Mitt "The Gamer"

There are rules, and rule-breakers, then there are "gamers". If you have smart enough lawyers and you don't run for public office, who would think to ask how a lucky fellow happened to have a $100 Million IRA?

But when someone runs for high office, i.e. higher than Governor of Massachusetts, there is a powerful incentive for reporters and opponents to ask some of those pesky questions. And it turns out that if a person runs a company, they can sell shares in funds at modest prices, then run them up in value and have their company buy them back, or some variation on that theme. It's sort of gaming the system and the tax code to (further) evade income taxes. See, if you are very wealthy, all kinds of possibilities open up before you, all of them "legal". I am acquainted with a tax advisor, who has done quite well for himself over the years, but he has done significantly better for his clients. What the tricks of his trade are, he does not discuss in great detail, but he did mention once that he sometimes advises citizens to become citizens of other countries, presumably those countries that don't bother with income taxes, state taxes, etc.

As far as anyone knows, Mitt Romney hasn't actually renounced his citizenship. It must have been galling for him to realize how much money he could have saved, if he had been able to do so. But in order to run for President, to redeem his family name after his father's failed campaign, Mitt had to just give up the couple of million a year or so in taxes that he could have otherwise also evaded. I am inclined to ask, if Romney is so loyal to his class (including the owners of sports teams, NASCAR teams, corporate heads and the newly ousted head of Barclays Bank), what sort of payback is Romney capable of granting to them to thank them for funding his election campaign by massive donations to his PAC and Super-PAC? No taxes on income above a million a year? A true flat tax on every dollar earned, with no exemptions for number in the family? The end of Social Security and Medicare? Aren't both of those "taxes", and aren't taxes bad things?

It sounds laughable, but can't you hear the stooges on Fox News beginning to bleat in harmony about how ill-treated the wealthy are?   I can.

Arthur