I hate that I have become so cynical over wordsmithing but too many times have I seen something be technically right but patently a slight of hand to give a false impression. I blame lawyers...mostly because one got me in a bad mood this week using obfuscation and by walking a tightrope with his tongue. Apologies if others have brought this up but Mitt's note from Mom (PWC in this case) gives the impression sure he had income taxes each of the last twenty years, but it uses the word owed to refer to income taxes.
The two sentences in the note read:
In 2011, the Romneys paid $1,935,708 in taxes on $13,696,951 in mostly investment income.
In each year during the entire 20-year period, the Romneys owed both state and federal income taxes.
These are separated by some other bullets and points and included in separate paragraphs. Again maybe being too cynical but why wouldn't one use the same phrasing. I'm not an expert at all in tax law, but can owed actually be offset by other tax credits, say foreign tax credits, such that owed and paid aren't the same numbers (this seems woefully too simple but its often easier to hide in plain site). Would it then be accurate to say that effective tax rate is still 20%, but in reality the US Federal Effective Tax Rate by itself is quite a bit lower and only reaches 20% if Foreign Taxes are included. I presume if this is the case its all legal but just optically troubling. Please someone smarter than myself poke at this a bit.