This was just gross.

If she made anything less that $200,000 then that proves Buffett is a tightwad! lol

What his secretary earns isnt and hasnt been the issue.  Its the rate.  Her income is earned income, not carried interest or capital gains.  There is simply no way for her rate to be competitive with his.  There is no amount of accounting gimmickry that can achieve this.

If any of the top companies had secretaries that had rates anywhere near their CEOs, someone wouldve taken and won Buffet's million dollar challenge.

Who is feeling sorry for her?  Where do you get this stuff?  She makes pretty damn good money if she's paying 35% in taxes.  Just not enough to hide off shore.

Hers was earned income taxed at a higher rate than dividends that are taxed at 15%. The rich have tax law passed this way by their puppets in congress. She also had to pay 15.3% of the first $106,000 of her income in SS and medicare taxes.

It would do a lot to fix the SS fund to tax ALL income and dividends for SS that the crooks in congress have stolen and spent!

Has it ever occured to anyone that the 15.3% SS and medicare tax is just another  tax on the working people. That the crooks can steal and waste and then tell the people depending on that for a large portion of their retirement ,OOPS sorry there is no money for you, SUCKER!

To pay 35% (actually 34.7%) in federal taxes one has to make between $83,600 and $108,000 assuming you do not pay self employment tax. Above that your tax rate goes down.

Once again the bull proves his tag.  The rich lack the patriotism to match the Middle Class in supporting America.  It is really ugly.

Well, the Romney income we are talking about is his investment income. The actual original money he used to invest with, is money that he has left over AFTER being income taxed, just like the secratary.

It is thus, being taxed AGAIN!

If you remember your Economics 101, you will remember the rule governments use to shape their will onto society. "If you want more of something you lower its tax rate, if you want less of something you raise the tax rate".

Investment in companies and startups is something we ALL want as it benefits society as a whole, that is why the investment tax rate is relatively low compared to the income tax rate.

 I think some us are starting to believe an economy which can survive as a static economy maybe preferable to the pitfalls of investment and specualtion. We seem to have lost the ability to even work unless we are loaned money buy banks for small ibusinesses or so we can pay off some portion of personal debt or whatever.The neceesity for capitalist expansion cannot simply be associated with the human drive for ingenuity alone. The time has come to see things for what they are; ingenuity and creativity ahave been rolled under the blankets of deception and greed. it is now time to circle the wagons and find an economy which can at least meet basic human needs for us all

This is the baloney that the "double taxation" cry is all about. You only pay capital gains taxes on the GAINS. That's why it's called a capital GAINS tax. The original money on which the GAINS were made are NOT taxed a second time. Only the GAINS that were made off that original money.

This is one of those little tricks that Romney is playing on us a thinks that nobody will notice.

Capital gains come from the selling of stocks, bonds, precious metals and property for the most part.  It's not income tax.  His secretary is paid a wage.  Most of us peeons don't register on the scales in any of those categories.

Investment in companies only takes place in new issues, which are a small fraction of stock investment and trades.

Most investment income has nothing to do with the purchase of new capital equipment and labor.

Firms pay no tax on the labor they hire or the capital they purchase.

These singular facts makes a mockery of the treatment of capital gains taxes.

Further, taxing and rewarding behavior only is effected if the marginal agent is important. Raising benefits on welfare will only increase welfare if people are on the margin of 'choosing' to be on welfare. In fact, being poor is such a horrific circumstance that few people choose it, regardless of the relatively small amount of welfare people get. Spend some time on the street for a while.

The economy is a circular flow, thus, all money is taxed a multiple of times.

The arguement that gains should not be 'taxed twice' is idiotic.

Phew, luckily for me I'm not making the argument that that capital gains should not be taxed at all, I would hate to be seen as idiotic.

I was just trying to point out that the secretaries income is different from investment income, They are Apples and Oranges, In fact they are Apples and Apple Pie. The apples have already been paid for to go into the pie.

The way Obama and his lapdog media bleat on and on about this secretary you would think that they are trying to give the impression that rich people are paying less of a tax rate on the exact same thing poor people are.

