You are dead on. The people on here that whine about the amount of taxes the “wealthy” pay, take advantage of many loop holes and deductions in the tax code.Once again it doesn’t matter what the tax rate of the country a US citizen has investments in. he is taxed in the US on that income. It appears you real problem is that Romeny has paid the minimum amount of tax as required by law. I suspect you do the same. In fact in 32 years of preparing tax returns i have not run across one single person who has asked me to make sure they owe more taxes than are due-Never. in fact I , for several years, had a radio show and i had a standard offer to do for free the tax returns for anyone who wanted to have their returns done using the rates and laws in effect before the Bush tax cuts went into effect. i never had any takers-very surprising given the number on the left who constantly whine about these tax cuts.
How do you feel about not releasing college transcripts?Estesbob, you noted your question concerning why Romney’s tax returns should be important to anyone is a serious one, and I will attempt to give a serious response. Romney made this an issue for Democrats to pounce upon because he released only the bare minimum of tax returns, knowing full well that the precedent in modern Presidential elections has been in favor of releasing several years of tax returns, since only one or two years may not disclose sufficient information. While I admit there are more important issues on the minds of voters: jobs, the economy, the deficit, health care, foreign policy, to name a few, nonetheless we’re talking about the election of a POTUS and I believe the nature of this position demands a higher level of scrutiny. Romney has inflicted this wound upon himself by not taking the advice of many of his fellow Republicans. If he in fact has nothing to hide relative to his off-shore investments, why does he persist in refusing to compromise by releasing five years of returns, thereby putting any lingering doubts and speculation to rest? Instead, he wants us to “trust him.” I’m sorry but that’s not good enough for a potential President. As Reagan used to say regarding the Soviet Union, we should “trust and verify.” It’s that important. Further, one can be sure that if the shoe were on the other foot with regard to President Obama’s tax returns, Republicans would be screaming bloody murder.
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It would be a minor thing except that the president is paying lots of money to keep those documents sealed. The question is, why? What is in there that is so damaging that he would go to those lengths?I think his tax returns are as inconsequential as the school records/transcripts, unless he did something illegal. I highly doubt that, because the IRS would be going after him right now. If you are worried about honesty regarding taxes, then people can be equally worried about honesty on school records. And, you may have noticed that school records/performance were a big deal to people during the Bush years for some reason. It is hypocritical for Democrats to now consider them a minor thing.
Indded. A Center for American progress PAC offshoot:‘Progressive Catholic leaders.’
USCCB>Media > News Releases >
Advisory Memo To Journalists
June 27, 2012
Memo to journalists
We became aware on June 7, that news media received a memo from John Gehring, casting aspersions on the Catholic bishops and their educational project on religious liberty, the Fortnight for Freedom.
Mr. Gehring is Catholic Program Director of “Faith in Public Life. . . ,” a group founded with help from a pro-abortion group long directed by John Podesta called the Center for American Progress. . . (CAP); like the CAP it has received funding. . . from billionaire atheist George Soros. . . . These do not seem like eminent qualifications for telling bishops how to guide the Church.
In his memo, Mr. Gehring juxtaposes what he calls the bishops’ “Fictions” with his “Facts” – and he provides the media with “questions to ask Catholic bishops” that he apparently thinks are embarrassing.In fact we’re happy to answer those questions in this memo.But we’ll begin by showing how fiction and fact is mixed up in his account.
Gehring: It’s especially important to scrutinize the bishops’ campaign because of “the charged political backdrop of this high-profile initiative – five months before a presidential election.”
Fact: Mr. Gehring should have noticed that the bishops’ key insert for Church bulletins during the Fortnight for Freedom lists seven recent threats to religious liberty – only two of which have anything to do with the President or his administration.None of our materials, of course, say anything about an election.The Fortnight for Freedom responds to a broader trend in our society: We are in danger of forgetting our nation’s great legacy of religious freedom, and of neglecting to defend such freedom for everyone when that is most needed.Even regarding the HHS contraceptive mandate – the only one of the seven threats that Mr. Gehring seems to notice – the timing of the regulatory process and resulting controversy has been determined by the Administration, not by the Church.
Gehring: The bishops have accused the Administration of waging “a war on religion” and “a war on the Catholic Church.”
Fact: Though he puts these phrases in direct quotes,Gehring produces noevidence of this. Instead he pulls a bait-and-switch, citing (and misusing) other quotes.For example:
Gehring accuses Cardinal Dolan of saying that the Administration is “‘strangling’ the Catholic Church.”What Cardinal Dolan said was: “The exemption given to the church [by the HHS mandate] is so strangling and so narrow. . . and it’s also presumptuous that a bureau of the federal government is attempting to define for the church the extent of its ministry and ministers… It’s almost like we’re being punished for the fact that we serve a lot of people.” The Cardinal was noting that the narrow religious exemption is “strangling” the Church’s ability to live out its mission, because a Church institution can’t be exempt from the morally objectionable coverage unless (among other things) it stops serving people of other faiths – thus it must violate one call of the gospel or the other.To point out this Hobson’s choice is simply to recognize reality.
Gehring says Bishop Jenky of Peoria has “compared Obama administration policies to those of Hitler and Stalin.”Actually Bishop Jenky expressed concern. . . that the federal government may have begun to distrust the churches as rivals to its own claims to authority – as happened with many European leaders of the past century and more, whether of the mainstream right and left (Otto von Bismarck and Georges Clemenceau) or of the extremist right and left (Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin).But then, “Bishop warns against government trend toward a century-old European view of religion that, for all their other vast differences, was shared by Hitler and Georges Clemenceau” would not make a racy headline.
Finally, Gehring says Bishop Cordileone has expressed worry about the “despotism” of the HHS mandate.Bishop Cordileone was citing an 1886 speech by Cardinal James Gibbons that said the U.S. has “liberty without license, authority without despotism.” Noting recent attacks on the conscience rights of individual Americans, and on the right of religious institutions to serve the public without violating their teaching on marriage, he worried that “we could be starting to move in the direction of license and despotism.”In this context the bishop did not mention the HHS mandate or the Administration – and the conference at which he spoke distributed a list of ten recent threats to religious freedom, only three of which have anything to do with the Obama administration. Yet Gehring simply assumes that all this is a direct reference (and an overreaction) to one federal policy.
Gehring: The Obama administration has now provided a “wider religious exemption” to its contraceptive mandate, and the bishops initially welcomed this before “quickly moving the goalposts” so they could object to it and support the Blunt amendment in Congress.
Fact: There was no “moving of goalposts.”The bishops have voiced principled objection to coerced contraceptive coverage as part of HHS’s “preventive services” mandate since 2010; they have supported exemptions from such mandates on moral or religious grounds for many years; and they have supported the “Respect for Rights of Conscience Act” (identical with the Blunt amendment) since December 2010.What happened on February 10, 2012 was that the bishops initially welcomed the Administration’s announcement that its incredibly narrow religious exemption would be broadened; but before the end of the day they saw the actual “final rule” from HHS, and found that the mandate and narrow exemption had been finalized “without change.”. . . So “spin” gave way to grim reality.A widening of the exemption not only did not happen – it would actually now be illegal, unless a new rulemaking process were to nullify the current one.
Gehring: The “accommodation” to which the bishops object “makes sure no religiously affiliated institution will have to pay for services that violate its moral beliefs or even refer employees for this coverage,” and so has been welcomed by Catholic Health Association and other Catholic groups.
Fact: No, the Catholic Health Association has objected. . . to the proposed “accommodation,” as have others across the political spectrum, once they found that the coverage will ultimately be subsidized by premiums paid by employers and employees and that the Administration’s various proposals are unworkable.Religious employers are excluded from having to “provide” the coverage only in the sense that the decision about providing it to their own employees will be taken away from them by the government.And Gehring’s claim that the coverage will be provided only “if a woman employed by an objecting Catholic institution wants this coverage” is absolutely false: The Administration’s new notice says the coverage will be provided “automatically” to these women, and to their teenage children, even if the woman objects.So individual conscience rights as well as parents’ rights to guide their children in matters of sexuality are now also at risk.Gehring doesn’t notice that in this respect, the new advance notice promotes a more coercive policy than the original one he describes (which is now obsolete).The problems with the “accommodation” have been thoroughly explained in a recent comment letter and fact sheet from the USCCB.
