It has been a while since we have seen a potential president, with a real shot at winning anyway, who has as much money as Romney. With something around a $200 million net worth, the republican candidate for the 2012 presidential election has easily more buying power than any U.S. president since John F. Kennedy, and before that all the way back to Andrew Jackson, who in the early 1800′s was worth more than $100 million.
So to a sharper degree than most prior elections we have a candidate with a truly large personal financial interest in the forthcoming tax policies. Citizens for Tax Justice provide some visualization on just what a difference who sits in the White House next year will have on Romney’s taxes.
Note: All these figures are based on the income and deductions reported on Romney’s 2010 federal tax return, the only return he has yet been willing to release.
A $7.7 million difference between the high and low tax plans is a decent chunk of change, even for a guy with $200 million.
The absurdly low 0.4% from the Ryan plan is of course due to the plans to essentially eliminate the capital gains tax.
In contrast, Obama would actually raise his own tax rate to 28.4%, while the Romney plan would lower it to 18.1%, saving Obama about $67,000.
Tags: Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan
