. According a Bain investor, Reid charged, Romney didn’t pay any taxes for 10 years. “Harry, he didn’t pay any taxes for 10 years,” Reid recounted the person as saying.

The general rule is that the IRS and others cannot disclose private taxpayer information, including 10 years of tax returns of Governor Romney. But there are statutory exceptions to that disclosure restriction.

Section 6103(f) of the Internal Revenue Code expressly permits inspection of returns by the House Ways and Means Committee, Senate Finance Committee, and Joint Committee on Taxation, and also permits inspection by any select Committee of Senate or House, or joint committee authorized by legislative resolution to investigate returns. These committees may submit relevant, useful information to Senate, House or both.

Section 6103(f) Disclosure to committees of Congress.

(1) Committee on Ways and Means, Committee on Finance, and Joint Committee on Taxation.

Upon written request from the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives, the chairman of the Committee on Finance of the Senate, or the chairman of the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Secretary shall furnish such committee with any return or return information specified in such request, except that any return or return information which can be associated with, or otherwise identify, directly or indirectly, a particular taxpayer shall be furnished to such committee only when sitting in closed executive session unless such taxpayer otherwise consents in writing to such disclosure.

(2) Chief of Staff of Joint Committee on Taxation.

Upon written request by the Chief of Staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Secretary shall furnish him with any return or return information specified in such request. Such Chief of Staff may submit such return or return information to any committee described in paragraph (1), except that any return or return information which can be associated with, or otherwise identify, directly or indirectly, a particular taxpayer shall be furnished to such committee only when sitting in closed executive session unless such taxpayer otherwise consents in writing to such disclosure.

(3) Other committees.

Pursuant to an action by, and upon written request by the chairman of, a committee of the Senate or the House of Representatives (other than a committee specified in paragraph (1)) specially authorized to inspect any return or return information by a resolution of the Senate or the House of Representatives or, in the case of a joint committee (other than the joint committee specified in paragraph (1)) by concurrent resolution, the Secretary shall furnish such committee, or a duly authorized and designated subcommittee thereof, sitting in closed executive session, with any return or return information which such resolution authorizes the committee or subcommittee to inspect. Any resolution described in this paragraph shall specify the purpose for which the return or return information is to be furnished and that such information cannot reasonably be obtained from any other source.

The Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee is expressly authorized to request any tax return. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue is required to comply with a request for specific tax returns from any of those designated with that authority under the section 6103(f) statute. The ease with which the Romney returns can be requested from the IRS from an authorized source under section 6103(f) makes it the likely that those tax returns are under review by that authorized source, in the opinion of Tax Attorney Alvin S. Brown. Mr. Brown speculates that the allegations that Governor Romney did not pay taxes for a 10 year period may be valid in part based on the ease of access for those returns by a host of members of Congress, including Senator Reid. Mr. Brown notes also that the attribution for that information from a Bain informant may not be accurate. Mr. Brown suggests that public knowledge that the tax returns of Governor Romney were requested by a person authorized to receive those tax returns would likely be perceived by the public and the media as an unfair breach of trust.

Mr. Brown notes also that the IRS may make disclosures of tax return data to the President of the United States under section 6103(g) of the IRS Code.

Mr. Brown does not express any opinion on whether there has been a disclosure of tax return data of Governor Romney, but he notes that it is “unlawful” to make a disclosure of any private information in a tax return under section 7213 of the IRS Code. Mr. Brown believes that a comment that Governor Romney did pay taxes for some years, if taken from a tax return would likely be viewed as a section 7213 issue.

In the circumstance Mr. Brown speculates that the Bain “source” may have been mentioned as a distraction to avoid disclosing possession of those tax returns in a Capitol Hill office safe. Mr. Brown acknowledges that there is no information that anyone, authorized to obtain Mr. Romney’s tax returns under section 6103(f) or 6103(g), has actually made that request. On the other hand Mr. Brown suggests that the information in the Huffington Post article, if true, could have come from the tax returns of Governor Romney. Section 7213 makes it a felony to make an unlawful disclosure of tax return information.

Alvin S. Brown, Esq.
Tax Attorney
Alvin Brown & Associates
575 Madison Ave., 8th Floor
New York, NY 10022-8511
http://www.irstaxattorney.com
(212) 588-1113
ab(at)irstaxattorney(dot)com

Contact

Alvin Brown

Alvin Brown & Associates, LLC.

212-588-1113

08/19/12

sarahlee310:

Great job, Rachel. Every reporter should be asking Romney why he expects them to trust him now, after he lied about his tax returns in 2002.

(via kp777)

08/19/12

David Simon Explains Why So Many Jaws Dropped When Mitt Romney Said He Had Never Paid Less Than A 13% Tax Rate - Business Insider

Yesterday, in response to months of requests for him to release many more years of tax returns, Mitt Romney dismissed this topic as “small-minded” and said he had never paid less than a 13% tax rate.

If this information was designed to make those who want to see Romney’s tax returns feel like fools for asking, it didn’t.

Rather, it caused lots of jaws to drop.

Why?

Well, first because Romney confirmed what most people have long assumed, which is that he pays an extraordinarily low tax rate for someone who makes so much money.

Second, because the tax rate that Romney seemed proud to have paid was a lower tax rate than half of Americans pay.

[…]
Unlike those who argue that Romney’s money is Romney’s money and that every dime that he is forced to pay in taxes is a dime that is effectively stolen or “confiscated” from him, Simon recognizes that his financial success is in part due to the economic environment in which he lives and works:

Mitt Romney paid taxes at a rate of at least 13 percent. And he’s proud to say so.