Gehring: Covering contraception is nothing new for Catholic institutions because it is already required in 28 states.
usccb.org/news/2012/12-118.cfmFact: This canard was thoroughly addressed in the USCCB’s August 2011 comment letter to HHS.The state mandates usually apply only to health plans that provide prescription drug coverage generally; only one state requires coverage of sterilization; the mandates can be side-stepped by self-insuring, or coming under federal ERISA standards; and only three states have a religious exemption as incredibly narrow as the HHS mandate.The federal government has the most inescapably draconian mandate and the narrowest religious exemption in the country.No, this is not “business as usual.”…
How many times has it been explained to you that the money that he sent overseas has already been taxed? And Romney claims and pays taxes on the interest he gets from these accounts.The problem with this whole Swiss bank account thing is…who is Mitt and can we trust this guy is being honest with us. He is very shady with any details with his policies and he is very shady with any details with his net worth. He is asking for “blind trust” from America after. I decided I better get more informed before opening my big mouth. So, that’s what I did. And what I have found in within the last few days has been very interesting. It made me wonder why these certain people so well informed in this area failed to reveal the true reason why Swiss bank accounts are so attractive. He blatantly refuses to release more than one year of returns. And of that one year, he refuses to disclose more details of his net worth that makes it more difficult to see if everything really was on the up and up. Something about “Confidentiality Disclosures”. Let me add a quote from his own father, George Romney on why he showed so many years of his returns, “One year could be a fluke, perhaps done for show.” Now, i want to show you some info I have gathered on the subject of “Off Shore Accounts”…
For one, if anyone is interested in why Swiss Bank Accounts are so attractive, it is not simply because they are stable!!! They are considered tax havens because they gaurd the identities of their clients and their money. There are loopholes that skirt tax laws. Offshore finance evading taxes via tax havens.
Switzerland, Bermuda, Luxumbourg, Cayman Islands…these are jurisdictions with virtually no tax and virtually no compliance. There are confidentiality laws that will have you put in jail for even asking for information on these accounts.
Blind Trust is an interesting word I learned about. I believe there is a clip of Romney speaking out against Blind Trusts several years ago saying they’re really not “blind”. Well, I can see what he means now. His blind trust were held by his wife and personal lawyer. Hmm. There is not proof that his blind trust were blind because we have no paper work provided by him to prove anything.
These are some interesting names I encourage research on:
Bain Fund, Sankaty, Solamere, Elliot Associates.
Some more words to think about:
Hedge Fund Kingmakers, Super PAC donors, Blocker Corporations, Unrelated Business Income Tax, 2009 Swiss Bank Account Amnesty, Switzerland’s International Tax Evasion Dispute. Tax Haven USA plan *criminial foreign money and the tax law that benefit foreign money that Americans cannot take advantage of., Leveraged Byouts, Financialization, “Feeder” tax havens.
Off Shore Tax Havens are shrouded in secrecy and lack transparency. They skip around taxes, disclosures, and regulatory requirements. This is why they are attractive.
Also, please research these investors for Romney: Robert Maxwell (very interesting story) and Eduardo Poma.
I also learned a little about “carried interest” and taxing profit share as “ordinary income”. Now the problem I have with Romney is he is a billionaire getting away with paying his fair share whether legal or not and betting against the U.S. dollar while running for president.
The fact is if your income in from work (if you work for a living) you are going to pay twice as much in income tax as someone who gets their money from wealth. And the worker also pays payroll taxes on top of that. AND…under Romney’s plan (what details we do have of it) he would actually pay even less.
I will thank you for respectful responses…I’m hear to learn and have learned much while here.
Given the feeding frenzy among his opponents over this issue, it is very unlikely that he will comply at this stage.* What we do know is that Romney hasn’t encountered any trouble from the IRS – suggesting legal compliance – and that the McCain campaign Vice Presidential vetters who waded through decades of Romney’s tax documents in 2008 have stated Romney’s taxes are paid in full (and the former governor may have even slightly overpaid in some instances).* Romney also asserts he hasn’t paid a lower income tax rate than 13 percent in the last ten years, but that number cannot be confirmed without further documentation.* The Romney’s have donated prodigious amounts of money to charity over that period, including to his church, veterans groups, and medical research foundations.At core, I do not understand why Mr. Romney will not release his tax returns. He is asking us to elect him to the highest office in the country.
By definition, this is a position of “Trust.”
It was Ronald Reagan who said, “Trust, but Verify.”
Re his tax returns, Mr. Romney has said, “Trust me.”
It is reasonable that 63% of American voters have asked him to “Verify” this.
Release the tax returns, Mr. Romney.
Then we can move on to other issues.
Don’t you know the left has a double standard in this area?Given the feeding frenzy among his opponents over this issue, it is very unlikely that he will comply at this stage.* What we do know is that Romney hasn’t encountered any trouble from the IRS – suggesting legal compliance – and that the McCain campaign Vice Presidential vetters who waded through decades of Romney’s tax documents in 2008 have stated Romney’s taxes are paid in full (and the former governor may have even slightly overpaid in some instances).* Romney also asserts he hasn’t paid a lower income tax rate than 13 percent in the last ten years, but that number cannot be confirmed without further documentation.* The Romney’s have donated prodigious amounts of money to charity over that period, including to his church, veterans groups, and medical research foundations.
