I feel for Mitt. My tax returns are complicated too.
I have investments scattered all over the globe, the odd bit of this and that, here and there – two box factories in Chicago, a couple of floors in the One57 (Bob Costas wanted to buy one of the apartments off me for twice what I paid, but I told him to go fuck himself in the ear (it’s going to be bad enough living next to the fucking Beckhams)), a couple of ad agencies, cattle ranching and wool in Argentina, gold and uranium mining in Australia (I pay my workers three times market rates, just to piss off that bitch Gina Rinehart), a little discreet organ harvesting in China, a pile of gold in a safe in George Town (along with some very salacious photographs of Joe Biden and a ski bunny, complete with two sets of bunny ears), three coffeshops in Amsterdam, assorted trusts (family, blind and “going on”) and a nifty little Swiss Verein that owns more Apple shares than I am allowed to admit – all of them with their various profits and deductions and capital losses and tax amnesties, across seventeen tax jurisdictions with 92 different filing dates.
Then there’s my charitable and political donations – my church (we’re trying to rebuild the steeple after Father Eustace drove a dumptruck into it three weeks ago while under the influence of too much altar wine), the greenies, the godbotherers who want to go to Africa, the saving of various endangered fluffy things, no less than fifteen young men in Brazil and Botswana whose villages have access to clean drinking water and modern gymnasium equipment on my purse, sundry donations and purchases for local council members, two mayors, three governors, fifteen reps, seventeen senators, two cardinals, one president and a sizable annual bequest to the St Filbert’s Home for Wayward and Orphaned Boys in New Orleans, of which I am the founding patron.
Each month, when I get to the Spokane offices of my accountants, Bumble, Curtin and Run (an English firm which has handled my family’s finances since just after the Battle of Flodden Field), I have a coffee and perhaps a little eclair in the client drawing room while the young Mr Bumble (the great to about twenty grandson of the original Mr Bumble) tries to find his pants and my file. Each month, I am ushered into his office – the poor man always looks thoroughly flushed – and I am confronted with a pile of about thirty two hundred pages, all of which I am supposed to have read, all of it festooned with red and purple and yellow stickies denoting various levels of importance, bound together with a summary file which has a summary memo clipped to the front, which has a section marked “Conclusions” right at the very top, which is printed in big print and short soothing words, and which essentially reads just like Mitt’s PWC memo.
Let me tell you, that fucker is the only bit I have ever read. I pay five hundred bucks an hour for Senior Clerks to read that shit for me. I just flip to the “sign here” stickies and sign away.
Still, small sympathy aside – after all, I am not running for President – I am filled with a feeling not too dissimilar to schadenfreude (if I weren’t 93 I could get away with a Mittelschmerz joke here) seeing Harry the honey badger getting his teeth right back into Mitt’s trouserleg.
Reid has been quick to dismiss the PwC letter, calling for Romney to release the full returns and saying in a conference call with Nevada reporters that an “outline by some accountant about his blind trust, that’s not going to do it.”
The lovely Imani (is that what we’re calling you now, dear?) has picked on one of my favorite bits – that Mitt admits on the record that he didn’t claim $1.75 million in charitable deductions in his 2011 return, with all of the contradictions and ability to get his money back that that entails.
Benjy Sarlin at TPM (via Sullivan, I think) goes even further:
Did Romney artificially inflate his tax rate using the same strategy in other returns? That’s the biggest question raised by the disclosure of his move to take fewer deductions in 2011.
The Romney campaign did not immediately respond to questions over whether Romney amended any of his previous returns
Ryan Grim at Hufflepuff (from whence that first quote came) has a great round up of other glaring holes in Mitt’s letter. For starters, Grim notes:
According to the letter from PwC avowing the number, it is based on Romney’s adjusted gross income. That means that, for instance, if Romney made investment profit of $20 million, but had losses of, say, $19.9 million, his adjusted gross income would only be $100,000. Paying 20.2 percent of $100,000 would cost Romney just over $20,000.
If Reid’s comment is interpreted strictly — that Romney paid literally $0 in taxes over 10 years — then the PwC letter undermines that charge. But if Romney paid only a very small amount — say, $20,000 on $20 million — it would be hard to award Reid many pinocchios for calling that nothing.