Can we stand back and pause a short minute to take in the spectacle of a man who wants to be President of The United States, who wants us to seriously regard him as a paragon of the American civic ideal, declaiming proudly and in public that he has paid his taxes at a third of the rate normally associated with gentlemen of his economic benefit?…

Thirteen percent. The last time I paid taxes at that rate, I believe I might still have been in college. If not, it was my first couple years as a newspaper reporter. Since then, the paychecks have been just fine, thanks, and I don’t see any reason not to pay at the rate appropriate to my earnings, given that I’m writing the check to the same government that provided the economic environment that allowed for such incomes.

(via reagan-was-a-horrible-president)

08/18/12

truth-has-a-liberal-bias:

tpmmedia:

President Obama’s team is offering Mitt Romney a deal on taxes: Publicly release five years of returns, and the Obama campaign will drop its insistence for additional tax information.

“I am writing to ask again that the Governor release multiple years of tax returns,” wrote Jim Messina, Obama’s campaign manager, “but also to make an offer that should address his concerns about the additional disclosures. Governor Romney apparently fears that the more he offers, the more our campaign will demand that he provide. So I am prepared to provide assurances on just that point: if the Governor will release five years of returns, I commit in turn that we will not criticize him for not releasing more — neither in ads nor in other public communications or commentary for the rest of the campaign.”

The email, addressed this morning to Messina’s counterpart Matt Rhodes, Romney’s campaign manager, stresses that the request is “surely not unreasonable” given Romney’s father made 12 years of tax returns to the public during his presidential run.

Read more from TPM’s Igor Bobic at TalkingPointsMemo.com…

Update: Team Romney responds, turning down the offer.

I’m soooo surprised they turned down the offer. (Rolling my eyes)

Whatever’s in those returns kept him off the ticket in 2008.

08/18/12

Mitt Romney's 1981 arrest and 4 other times he lost his cool

socialistictendencies:

ladyhippie:

alexandraerin:

supersoygrrrl:

There’s no major crimes in these -nothing like DWIs or car accidents where people get killed. But even the small things say a lot about Romney’s character. Half of them show how rules apparently don’t apply to Mitt Romney while the other half show how strongly he believes the rules apply to other people and how pissed off or peeved he gets when other people break them.

Along the same lines of “rules are for other people” and “enforcing rules is Mitt’s personal prerogative”, he used to dress up as a cop and pull people over.

…what the fuck.

I’m trying so very hard not to fly into a rage that ends with vast amounts of property damage

He comes across as an insufferable prick. What a shock.

(via end-the-republican-mafia)

08/18/12

“

So first there are programs I would eliminate. Obamacare being one of them but also various subsidy programs — the Amtrak subsidy, the PBS subsidy, the subsidy for the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Mitt Romney (via azspot)

Because on the list of things that are ruining this country, helping sick Americans, enriching our children’s lives through education and art, and getting people to and from work are right at the top.

(via thegreg)

(via think4yourself)

08/17/12

Look! Someone else committed journalism and called out the Romney campaign on the facts.

think-progress:

Someone who’s not CNN’s Soledad O’Brien.

(via reagan-was-a-horrible-president)

08/16/12

americawakiewakie:

Surprise! The rich were lying.

(via end-the-republican-mafia)

08/16/12

Republican party line “This election is about the economy.”

generalbriefing:

They’re hoping you won’t notice the anti-LGBTQ, anti-choice, anti-science, anti-environment, anti-poor, anti-minority agenda. Oh, and they really hope you don’t notice the disappearing act that they are playing with your voting rights in the states. That would just be inconvenient.

They would like their fake Puritan roles to prevail.

(via sarahlee310)

08/16/12

“

…the Romney campaign is reviving the single oldest tactic of southern reactionaries: race-baiting white working class voters to distract them from the many issues on which this segment of the electorate is naturally unsympathetic to policies that reinforce economic and social privilege. It’s how the Bourbons reasserted control over the Populists in the late nineteenth century. It’s how conservatives undermined southern support for the economic policies of the New Deal and Fair Deal and New Frontier and Great Society. It was ultimately the fulcrum for the realignment of the whole region from the Democratic to the Republican Party. So it’s a familiar tactic, but what makes it novel is that it is not being narrow-cast into North Carolina or Virginia or northern and western Florida or Missouri, but broadcast everywhere. And there is zero way it can be rationalized as a part of an overall GOP message supposedly focused on economic recovery and job creation—or even, given the ridiculously small quantities of federal money that go to the Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) program, as part of a budget austerity message. It’s a flat-out racial appeal aimed at convincing non-college educated white voters that this black president wants to take their tax dollars to give them to his shiftless black brothers and sisters.

A Blast From the Disreputable Past (via azspot)

The “romney campaign” incorporates the lowest points from all the prospective contenders. He’s despicable.

(via azspot)

08/16/12

“

It’ll just give them more ammunition… We’ve had a blind trust for years. We don’t know what’s what’s in there.

ANN ROMNEY, telling ABC News why her husband won’t release more than two years of tax returns.

It must be nice to be so rich, you don’t know how rich you are.

(via inothernews)

08/16/12

The River Wanders...

Whether Senator Reid has a Bain contact or not, Governor Romney’s tax returns are likely in the possession of Senator Reid under the authority of Section 6103(f) of the IRS code

Republican party line “This election is about the economy.”

Contributor at Alan Colmes' Liberaland

TheRiverWanders.com

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