Democrats Attack Romney's 2011 Tax Return

Within minutes of Romney's release of his 2011 tax return, Stephanie Cutter, Obama's deputy campaign manager, said this his about that return:

"confirms what we already knew - that people like Mitt Romney pay a lower tax rate than many middle-class families because of a set of complex loopholes and tax shelters only available to those at the top."

Of course the tone of that statement is intended to imply that the Romney's were getting away with murder when it comes to paying taxes.  But, what Ms. Cutter (and many liberals) don't seem to understand is that Romney does not have a salary.  Most all of his income comes from investments from which he receives dividends, capital gains, and interest income; and the tax rate for those types of income is much lower. The reason for the lower rate is that we want people like Romney to invest in America's stocks and bonds in order to grow the economy and support municipal building activity.  That's what investment income is all about.  At the same time, charitable giving gave the Romney's a lower rate.  Do we now want America's wealthy to stop giving money away the needy?

The fact is that the Romney's paid an effective 2011 tax rate of 13.9%.  According to the Tax Foundation's latest federal analysis from 2009, the lower 50% of all taxpayers with a positive tax burden* only pay an effective tax rate of 1.85%.  The average for all taxpayers is 11.06%; which is very near the 11.0% that the average middle-class family pays.   The average tax rate from the top 1% -- people like Romney -- is actually 24.01%.

This not paying "your fair share" class-warfare crap is really getting tiring.  People like Obama and Cutter want you and I to think that the rich aren't pulling this nation's wagon when, in fact, 50% of those at the bottom are riding in the wagon without hardly paying anything.  The top 1% of this country's taxpayers actually pay 36.7% of all taxes collected by the federal government while the 50% at the bottom only contribute 2.3%.  The top 25% of all taxpayers actually pay 87.3% of all taxes. How fair is that?

*Note: Some low income tax filers actually get more money back after taking credits than what they paid  due to something called Investment Tax Credit.  Therefore, these filers are considered to have a negative tax burden; and, in essence, this is another form of welfare.  But, this welfare is for people who are actually working and who do have some amount of income.

References:

Tax Foundation's Summary of Taxes Paid: http://taxfoundation.org/article/summary-latest-federal-individual-income-tax-data-0#table1

Associated Press: "Democrats: Political slant marks Romney tax return": http://news.yahoo.com/democrats-political-slant-marks-romney-tax-return-070444703--election.html