Hee. Glenn Kessler will forever be a punchline. Life is just sometimes.
Grim (who is doing sterling work) notes that:
Romney’s claimed rate is misleading in another way. Boston College tax law professor Brian Galle noted that Romney’s IRA has grown since 1999 at a rate of roughly $9 million to $10 million per year. Yet he pays no taxes on those gains. Adding $10 million to his 2011 income of $13.8 million, for instance, nearly doubles it, meaning his tax rate is roughly half of what his real gain was.
while over here Grim quotes Mr Galle on Mitt’s takes backsies charity bit.
Grim points to Greg Sargent, who has an interview with Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center about PWC’s claim that “Over the entire 20-year period, the average annual effective federal tax rate was 20.20%.”
“Let’s say you have 10 years in which you paid 13 percent in taxes, and 10 years in which you paid 27 percent,” Williams told me. “If you average those rates, you’ll get an overall rate of 20 percent. But if the 13 percent years were high income years, and the 27 percent years were low income years, then his total taxes paid as a share of total income over the 20 years would be less, perhaps significantly less, than 20 percent.”
I warn you, don’t click on these next links. This sums up the mood at the Corner:
Mitt Romney’s tax release shows that he is rich, that he makes most of his money from investments, and that he gives a lot of it to his church. Politically aware people knew all of these things already. So unless there is a big surprise in the fine print (e.g., a contribution to the National Association of Puppy Stranglers), the release is unlikely to have much impact on the race.
while there’s radio silence on the whole thing at Red State, although Erick who was Begat by Erick does have time to point out that Hopey McChangeburger is a loser and a crook and a terrorist, and to solicit funds to buy Mountain Dew and porn and paintball billboards.
The time has come for us to launch our National Billboard Campaign. We have invested in the printing of 24 “Get Hope, Fire Obama” billboards, 2 per swing state; we just need you to find a home for them. For $1,500 you can put up one of these billboards. You get to pick which key swing state you would like your billboard to go in. We are targeting these 12 key swing states:
SELECT HERE TO PUT UP YOUR BILLBOARD!
Florida Ohio Virginia
North Carolina Pennsylvania Wisconsin
Iowa Colorado Missouri
New Hampshire Nevada New Mexico
And Mr Krugman hasn’t even posted about Mitt’s tax returns yet.
I suspect this is another Romney fail. Oh, happy day.
Oh, and as Soonergrunt said, this:
Villago Delenda Est
I actually know what this is a reference to.
Gina Rinehart makes Chris Christie look svelt, and I’m about as svelt is Christie is.
Sarah, you’re a joy to read, always!
The Moar You Know
No longer playing with a full deck.
Wag
Can’t touch this.
Steeplejack
__
Actually, I sort of like that name, and the acronym (NAPS), and I would almost subscribe to the newsletter.
Omnes Omnibus
My dear, which coffee houses in A-dam? One wants to help.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Wag:
Nice. I’ll be front paging that one.
Wag
@Sarah, Proud and Tall:
Always glad to be of service.
mike
i telefile
no money
no problem
3 minutes max
good read…you had me goin’ there for a minute …lol
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Omnes Omnibus:
Modesty prevents me, dear. I’ve always liked Betty Two on Reguliersdwarsstraat or Mellow Yellow on Vijzelstraat.
Frankensteinbeck
Thank Celestia for TRUE ladies like you, Sarah. Indiscreet organ harvesting will ruin the industry for all of us.
Just Some Fuckhead
Gorgeous writing.
Omnes Omnibus
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: Well then, I’ll just continue to go where the lovely ladies take me and hope I don’t get rolled.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@mike:
@Frankensteinbeck:
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Too kind. Particularly you, fuckhead.
I Am Mitt's Smirk (né Studly Pantload, t.e.u.u.)
Mittens is the only person I’ve ever known of that can take an actually rather sizable charitable contribution amount AND MAKE A FECKING, STINKING FARCE OF IT.
Oops, darn sneaky caps lock.
Totesies.
