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Expand Your Mind: Who Pays Taxes?

by Miki Saxon

Tomorrow is T day (if you aren’t prepared I hope you have filed your extension), so it seemed like a good time to look at who pays what.

No new books meant President Obama’s income is down nearly a million, but he still paid 20%.

President Obama and his wife, Michelle, reported adjusted gross income of $789,674 in 2011 and paid just over 20 percent of it to the federal government in taxes.

Whereas Mitt Romney is paying 6% less tax on approximately 27 times more income.

He paid 13.9 percent in taxes on income of $21.7 million for 2010 and about the same rate for the not fully completed 2011 returns.

The current tax code is 5,296 pages long vs. 27 when it was written. The majority of the additional 5,969 pages are descriptions and explanations of how to legally cheat on your taxes.

If economists ran the tax system, there would be virtually no exemptions or loopholes. Instead, businesses, rich people, Congressmen and attorneys spend a shockingly large amount of time lobbying for tax breaks or exploiting the ones that exist.

For those who are seriously wealthy, like Ronald S. Lauder, an Estée Lauder heir worth more than $3.1 billion, beating the tax man while indulging your passions is an ongoing effort.

As is often the case with his activities, just beneath the surface was a shrewd use of the United States tax code.

Just in case you are wondering, here’s some intel on what catches the eye of those who pay in the 15% tax bracket.

Neiman Marcus sold out of pewter-color Ferraris (luggage set matching the interior included) at $395,000 each within 50 minutes of making 10 of them available through its “fantasy” holiday catalog late last month.

But in the great scheme of US taxation, Romney’s 14% is still significantly higher than many of our large corporations pay, especially those in the so-called “Dirty Thirty.”

In January, the two organizations identified 30 corporations whose cumulative profit was $164 billion from 2008 to 2011. These corporations didn’t just avoid paying taxes — they actually collected $10.6 billion in tax rebates, according to the groups. They were dubbed the “Dirty Thirty.”

Flickr image credit: pedroelcarvalho

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