The Atlantic is reports that Romney's tax rate would be slashed to less than 1%:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/08/mitt-romney-would-pay-082-percent-in-taxes-under-paul-ryans-plan/261027/

Under Paul Ryan's plan, Mitt Romney wouldn't pay any taxes for the next ten years -- or any of the years after that. Now, do I know that that's true. Yes, I'm certain.

Nerval's Lobster writes "Tech writer & programmer Jeff Cogswell does a head-to-head comparison of Microsoft Azure & Amazon Web Services from a pure programming point of view, gw2 gold examining the respective sides' seller lock-in & vendor-specific APIs (among other issues). 'If you are not using any vendor-specific APIs, then it is safe to say the experience you get on either Amazon or Microsoft will be roughly the same,' they writes. 'But that means you are also not developing an app that necessarily takes advantage of all feasible cloud capabilities�not add-ons, but scalability. buy gw2 gold Your app might need to expand & grow as your user base grows.' They suggests it is ultimately a tie between the companies. 'From a strict programming point of view, both companies have their own RESTful API, & their own libraries for using the API.'" The issue with both of these services, though, that RMS could have told you about: "The moment you start using either, you are locked in for the most part."

>User was moderated for this post [RH]

I have to say that I find it strange that there is such a huge difference in the tax rates for salaried and investment taxes. Here in NZ, governments have been looking at taxing people who make more money (say over $250K). In America, this seems to be the other way round. Guess that's due to the lobbying power of the rich.

Heh! Kind of went on a tangent there.

I'd question the point of the article, since like it says. Romney is against that tax strucutre... and nobody talks about Biden policy issues.


As for how you'd justify it? Depends on which half you mean.

It doesn't make sense to tax dividends, because dividends are already taxed as corporate profits, and since shareholders own the companies... essentially you are double taxing the owners of the company.


As for long term capital gains. (I'm guessing it's long term.) I'd guess the point would be to spur investment. I wouldn't do it, but there are some convincing economic arguements.

However what they SHOULD do is put a CPI modifier on capital gains though.

Obviously, I do not agree with any taxation, of any kind, at any level. But most economists will agree that capital gains tax is one of the worst taxes.

Rather than list all the reasons why, here's somebody else doing it for me:

http://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/54435/opinion-why-capital-gains-tax-very-very-bad-idea

Capital gains is the profit one makes from selling a capital asset:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_gain

One can argue with the problems of double taxation.  But, to end up saying there should be no tax on it, at any point, would end up causing the upper class to be able to totally exempt itself from the tax system.  They then become parasites who end up having much influence on things, get benefits of a society, and contribute nothing.  Also, you end up skewing economic activity towards the selling of capital assets.  By the way, it isn't just capital gains that doesn't get taxed by Ryan's plan but also income derived from owning assets, such as paid dividends.  And you abolish the inheritance tax to.  You end up creating a class of individuals who own most of the assets but pay no taxes.  Maybe you think that is a good idea though.