Ash Can
Into the steeple? Never mind Argentina; invest in the dumptruck. That’s some damned vehicle. Better yet, invest in Father Eustace — buy him a race car and let his ass loose on the NASCAR circuit.
Soonergrunt
I always love reading you, Sarah.
The Dangerman
Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of stealth and…
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Sarah, Proud and Tall:
Hmm. Apparently not. Where the fuck on Vijzelstraat am I thinking of then?
Ash Can
And PS: You’re never too old to make mittelschmerz jokes.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Ash Can:
The steeple is attached to the back wall of the church, which has always been a bit dodgy because Bishop Mannering skimmed off the cream in the fifties and used adulterated mortar to build it, and so the whole steeple had a distinct bend to it since about 1963 which, since Father Eustace and the truck, has degenerated into something approaching this, except without the tourists and with more falling masonry.
We need to have quite a few bake sales over the next few months.
Dennis SGMM
Another witty and engrossing read. Thank you, Sarah.
Omnes Omnibus
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: I am really more of Jordaan person myself.
Yutsano
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: Maybe even a rummage sale. That’ll take some serious cash infusions.
Hi dear. I still want to break the law and look at Willard’s returns. I do like having a job and freedom however.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: Bad idea. You have a damned good idea of what is there. Don’t be silly. Some rules are like speed limits and can be flouted; others are inviolable. What do you think Mitt’s returns are? Also too, as I see it, you owe me hot French chicks, so bear that in mind.
dance around in your bones
Tweety’s killin’ it on Bill Maher tonight.
Sometimes I love him, the lil tweety bird.
YellowJournalism
Admit it: Biden was wearing those bunny ears on both ends.
Omnes Omnibus
@YellowJournalism: Well, duh.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: I hope you avoided tax law in law school, because what people can write off is just sickening sometimes. Not to mention Willard probably has carrybacks and carryforwards and all kinds of nifty little business shenanigans to make it look like he is just barely profitable. Not to mention his committing money to his
cultchurch will get him a nice little write off as well.Debbie(Aussie)
Another wonderful lol read Sarah, thank you.
The quip about Gina NOheart is priceless ;)
BillinGlendaleCA
@dance around in your bones: Tweety was really pissed when on the aniversary of the killing of bin Ladin Dubya Mitt said “any President would have do that, even Jimmy Carter”. Tweety was a speech writter for Carter and has a great deal of affection for him. Ever since than, he’s really ragged on the Mittster.
TaMara (BHF)
Sarah, a pleasure as always. I’ll never forget when you trolled one of the recipe threads, long before you were a front pagers and all I could think was, “someone got into the cooking sherry a little early tonight.”
And OT, but what the hell, did Romney shake and bake before his 60 minutes interview? He looks like one of those people who got lost at sea for 7 days in a raft.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Omnes Omnibus:
I don’t think there’s a bit of central Amsterdam I don’t love, but I would go to the Noordermarkt every day if they would let me.
@Yutsano:
Hello darlin’. How are you? I’m baking an apple cake.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: I took the one required tax course. Code based courses were never my thing.
Narcissus
@Wag: Holy crap that’s cool
barath
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Wait…I though it was Moyers who wrote for Carter…?
Dennis SGMM
@Wag:
Best mashup that I’ve seen to date. Nice catch. Thank you.
Yutsano
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: It’s Friday and I am surprisingly sober. And laziness is preventing me from getting up and getting chocolate. This won’t last however. Apple cake sounds amazingly delicious. I wish sometimes I had the temperament for baking.
@Omnes Omnibus: I know enough tax law to do my job (beyond the “Pay up you deadbeat!!” portions) and trust me that’s enough. The Internal Revenue Code is a fucking nightmare.
Hill Dweller
@TaMara (BHF):
Colbert did an hilarious bit last night on Willard going extra heavy on the spray tan/bronzer before the Univision town hall.
Jewish Steel
@Yutsano: What? Agents aren’t even allowed a little peekie boo? Sheesh.
dance around in your bones
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I’ve been pretty impressed with him lately, raggin’ on the Mittster and the Repubs. I know he can get kinda horse-racy at times, but he has been on fire recently.
