Before Romney goes casting aspersions on the deadbeat leeches known as the 47%, he should take note that some of those leeches are esteemed members of the 1%.
According to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center, some 3,000 of the 76 million taxpayers that were expected to pay no federal income taxes in 2011 were members of Romney's cohort, making nearly $2.2 million per year, which puts them in the top 0.1 percent income bracket.
How does this happen? Well, mainly it's the result of the
following:
Capital gains on investments are taxed at 15 percent, much lower than the top income-tax rate. "Carried interest" income, which Romney and other private-equity executives enjoy, is taxed at the capital-gains rate. And many wealthy taxpayers take advantage of a feature that lets them recognize past investment losses to lower or eliminate their tax bills.
But the main (legal) reasons the One Percenters pay no income taxes are far less exotic, according to an Internal Revenue Service study of 2009 tax data. For the most part, these people get off with paying nothing because of run-of-the-mill stuff like getting their income from tax-free municipal bonds and plain-vanilla itemized deductions (monocle prescriptions, top-hat cleaning, manservant housing).
I guess Romney won't be able to count on earning their vote this fall either.