The math on Romney's IRA

[Brainstormy]

Given that the law governing pre-tax IRA's limits annual contributions to two grand, Romney's 10 million plus IRA is a wonder. Last night Rachel Maddow did the math. In round numbers, it looks like he's been contributing for 17,000 years. If it's a SEP IRA, the contributions can be as high as 30 grand. Either way, Romney is an old, old, old, old . . . . man.

[jpbollma]

1. Not True

He simply went back to 15,000 BC and invested retroactively.

[mike_c]

3. bwahahahahaha....

DUzy.

[annabanana]

2. k&r . . . .n/t

[CanonRay]

4. You're assuming that the the laws that apply to us, apply to Mitt

and that simply is not true. He's a 1%er, they have their own rules, peasant.

[Ruby the Liberal]

5. Deferred Comp has some strange rules.

He could have put pre-merger penny stock shares into a tax shelter and held them to an eventual IPO as part of a deferred comp plan when he was raiding these firms. Its called a "mighty oak".

Other options are that he could have had bonus plan structures that were marked as deferred comp.

Why you will see someone drew a salary of $3mm but "made" $36mm in a year. Huge chunks of that is deferred comp. It is even done in government roles for higher paid executives.