Plus, I love his HA! laugh.
Yutsano
@Jewish Steel: Agents are ESPECIALLY not allowed a little peekie boo. That’s the fastest way to get fired. There’s even an agency to watch out for just those things. I’ve met a couple of them. One seemed to take a personal interest in me for a while there. He was pretty damn good looking too.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano:
No shit. Any of the code subjects suck. They depend on the ability to shuffle through code sections for an answer. I like the more amorphous areas where interpretation comes in.
ETA: Interpretation is always a factor in legal analysis. Some areas offer more freedom than others.
bemused senior
@barath: Moyers worked for LBJ. ETA: Yes I am old enough to remember the Johnson administration.
Jewish Steel
@Yutsano:
Watch out! It’s a honeypot!
Yutsano
@Jewish Steel: Plus I have co-worker no touchie rules. Even if technically he is at a different agency. I keep saying was for some strange reason: he’s still there.
Jewish Steel
@Yutsano: No peekie boos, no hook-ups. They must pay you pretty good to work in total dragsville.
TaMara (BHF)
@Hill Dweller: Oh thanks, I just went to HULU and watched it.
Mark S.
For some stupid reason, I found myself reading the comments to an NRO post and it seems we’re in the denial stage right now: Them polls are biased!
One guy linked to a wonderful website where a guy “unskews” the polls and shows that Romney is actually winning by 8 points! He does this by assuming that random phone surveys are biased and weighs Republican responses higher because of some Rasmussan poll of party identification. It’s all very scientific.
Yutsano
@Jewish Steel: I’m a GS-7 with a Seattle locality pay and I earn two and a half hours of night differential each day. I’m not exactly rolling in it but I get by. And the no touchie is a personal rule rather than a work one. I have enough complications in my life.
dance around in your bones
@Wag: Late to reply to this (waiting for the Xa.nax to kick in) but…..nice mashup :)
MikeJ
Hey Yutsy, still around? We gonna do Montlake Alehouse for election night? Round up all the Seattle juicers and pop the cork on something nice?
Jewish Steel
@Yutsano: word. I work in total complete isolation when I’m not teaching middle aged dudes Clapton. Since they aren’t exactly my cup o tea, it’s conflict that cannot come up.
Yutsano
@MikeJ: I am thisclose to calling in sick that night just because honestly I HAVE to watch the rise and fall of Willard, especially the fall. I say make it so but we have to go around 4 just to catch the east coast states before they get called.
@Jewish Steel: It might take some explaining to the Jewess as well. :)
MikeJ
@Yutsano: If you have any time you can take, election night would be good. Although if it’s like last time you might need the next day to recover.
Yutsano
@MikeJ: I just got a time off award bonus plus I’ll have a few earned leave days by then as well. I’ll survive. :)
dance around in your bones
I lived in A’dam for several years, had my baby at the Kweekschool voor Vroedvrouwen and hung out at Dam Square and remember the marzipan display at the Bijenkorf Dept store – little piggies made of marzipan, pork chops and all.
Sadly, they didn’t have any ‘herb’ shops at the time, but that didn’t stop us from acquiring. We knew where all the midnight munchie shops were, too. Umm….. chocolate.
taylormattd
I personally would have called her a cunt. Oh wait, I just did, and I’m not supposed to do that, right? Oops, sometimes I forget I’m not at the Wonket.
Mnemosyne
I’m still waiting for Rinehart to threaten to pack up her mines and move them somewhere the labor is cheaper.
C’mon, honey, I dare ya.
Debbie(Aussie)
@Mnemosyne: She couldn’t leave quickly enough for me ( or her children apparently)
Yutsano
@Debbie(Aussie): Waitaminute…someone had SEX with her? Voluntarily?? YOWZA!! I’m gonna have nightmares now!!*
*assuming facts not in evidence.
Debbie(Aussie)
Just checked wiki. She was married twice, has two children to each partner. By the looks of it they have all changed their names to Hancock, mummie dearests maiden name ( where all the money came from), but she built it herself, you know!
Another Halocene Human
Univision Orange Mittster — Solved!
