Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney appeared on 'Meet The Press' Sunday claiming that his tax plan which shifts billions of dollars worth of the tax burden onto the middle class from the high earners, does not cut taxes for the rich. Mitt Romney has repeatedly stated that he will never consider raising taxes on the wealthy.
Watch:
Romney’s plan was analyzed by a nonpartisan tax group, which the Presidential candidate deemed as “garbage.” The Tax Policy Center issued a second report which drew the same conclusions. Both analysis conclude that Mitt Romney’s tax plan would lay the tax burden on the middle class, while shifting billions in tax relief from those making over $200,000 per year.
See the PDF here.
Romney’s plan was analyzed by a nonpartisan tax group, which the Presidential candidate deemed as “garbage.” The Tax Policy Center issued a second report which drew the same conclusions. Both analysis conclude that Mitt Romney’s tax plan would lay the tax burden on the middle class, while shifting billions in tax relief from those making over $200,000 per year.
See the PDF here.
In part it states, "Any revenue-neutral plan along the lines Governor Romney has outlined would reduce taxes for high-income households, thus requiring higher taxes on other, even if the plan’s financing is as progressive as possible, given the available tax expenditures."
Adding, "We found that a tax reform plan that simultaneously met the first four goals would imply reduced tax burdens on families with income above $200,000."
Romney's plan would also eliminate the estate tax. Do the math. Romney's plan cuts income tax rates by 20%; Paul Ryan wants a top tax rate of 10% for married couples filing jointly on their first $100,000, and a 25% income tax rate for income higher than $100,000 -- two ideas that would primarily benefit upper-income adults and the wealthy. Their plan would eliminate capital gains and dividends taxes.
And the PDF here from a nonpartisan group. An excerpt:
Tax expenditures would be eliminated or reduced “starting at the top.” This assumption is perhaps most important for our distributional analysis. Specifically, we offset revenue losses from tax rate reductions by first eliminating tax expenditures for the highest-income groups. If--as it turns out--base-broadening at high-income levels does not recoup all lost revenue, we then limit tax expenditures for the next highest income group, and so on, until the overall plan is revenue neutral. This approach will likely (vastly) overstate the progressivity of any tax changes that could be pursued in practice, because it would be both administratively and politically impractical to completely eliminate all tax expenditures only above a given income threshold. (See further discussion on this point below.) Thus it serves as an upper bound on how progressive the reformed system could be relative to current policy.
And Mitt never did answer the question in the video.
This study based their conclusions from assuming the following:
-Make permanent the Bush income tax cuts for all income levels.
-Further reduce all income tax rates by a fifth.
-Repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax.
-Repeal the estate and gift tax.
-Exempt up to $200,000 of long-term capital gains, dividends and interest from taxable income for taxpayers who do not have $200,000 of other income.
-Maintain 15% rates for capital gains and dividends.
-Repeal all itemized deductions (all taxpayers take standard deduction).
-Repeal all tax credits.
-Repeal exclusion for employer-provided health care.
-Repeal deduction for health insurance for the self-employed.
-Repeal the Hospital Insurance tax increase on the wealthy that was enacted as part of health care reform.
Mitt's plan is the Bush-era tax cuts on steroids. To pander to the middle class on television as if voters are a bunch of fucking dumbasses who can't add is mind-boggling. Worse, are the people voting for him -- who are apparently a bunch of mathematically challenged dumbasses.
H/T: Think Progress