That is why we call him the "class warrior in chief". He is not here to unite Americans, just the opposite, he is in campaign mode and trying to turn one group of citizens against another by misrepresenting tax facts to stir up Envy and jealousy in the low information voter.

He is truly despicable.

I believe this point is that a working person earning a good income, 200-500k/year or whatever, is paying 35% income tax, while Mitt earning 22million/year doing nothing is paying 13.9%!!!!

Many people in this country paying 25-35% income tax should be saying I earn less than $500k why am I paying more than a guy making $22million/year!?!?

My tax plan, income is income, whether earned vs capital gains, etc... no income tax on the 1st $100k of income, although Newt suggested $200k, either works for me, after that, split the different? 25%? 30%? doesn't really matter, just no income tax on first $100-200k after that 25% or whatever agreed upon, ie...1 tax bracket essentially.

Yes it's apples and oranges but they're both fruit.  The bottom line is it's both income.  The secretary's income is produced through her labor.  His income is produced from zero labor on his part.  Labor = tax.  She is the one being double taxed.

When ALL taxes are considered the middleclass and poor pay a larger percentage.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/150625/tax_day_question_whos_paying_what

Hey bull, the light shines at last!

Calperson, take a deep breath and use some eye drops.  Holding the 1% responsible for the class war is not waging it, it is recognizing what has been done by dereg and bankster financialism to create an America paid for by the Middle Class so the rich can live in irresponsible luxury.  It just seems too clear to argue with when coupon punchers get billions and people who work get shafted.  Protecting ourselves from class war is not dividing America; it is uniting those who have been shafted against the shafters who do not recognize others as human.

For true dividers, you can add the religious warriors of anti-abortion and gay bashing.  The politics of conscience are as ugly as class war, and both come from the Right where Liberals are demonized instead of treated as a loyal opposition with whom they are willing to agree to disagree.  Liberals have been very slow to accept the division as given or set by the Right, and Obama's appeal as a unifer is to Liberals, not to cons.  We are the ones who continue to hope that there could be a loyal opposition on the Right.  Unfortunately, these hard line ideologues find any disagreement threatening to their ideological identity.

That is true. The secratary actually produces some value to the economy.

Note that when capitalists complain about corporate taxes, they say that the capitalist will just raise their prices, and 'corporations don't pay taxes', and it fall on consumers.

But then they turn around and say that owners will in fact pay corporate taxes, so they should be added to the capital gains tax to calculate the 'real' tax rate.

Thus, the reason why you have to think that the economy is a circular flow, and that money is taxed a multiple of times for everyone, and to single anyone out is ridiculous. My income comes from other people spending their taxed income. Their income comes from more taxed income and so on.

So, if "Who knows?" applies, why bother to speculate (unless you're Donald Rumsfeld, who said he prefers the unknowns you know to the unknowns you don't know over the unknowns nobody knows, and who knows...)? 

How can you be "sure" if you haven't personally seen her tax returns?  She's not running for president like Willard Romney, who's been desperately trying to hide and downplay his own tax status, so nobody has any moral or ethical claim on knowing her salary.  We do know one thing, though:  she's nowhere near the income levels of her boss, or the whole thing would never have come up.

If it's true that it's wrong for Obama to use her as an example because she benefitted from Bush's tax cut for the rich, which, by your implication, was also wrong, does that mean you're against Bush's tax cut for the rich?

We do not all get the same benefits from our taxes.  The rich get a lot more in tax breaks paid for by their stacked deck tax code.  We subsidize them.  If the banksters were smart and clued in, they would be taking old Joe Kennedy's advice.  He said, "you can have half my wealth if I get to keep the other half."  Lying about being 'job creators' and acting as if they were doing "God's work" while they cheat and steal from everyone they can wears thin.  OWS has not happened out of thin air, nor has it come from "a Liberal culture" because we do not live in one.  Cons have discredited the virtues of hard work as they kill the American Dream for the Middle Class.