Univision itself tracked down this story, so now the truth can be told:
Makeup, not self-tanner.
Another Halocene Human
@Debbie(Aussie): Ugh.
Triassic Sands
My ability to empathize and sympathize has been stretched to the breaking point by Right Wingers trying to spin Romney’s 47% comments. All one has to do is listen to the comments — the words he used and those he failed to use — and it’s not difficult to conclude that he was, in fact, saying that nearly half of the American people are parasites living off the government with no regard for themselves or their lives.
He wasn’t expressing concern about the extent of our welfare state, a policy issue in need of attention, except in the sense that it makes it difficult for him to win this election. What he was doing, for the benefit of his wealthy peers, was judging 47% of the American people and finding them to be parasites satisfied with living off the government.
I have some good friends who are fairly recent immigrants from Mexico. They came here in the late nineties and today they are all citizens. The husbands and wives in both couples work and the men work more than one job outside the home — the women’s second jobs are at home. When they came to the US, they found any and all government programs that would help them survive and get ahead. Gradually, they lost assistance as their economic status improved. However, at least one of the couples still benefits from the EITC, and their kids get subsidized health care from the state. None of the adults have health insurance. These are precisely the people Romney was talking about (nothing could get them to vote for Romney), yet they work hard every day to improve their lot, knowing that the better off they become on their own, the fewer government benefits they will be eligible for. It’s safe to say, they’d all love to be well enough off to be disqualified from all assistance.
However, they aren’t stupid. They care about their kids and if they can get assistance with their health insurance, then they are going to take it, since without it the kids would have no insurance. Admittedly, Romney supporters (in general) probably don’t think the children should have health insurance and should one get seriously ill, the typical Romney supporter would be fine with the child dying, if that’s what it came to.
In a case of perfect timing, a friend of mine sent me a cartoon he’d cut out of a New Yorker, which was a perfect fit for this situation:
A politician (presumably) is speaking at a lectern. His words — “I regret that my poor choice of words caused some people to understand what I was saying.”
That’s Romney regretting the clumsy way he made his point. Of course, except there was nothing clumsy about it. He said what he meant and meant what he said.
amk
@Another Halocene Human: Right, it’s always the hired help’s fuck-up. Betcha 10,000 dollars mittshit fired him/her.
amk
joke klein
piratedan
looking more and more like Arizona may be in play if purple strategies can be believed… only a difference of three… means good things for Carmona and maybe some congressional seats are suddenly in play if we’re talking about turning over the House.
amk
Obama campaign’s latest ad on ‘context’.
LMAO.
Skippy-san
Well done Sarah. Sadly your average teabagger is too stupid to do his own returns much less understand Mitten’s.
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
Insomnia again. This post was just what I needed to start my day. Thanks again for bringing the snark, SPAT.
mai naem
@piratedan: I hope you’re right but I looked at the Purple Strategies poll http://www.purplestrategies.com/wp-content/uploads/PurplePoll-9.21.12.pdf and I think they oversample Hispanics and possibly Dems. I can’t find another poll that gives it’s breakdown on their sample to compare this one to but I think 18 percent Hispanic in the sample if pretty high but ,again, I am going by my own anectdotal experiences not real numbers. There was a Behavioral Research Poll in way back in April that had Obama just ahead of Romney but the PPP from Sept has Romney up by 9 but Carmona basically neck and neck. I would be totally willing to go for Obama losing AZ but Carmona winning. It’ll make it one step closer to the magic 60 in the Senate.
piratedan
@mai naem: agreed, have my doubts about it, but there are some congressional seats up for grabs out here since the redistricting carved a new seat out and the Commission was tasked with making it “fair” (against much anguish and teeth gnashing from Cactus Barbie and the too dumb for sun club that is the AZ Lege) as such, this year we could leap from three Dem Congressional Reps to perhaps as many as six. If Carmona downs Flake, well that would simply be awesome.
maven
My dear Sarah. I Do love your insightful missives. I trust a woman of your station is nattily attired while penning such. BTW-I’m still ‘on the market’.
pete
@Just Some Fuckhead: 75th’d