Mitt Romney: It's fair I pay a lower tax rate than people making $50,000

[JDPriestly]

41. Romney's capital gains income (the majority of his income) is not subject to payroll taxes.

In fact, whether Romney pays payroll taxes would be a good question. It is possible that he does not.

In any event, most of Romney's income is not subject to payroll taxes. If he does pay any payroll taxes at all, the amount he would pay as a percentage of his income would be so small that it really would not affect his overall tax rate.

If Romney does not pay payroll taxes, then he does not contribute to the very important funds that pay for certain social safety net programs. That is sad.

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By the way, Romney's argument that his tax rate is fair because the money he receives has already been taxed makes no sense. Romney has stated that corporations are people. If the corporation is a person, it should, of course, pay taxes on its income. And if Romney is a separate person (true unless we are talking maybe about an S corporation or a sole proprietorship) then seems to me that Romney should pay his taxes on his income.

Although Romney takes a cut from the corporation's profits, the taxes the corporation pays are no more relevant to the tax rate Romney should pay than are the taxes of an employer to the tax rate that an employee pays. The employer and employee are two separate "people" for tax purposes. So are the corporations in which Romney invests and Romney.