Shalom
God bless
Why do you assume there is something damaging?It would be a minor thing except that the president is paying lots of money to keep those documents sealed. The question is, why? What is in there that is so damaging that he would go to those lengths?
It begs the question: all other presidential canidates have released records. Even ones that are very personal.Why do you assume there is something damaging?
Barrack ObamaRand Paul
Paul Ryan
Ayn Rand
Easy to get the names screwed up. The politicians need to be careful.
Why else would he spend a pot full of money to keep them under wraps? I would be interested in what you think. Nothing there?Why do you assume there is something damaging?
Vice President Joe Biden and the man who hopes to replace him, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, have something in common.
They’re both Irish-American Catholics.
Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, says the men actually represent two separate camps of the Catholic Church: the pro-life wing and the social justice wing.
cbn.com/cbnnews/politics/2012/August/A-Tale-of-Two-Catholics-How-Biden-Ryan-DifferBiden has been criticized for his stance on gay marriage and abortion, which goes against Catholic Church teachings.
.I am not a policy expert. I do not know whether Paul Ryan’s fiscal plans are the right plans for America’s present or her future. I cannot, nor would I, endorse him or any other candidate. But claims that Paul Ryan’s plans run deeply counter to Catholic social teaching are unfounded and unreasonable. Some criticisms are so insidious that one wonders whether the critics have actually read Ryan’s plans
Overlooked in the furor surrounding Paul Ryan’s Medicare proposal — a plan that wouldn’t start until 2023 and even then would affect only new beneficiaries — is a just-published study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) suggesting that, well, Ryan might be right. The study finds that a voucher-type system might noticeably reduce costs compared with traditional fee-for-service Medicare.
Three Harvard economists, including a prominent fan of the Obama health care overhaul, did the study.
The study compared the costs of traditional Medicare with Medicare Advantage, a voucherlike program that now enrolls about 25% of beneficiaries. Medicare Advantage has cost less for identical coverage. From 2006 to 2009, the gap averaged 11% between traditional Medicare and voucher plans that, under the proposal by Ryan, would serve as a price benchmark.
The central issue here is whether the runaway cost of the health sector, comprising nearly one-fifth of the economy, can be controlled without eroding medical quality. Almost all agree that the delivery system — hospitals, clinics, doctors and nurses — should be reorganized to lower the price and eliminate unneeded care. The question is how…
I understand what you are saying. And I debated whether to repost this quote but I felt it was overlooked. The point of this quote was to encourage people to dig deeper and research the facts about off shore financing. The problem I have with Romney is that he is unwilling to show more detail to prove everything he’s done was on the up and up. There are many ways around these laws you speak of, including not disclosing accounts. He is not honest about his net worth. Some of the words I put out there like 2009 Swiss amnesty, and tax evasion disputes are worthy of research. Not to accuse Romney of tax evasion but to point out the problem he has created by not disclosing more detail causing suspicion. On top of the lack of detail of his wealth, he also lacks detail of his policies which does concern me way more than his taxes do. I don’t want to harp on his taxes. I’ve made my point. Don’t hide if there’s nothing to hide. I certainly don’t buy the whole “I’m afraid I’ll get attacked if I do show”. Balogna…he’ll be attacked either way. Does he want to be trusted or not?How many times has it been explained to you that the money that he sent overseas has already been taxed? And Romney claims and pays taxes on the interest he gets from these accounts.
By your logic we should ban all IRA’s that have mutual funds that hold stock in foreign corporations.
And how many documents has Obama released?I understand what you are saying. And I debated whether to repost this quote but I felt it was overlooked. The point of this quote was to encourage people to dig deeper and research the facts about off shore financing. The problem I have with Romney is that he is unwilling to show more detail to prove everything he’s done was on the up and up. There are many ways around these laws you speak of, including not disclosing accounts. He is not honest about his net worth. Some of the words I put out there like 2009 Swiss amnesty, and tax evasion disputes are worthy of research. Not to accuse Romney of tax evasion but to point out the problem he has created by not disclosing more detail causing suspicion. On top of the lack of detail of his wealth, he also lacks detail of his policies which does concern me way more than his taxes do. I don’t want to harp on his taxes. I’ve made my point. Don’t hide if there’s nothing to hide. I certainly don’t buy the whole “I’m afraid I’ll get attacked if I do show”. Balogna…he’ll be attacked either way. Does he want to be trusted or not?